What would you like to know?

The fact that Rowan has slowly become recognized as an XO institution is predicated more on her ubiquitous, unflappable presence here than on any remarkable merit or inherent worth. She's like the iconic family-owned local restaurant that claims to have invented nachos - they certainly don't make the *best* nachos and who the fuck knows if their story checks out, but they've been around since the 1920's or some such shit so that has to count for something, right?

Rowan is also remarkable for one other feature: her unmatched stasis during her lengthy tenure. Many long time regulars have slowly faded into mere from-time-to-timers; even more have simply gone pumo. Of those who remain, Stabby was once hailed as a Great One; now even the lowliest of pumos shits on him with impunity. Renada was once regarded as a true board visionary; now most days he's a second-rate role-player at best. Rasquatch is actually getting married and running a successful business; TMF has publicly documented the fascinating shitshow that is his life for our amusement; and what can you even begin say about BS?

Yet through it all Rowan just keeps plugging along, doling out dollops of high fructose advice so sugary it makes your teeth rot to read. She is the banal voiceover that narrates This Autoadmit Life, so dull and monotonous that you would think that she was a nasally unmarried 29 year old South Dakotan lawyer.

What more do we know about Rowan then we knew five years ago? She's still a ginger. She's still a corporate lawyer. She no longer works in New York - now she's in "Denver." She has a new boyfriend. She *might* have dated some swarthy ethnic men over the years. She had a problem with BS. And occasionally, in her most wild and woolly moments, she likes to post or tinychat late at night and titillate hordes of internet virgins by sharing suggestive pictures of her busty bosom filling up a t-shirt.

For a shameless attention whore to have lived her life on XO for the better part of a decade and yet offered her audience so little is positively maddening. And yet at least in her consistency, if not her content, Rowan rules supreme. She is our very own watery homemade chicken noodle soup, just like mom used to make and just like you used to secretly pour down the drain when she wasn't looking. Rowan is second-rate comfort food for the world weary.

In short, to quote a venerable board elder I guess you could say that it really depends.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15294393)

"One of the year's best..." -- Above the Law

"A masterpiece." -- Volokh Conspiracy

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15294757)

wtf man?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15295988)

I would deny this allegation but you wouldn't believe me anyway so I guess there's no point.

This wasn't even meant to be some carefully honed devastating screed.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15296025)

180, obviously.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15296003)

Subtle backtrack, TBF.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15296089)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15339040)

your screeds are getting better

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15298822)

And you are like that annoying kid who sat at the lunch table with the "semi-popular" crowd at school. Your SAT scores are certainly good, your AP scores all 4s and 5s, but at your core you lack something, at least in your mind. What is that something? Significance.

It's not like you're stupid. In fact, you're near the top of your class in that shitstained are country school with 300 graduating students. Number three--that's the top one percent, as you so astutely note on all your college applications (merely writing 3/300 is not enough). Your SAT score is a respectable 2170, and in the context of your middling school even more impressive. Every day you talk to similar upper echelon students about such lofty topics as how you've watched Feynman's Lectures twice through already, or were just accepted into the HONORS program at a solid state school, or how you actually designed your own lab in AP chem where you demonstrated the triple point of carbon dioxide. But oh, there is one issue always on your mind: everybody else.

The football team is full of bumbling morons. Without fail you note how stupid a particularly cute cheerleader is. Always reminding your "inner circle", the people you believe to be your friends and on "your side", how number one is simply an overachiever and number two only got where he is because of his political family. Yet what really draws your ire, makes you truly fume inside, and something you will never overtly state, is number four.

Number Four is in your inner circle (or so you think). Number Four has higher SATs and only took them once because he didn't care enough to repeat--you took them three times, the ACT as well. Number Four is going to a better school despite having a lower rank. Number Four isn't exactly a "cool kid", maybe a bit goofy, but gets along with everyone. You hate number four more than anything else, and cannot exactly put your finger on the reason. But whenever you're around him, you make sure to throw out an SAT word or two (his family was poorer and he actually has to use spellcheck, the only weakness you know of, so you try to tweak it and make him care). Ask him what his opinion on bosonic string theory (his response: "I dunno, I'm not a fuckin physicist man") is. In AP lit, everyone has to read their essays aloud and you attempt to write the most impressive sentences possible, giving it your all. But the class rates Number Fucking Four higher--one girl mentions some bullshit "je ne sais quoi" and how well it flows.

Physics is your hobby. No, your passion. You immerse yourself in it, and never fail to remind number four of the latest book you read. One day, in AP US History, the teacher is rambling on about WWII, mentioning how Isoroku Yamamoto said "...we have awakened a sleeping giant...". Number Four whispers someone to a girl next to him--somewhat cute, a six by your reckoning, of moderately respectable rank (10). She laughs and you ask Number Four what's so funny. He mentions that much like how most of the teacher conducts this class, his "history" is based on movies. There's no proof Yamamoto ever said such a thing, but it was immortalized by the movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!" You smirk, raise your hand, and inform the teacher of such.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15319699)

also, what the fuck is wrong with you?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15319966)

ty

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15320078)

No I think this is something that the whole community can rally around

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15296011)

Yep.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15296031)

For example, a poster will post an OP with a certain situation, she'll misunderstand it, and the OP will spend several posts clarifying himself/herself and explaining the situation in more detail. All the while Rowan will respond agreeably and make it seem like the OP just didn't explain the situation rightly. I see this *all* the time when she posts. She'll end with the most obvious piece of advice ever and express it in an excessively verbose and even handed, non judgmental manner. She's an extreme time waster on threads.

Overall, I don't have a problem with Rowan. She has short bouts of cattiness that are so brief that barely anyone calls her on them. But she's never said anything particularly noteworthy, either in a good way or a bad way. Her posts are never insightful, but she is good at adequately summarizing everything that's been said in a thread and tying it all in together. TBF is very credited - she really is xoxo's narrator/voice over.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15296143)

Things have to be clarified and explained to her a lot. She can't read between the lines.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15296168)

you are very annoying

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15296250)

M-E-H meh

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15296270)

This is rich, coming from you of all people.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15298883)

she's also much more deeply invested in XO than she cares to admit, so this is why she usually reels back pretty quickly when she gets pissy or territorial about the board. she needs it fulfill a certain function in her life (mostly a social network and means of recognition that she simply doesn't have IRL), but she's also embarrassed by how heavily reliant on it she is.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15297386)

nonetheless, rowan has discussed herself on the board more than just about any other poster.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1343871&forum_id=2#15319750)