Wave to the Camera
Gülşen: The Princess of University Youth?
Bilkent's Spring Fest will be taking place this weekend, and will include a concert by the pop singer Gülşen. Before talking about the relationship between entertainers like Gülşen and the image of Bilkent University, let's take a look at some of the Spring Fest concert programs going back to 1999:
1999-Athena and MFÖ
2000-Teoman, Grup Gündogarken and Şebnem Ferah
2002-Nurettin Rençber and Yaşar
2003-Duman and Athena
2005-Pamela Spence, Melih Görgün and Hande Yener
I'm afraid I can't find a list of the performers at the 2001 and 2004 concerts, but I remember that Kenan Doğulu and Altay were on the program in those years. This year, Yüksek Sadakat, Duman, Bengü and Gülşen are coming. (I'm just talking about the concerts on East Campus, because they look like real concerts that will attract an eager audience.)
Think about a university that has Bengü, Altay and Gülşen appearing at its Spring Fest. Which university is it? The answer is Bilkent, which is continually subject to prejudices about its student profile, despite the institution's high academic quality and achievements in education and research.
We Bilkenters try hard throughout our university years to tell other people that Bilkent is not a "hey-show-me-your-newest-car" kind of place. Most people have heard all kinds of nonsensical stories about Bilkent, which include many things that never happen in the daily life of a typical Bilkent student.
We don't need to say what these stories are right now, but I personally think that, especially in the most recent years, the character of the Spring Fest concerts has made it harder and harder to convince people about what Bilkent is really like. I don't know if our Spring Fest organizers are aware of this, but every singer or band has a certain kind of audience. No one could ever claim that MFÖ, Yaşar and Gülşen will satisfy the same listeners. They will attract different people with different ideas about music and life.
Besides the crime that the kind of concerts I'm talking about commit against Bilkent's image, it's also impossible to believe it when someone says "there's a demand for both, we're trying to create a balance by having both Duman and Gülşen," because we also have the Radio Bilkent on Air Party. I have many friends at Radio Bilkent, and I hope they don't take offense, but the party (not Radio Bilkent itself) is in more or less the same category as Gülşen, not Duman.
Thus, we can say that events on two out of Spring Fest's three nights will be catering to the same audience. And that audience doesn't consist only of Bilkenters. Many people from other universities will come to Bilkent to attend the Gülşen concert, just like many Bilkenters will go to other universities to hear Yeni Türkü, MFÖ or Laço Tayfa. If we allow our university's Spring Fest to attract such an audience, how can we then complain about Bilkent's image?
Let me make a subjective judgment and say that rock bands and high-quality pop bands such as MFÖ and Grup Gündoğarken are far more suitable for a university spring fest. The expertise of Altay, Gülşen or Hande Yener is not in performing at such concerts. These people perform perfectly well in nightclubs, and they are better suited to such places. It doesn't make sense to have real spring fest concerts so rare at such a great university.
Sources for Spring fest programs: Bilkent News issues May 3, 1999; May 1, 2000; May 14, 2002; May 6, 2003; and
http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~dos/union/senlik2.html
İsmail O. Postalcıoğlu (POLS/III)
ismail_orhan@yahoo.com
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