Did you know that "embargo" spelled backwards is, "O, grab me?" Just a thought.

Overheard in Adams Dining Hall...

BOY: I think I'm fucked up because my mom made me watch Fraggle Rock every day as a child.

TREND-O-RAMA: REVOLT AGAINST SNOTTY GIRLS!

They're everywhere you go. The girls with black Kate Spade bags. You try not to notice them, but every time you see them, you instinctively make a face. You don't know their names, but in all truth, you don't care. Because when you see the girls draped in Gucci, wearing Prada shoes, flaunting diamond Rolexes, dripping with Tiffany jewelery, you're not worrying about names or individual identities. They're a concept-interchangeable and a dime a dozen. Ironic, isn't it? They're not bad people, these Pearl Girls. They're just, well, intolerable. But their reign over campuses like Harvard, urban meccas like New York and popular culture is indisputable. Snotty girls rule with attitude and an iron fist. Not only will they be the next editors of Jane and Vanity Fair, but they will also marry rich investment bankers, demand lifetime memberships at exclusive country clubs, buy homes in the Hamptons, and eventually be able to tell the difference between brands of caviar and champagne.

But maybe they aren't quite so "cool," after all. Look carefully and you'll see that the backlash has already begun. It started Oct. 12. Mercedes-Benz took out a full-page color ad in the New York Times and the image of three stunningly beautiful, dewy teenage models instantly drew your attention. Their pleading, almost imperious expressions were given meaning by the ad's tag line: "If their Daddies could buy them Mercedes CLKs, so could yours." The ad only ran once; Mercedes dealerships were flooded with so many vituperative phone calls and all-caps e-mails that the CEO immediately cancelled its run. Mothers angrily denounced the luxury car company for sending the wrong message to their daughters. Fathers didn't appreciate being portrayed as assholes who buy their daughters affection with pricey gifts. And most offended, of course, were the "Daddy's Girls" themselves who found that the ad hit too close to home. The problem, of course, is that the creators of the ads made all the wrong assumptions. First, they made the mistake of believing the target audience secure enough to endure parody. On top of that, they dared to combine the eroticization of young girls with the reduction of the father-daughter relationship into a marketing tool. And if that wasn't bad enough, they also committed another major no-no in assuming that consumption of luxury goods and the flaunting of that consumption is one and the same. The ad agency could only muster, "We thought it was funny."

At Harvard, the backlash against the snots seems well on its way. I've overheard a number of people commenting on how "uncool" punching the Pudding is this year-one girl jumped into my conversation while I was discussing this reversal with a friend: "You know, if I want to go out," she reasoned, "I want to do my hair, wear tight clothes, be fabulous and dance my ass off. I don't want to be in a stuffy room without alcohol, with a bunch of girls in Calvin Klein talking about New York."