Campus Stereotypes: Wannabe DJ

Cartoon: Sam Lubner

Everyone has met at least one “Campus Stereotype” at uni. Lacking the depth of a real person, these people instead seem to have wandered into lectures straight from some terrible teen sitcom.

Each week The Tab will be taking you through a familiar Bristol student stereotype. First up, it’s the Wannabe DJ.

When James’ parents, Richard and Carol, bought their only, perfect son a set of two thousand pound Pioneer mixing decks as a reward for attaining three A*s at A-Level, they’d thought he’d just picked up a new hobby.

However, after an agonizing summer of bass lines, wobbles and loops, they realised it was far more than just a fad. James had no intention of following his dad into the PR game.

No, he was going to become a globetrotting DJ.

He was now in his second year at the University of Bristol studying French and German. His first year had been a banger, though he remembered little.

Academically his results had been poor, a far cry from his days as Duckwich College’s star Oxbridge candidate. Despite family and friends’ best efforts, he had chosen Bristol over Cambridge on the merits of its ‘more evolved music scene’.

His mother had no idea what this meant but did wish he’d stop wearing that god forsaken flat cap. This was an essential part of DJ Merkle Man’s (his stage name since he did the Pony Club disco) attire as it protected against the potent threat of sunburn from the UV lights surrounding the booth at Basement 45.

On the girl front, James wasn’t doing too well which was a mystery to him. His game had worked at the Feathers, why not now? He was sure he had this season’s high tops, and his ‘Beer Laos’ wife beater was always pristine. They must just not like house music he liked to tell himself.

Unlike many of his Bristol colleagues, James was looking forward to the year abroad. Not because he wanted to further his knowledge of French fine art or gain first-hand accounts of the fall of the Berlin wall, but because he had spied a perfect opportunity to bring his mixes to the continent.

Club 55 and Berghain had already received his Ellie Goulding remixes via email. This was upsetting news for Ma and Pa, as he had already blown the previous summer piddling around on the festival circuit, rather than doing the internship at Credit Suisse his pop had organised.

When he returns for his fourth year, his classmates notice the Beats headphones are missing, the eyebrow piercing has come out and his grammar has noticeably improved. He had even ripped out the mighty subwoofers in the boot of his Nissan Micra.

Richard and Carol were joyous and told all their friends – wasn’t it so wonderful he had dropped all this silly Deejay business?

Know anyone like this? Let us know in the comments below.