Emily Garrett | At least re-gifting isn't a crime

'Ooooooooo. I put my box in a box for you, I put my box in a box for you! Ooooooooo."

Oh sorry, I'm singing to myself again. I just can't seem to get this song out of my head.

"Bush is ruining our country, but my bush has never lied, and Taco Bell might make you sick, but my taco's certified." Now that is catchy! And although I'm sure you would love to hear . err, read me sing in my column this week, you'd probably also like to know what this has to do with Penn.

"Box in a Box" is a video on YouTube created as a spoof of "Dick in a Box," a Saturday Night Live music-video satire starring Justin Timberlake. In his video, Timberlake puts an extra-special gift in a box for his extra-special lady friend.

In response, Bunny, "Box in a Box's" fictional celebrity creator, puts her "box" in a box for him in return. And believe it or not, Penn is home to the face (although not the voice) of Bunny. She is ... drum roll please ... Melissa Lamb, a sophomore marketing major attending Wharton.

Although some criticized Lamb as looking for attention, she said that the overwhelming reaction from people has not only been big, but also positive.

Lamb has been receiving nonstop e-mails, Facebook friendship requests and was even interviewed by Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. She also sold her much-desired box on eBay for over $1,500, and gave $1,000 to Philabundance, a Delaware County hunger-relief organization, and $500 to VH1's Save the Music organization.

"I never expected it to get so big so quickly," Lamb said, "It was just something fun to do over Christmas break while I had time to do something that wasn't a Wharton case project."

But does one student's pet project mean anything for Penn? Although Melissa said "because you can tell the video was made in Philly, it's much more connected to the city of Philadelphia than it is to Penn," her enrollment here also reflects on our University as well.

Penn's connection to "Box in a Box" has earned our school some much-needed lighthearted media attention amid the recent sex scandals and an arrest for murder. No one can dispute that it's rather refreshing to see the University of Pennsylvania in a headline that wasn't about a felony charge, regardless of whether or not you thinks the video is humorous.

Although some people have expressed their distaste for the video that, at times, is a tad bit, shall I say, sexual in nature, the consensus opinion seems to be that it is just really funny. This satire-on-a-satire has hit it big with over one million views on YouTube and has an especially large fan base here at Penn. You know, the Penn that's in the Ivy League.

Oh, that Ivy League - the label is both a blessing and a curse for us as students. Why on earth would an Ivy League education be a curse, one might ask? My answer for you is that the education is not the curse: It will hopefully aid us in securing jobs that will quickly make us rich beyond our wildest dreams. The problem lies in the fact that Ivies have the reputation of being, well, lame.

Yes, we are of course the coolest Ivy, with Spring Fling and a liberal drinking policy, but how much does that really say? We're the coolest rich nerds; that's great.

However, thanks to Melissa Lamb and her comedic lip-synching skills, perhaps this image has been lessened a bit and people now realize how way, totally, oh-so-cool we really are.

In the words of a Wharton junior Adam Rapport, "It shows that not everyone here is a stereotypical Ivy League nerd, people can have a sense of humor and get into pop culture. Also, I think it's funny."

See world - we are smart and socially apt! We know how to have fun and laugh, even at ourselves once in a while.

So kudos to you, Melissa Lamb, for being gutsy and making a video that is creating some non-crime-related publicity for Penn, helping expel the stuck up Ivy League stereotype and giving us a few good laughs in the process.

Emily Garrett is a College sophomore from Waukon, Iowa. Her e-mail address is garrett@dailypennsylvanian.com .Carpe Di-Em appears on Tuesdays.

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