University of Kentucky - Kentuckian Yearbook (Lexington, KY)

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24 Prep Controv

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Pac-fTlan, Asteroids, CentipEdE, Galaga, 5pacE Invaders... That’s (COMPUTERIZED) EntartainmEnt ■fl. nyear earlier, there were only five of them listed in the yellow pages of the Lexington telephone directory. But all of a sudden, computers came of age. The Pac-Man took over where the pinball left off, and asteroids became more popular than mom and apple pie. It was a video explosion. Lexington became filled with machine-filled rooms. The phone book showed nearly 15 listings, but the actual number was surely higher considering the fact that new gam£ rooms seemingly appeared every week. They took over in the malls when floundering clothing stores went out of business. They appeared in abandoned food stores, laundromats, and beauty parlors. When there was not room for an entire arcade, supermarkets and other enterprising businesses installed the video games individually in a corner or near an entrance. The click of the quarter turned on Pac- Man, centipede, asteroids—and their lucky owners. Video clientele ranged from the young to the old, the poor to the rich. It became a fun way to spend a few minutes on lunchtime, or a few hours on a date. It was a more sophisticated fad than some of its predecessors. In the fifties, there was the hula hoop. In the sixties, there was the peace protest. In the seventies, there was the disco. In 1982, there was the video game. It's just a craze like any other thing. | I his was certainly the most | profitable of all the fads. Warner Communications, which purchased Atari, manufacturer of many of the games, for $28 million in 1976, reported an annual profit of nearly $400 million only five years later. Atari's home video system, sold for around $150, became one of the most popular Christmas presents on the market, due to the popularity of the arcade° versions and a strategic advertising campaign that left America singing Have you played Atari today? This, however, was not the only video tune. Pac-Man Fever, a song featuring the lamentations of a video addict, broke into the top 40 on the charts. It was clear that video was here to stay. In Lexington, the video craze hit hard. Larry Monday, a junior from Owensboro, was an employee of Cheap Thrills, a newly-opened video argade located on Southland Drive. The craze began about two years ago, said Monday. Before that, it was mostly pinball. Now there's Pac-Man, Gorf, Vanguard... Monday said that the average video customer spent about $3. Some spend $10 to $15, though. It's just a craze like any other thing. Right now with the new games, it's just something everybody wants to do.” Pinball, Monday said, became a thing of the past when the video games took over. Pinball's lasted 10 to 15 years, he said. I don't think it will last another 10 years. They're Dtrying to do away with pinball. The machines just sit empty now. The advent of the video age was the climax of an era that had been predicted for years. When it finally happened, it caught on. As one UK administrator put it, It's a wonderful form of entertainment. Have you played Atari today? —Chris M. Cameron

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m Many resisted, but a majority of students found themselves in a Prep Rally Ten years earlier, it was the nickname Ali McGraw gave [Ryan O'Neal in the hit movie Love jStory. But word meanings changed, and so S did fashion. Preppy, therefore, evolved from a fictitious nickname to a i way of life. Way of life or means of entertain- ment, preppy was the style—alligators were removed from the extinct category (Izod logo alligators, that is). Bright colors, tailored clothes, Pap- pagallo shoes and initial pins were a few indicators positively indentifying a prep. For the dedicated. University Bookstore stocked the latest in preppy accessories including preppy hand- books, drinking T-shirts, sweat shirts, shoe strings, stationary and Christmas cards, They're all rather expensive, but it's a fad and students want to be in ’ on it, said Bookstore cashier Tamara Mundy. Head cashier Lucille Pugh added, We sold out of 12 dozen pairs of prep- py shoe strings in four days and would be selling more if we had them. Prep patron and accounting senior Phillip Belcher said, I consider my clothes classic. Preppy is a frame of mind. I have always dressed this way, but I think some people dress like this to feel that they belong. If you have always dressed this way, it's just that you have clothes on. Sarah Barnes classified herself as a preppy most of the time and said she enjoyed clothes and felt it was impor- tant to dress nicely. I don't mind pay- ing extra for something 1 like, but I don't go to too far extremes, she said. I even make fun of people sometimes who wear clashing colors. Kim Wilcher, nutrition and food science freshman, fell in the middle-of- the-road preppy category. Some days I'm preppy but on the average, I don't think I am, she said. I don't think preppies are different, they just have a different style of dress. I respect them (the hard core preps) in a sense if that's how they want to dress. No one should criticize them, but I'd feel uncomfor- table doing it. Fourth-year professor Jeremy Popkin gave The Complete Preppy Mid-Term Exam to his History 105 class, where the first task for comple- tion was to draw an alligator on your blue book. He said he liked students to loosen up before beginning exams although he did not always succeed. I was disappointed in the quality of the alligators. A dedicated prep should do better, he said. On prep overall, Popkin said, I try to find it amusing. I'm not against it, I just don't participate. They've bought into an image of what life should be like. Being a student was more stimulating when we wore T-shirts and dirty blue jeans. I never felt I wanted to achieve a style that consisted of look- ing like everyone else, and on a pro- fessor's salary, I can't afford it anyway. In the final classification came the anti-prep. I think it is vanity, said Tim Mallard, a music senior. It's silly to consider yourself like a group because of the way you dress. It is trouble for no reason. There are more important things. While ushering for the 1981 Greek Sing in UK's Center for the Fine Arts, senior Carmen Geraci noted, It was raining and 4,000 people came in wear- ing the same thing. The conformity is the thing I don't like. There were green slickers and alligators everywhere, he said. I almost lost it. —Vicki Turner Prep Controversy