Kaitlin Welborn | Flyering Freely

Walking down Locust Walk every morning, we're bombarded with flyers. Some of them are for interesting activities, but let's be honest - for most of them, I would actually rather read my Statistics textbook than go. Maybe that's because we have all been the boring students who have boring groups that put on boring events. Or maybe I'm just not getting the right flyers.

You probably get the same flyers over and over again too, right? That's because the students giving out flyers are picking and choosing whom to give their flyers to based on what we look like. It's an unintentional action that results from hundreds of rejections every morning.

Flyer-hander-outers are the telemarketers of Penn's campus; it makes sense that they would attempt to decrease the number of rejections they receive by pre-sorting with whom they interact. This means that every morning I wind up with the same flyers for Barack Obama, Penn Women's Center and Penn Appetite.

But which activities am I missing out on simply because I don't look like I'd show up? My lack of J. Crew attire probably means that I'm not interested in that sorority function. Chances are that I don't want to come to a "Drill Baby Drill" McCain rally with my bicycle helmet. And standing a mere 5'1," I can't possibly want to attend a convention for guys over 6 feet.

But these students don't realize that the sorority function is raising money for a charity that I support, that I needed a McCain sticker for my Halloween costume and that I'm single and ready to mingle with some tall young men. By guessing that I would say "No thanks" to their flyers, these groups missed out on my attendance.

Discriminating against potential attendees has an adverse effect on three groups of students. First of all, you're alienating those who are interested but just don't know about your activity. I don't know how many times people have asked me "Oh, did you go to (insert cool event here) last night?" only to have me reply that I wished I'd known about it earlier. If no one tells me about a group, I'll never be able to join no matter how much I support your cause or like your parties. I could be very interested in Latin dance, but if an Onda Latina member doesn't hand me a flyer because I don't look like the salsa type, I'll never get to show off my skills.

Perhaps more importantly, handing out flyers to just those you assume are interested means you don't reach those who aren't interested yet, but may be after they attend your event. I'll admit that I wasn't too keen on Hillary Clinton until some brave supporter handed me a flyer to see Chelsea speak in front of Houston Hall. I didn't have anything else better to do, so I went to the event and wound up leaving convinced that I would vote for Clinton in the primary.

The Clinton supporter who gave me the flyer didn't assume that I was for or against Clinton; she assumed that everyone who passed by was an undecided voter. Every group should do the same. If you never reach out to people who aren't yet interested in what you're about, you'll never increase the size or influence of your group.

Finally, by only handing out flyers to those you think will attend, you're annoying those of us who don't actually support you but just look like we should. Just because someone is Indian doesn't mean that they want to see a play about Gandhi. And even though some think I'm Jewish, I'm not, and no, I'm not interested in making my own matzo with you. If you wonder where stereotypes come from, look to yourself. You're perpetuating them.

So next time you're flyering on the Walk, try and hand out your flyers to everyone, regardless of what they look like. Yes, you'll get rejected more. And yes, it costs more to print out more flyers. But you'll more than make up for it by getting more people interested in what you believe in.

Kaitlin Welborn is a College senior from Tampa, Fla. Not Your Mother's Daughter appears on alternating Wednesdays. Her email address is welborn@dailypennsylvanian.com

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