WHITMAN CAMPUS—Navigating the maze of small talk remains a laughable topic year after year at First-Year Orientation. However, if you enter Whitman campus surrounded by an abundance of familiar faces, the aggressive, shark-infested waters of orientation grow a little calmer.

Clad in Birkenstocks and Sub-Pop t-shirts, they glide throughout campus, laughing casually. They talk in low voices in attempt to appear unattainable, but in reality they’re merely discussing the geography of the neighborhoods they used to live in … Seattle kids, physically unidentifiable, yet all portraying remarkably similar characteristics.

Faint smiles, lackluster jokes and detailed explanations of where exactly one lives in relation to a big East Coast city are all frequented small talk. However, if you perchance stumble across one of the fifty new students from the greater Seattle area do not be alarmed to jump straight into a conversation regarding the negative economic implications of Amazon.

Amazon is one of the digestible topics to an unassuming passerby. An exorbitant explanation regarding the quality of coffee in Walla Walla is more harming to the unsuspecting first-year from San Diego. They carry an air of superiority in their stances as they openly chastise the inferiority of Portland (a topic that hits close to home for this reporter) and subtly ask for a personal opinion on some obscure band that has only ever performed twice in a tiny, hot Seattle basement.

All in all, Seattle kids are kind and nice human beings. They are politically aware, care for the environment and make some pretty great friends once you compliment their outfits.