"It was just very Black Mirror and dystopian," said Nicole Rosenthal, 21, a journalism and psychology double-major from Long Island, NY. "You're trying to simulate being 'there' and having all these cathartic feelings but it just doesn't translate."
Rebecca Karpen, a 22-year-old who studied "populist rhetoric and the crisis of narrative," also criticized the event. "I was only able to convince one friend of mine to join," Karpen said. "Everyone else either wasn't interested, had technical difficulties, or had gone on it and hated it. There was no one there."
Karpen grew up in Greenwich Village near Washington Square Park and was quarantining with her family nearby. "It's weird for me," she said. "I can still access the actual grad alley anytime I want, even if it is in a mask."