How to become a Leicester BNOC

Gone are the days when the latest Kardashian gossip would pervade campus conversation: It’s 2016 now, and it’s the year of the BNOC.

We care more about who’s the most eligible bachelor, the most outrageous, the most popular and the next Ron Burgundy on our very own Leicester campus now. They’re the ones who make our knees quiver after a sighting in the Starbucks queue, the ones who make us daydream in the library while YikYakking about our admiration for them. We want to ask them how their trip to Spain in 2012 was, but then they’ll know we’ve been Facebook stalking.

We want to be their friend – or even better, we want to be them. But how?

Be everywhere

Places to be, people to see. What kind of a mad’fer it icon are you if you’re not out-out four to six times a week and haven’t maxed-out your overdraft on vodka lemonades by the end of February?

The aim of the game might be about people knowing your name, but everyone wants to put a name to a face; be seen chanting outside Mack Chicken with the lads, working in a hairnet in the Union or whipping round Clarendon selling tickets to the “biggest student night in the Midlands”.

Be the person everyone wants to dress up as for Halloween – that’s fame.

Bees, campus A-Lister

Library location is important too. Third floor, group study, surrounded by the squad and doing absolutely no work because you’re busy saying hello to every geezer that passes by. You don’t need a BA to be a baller.

The party don’t start ’til you walk in

Change your profile picture as much as possible

“You’re nobody ’til somebody loves you”. Bollocks.

You’re actually  nobody if you’ve got less than 50 likes on your PP. Eyebrows on fleek? Upload. New hair? Upload. Ski holiday in VT? Upload. Bored? Upload. Get that face circulating to all of those 1,300 Facebook friends (“I know all of ’em, I swear”).

Be assured, everyone wants to see another angle of your mug between every shite video they play on silent during lectures. How else would they procrastinate in the library?

Be clubber of the week, every week

A week not on The Tab is a week you’ve been slacking off. If you’re not careful, attention will shift to the newest gremlin of the week. So get the VK hands ready, find a new provocative way to hold the sign and thrust those double chins. Nip slips? Nothing is over the line when it comes to this level of publicity and prestige.

#freethenipple

Feeding the crowd

Be on a sports team

Anyone who is anyone owns a green and burgundy hoodie. Get your name on the back of some Leicester kit and get those heads turning.

What’s that I see? A gilet? Your arms are cold but you sure must be important: everyone knows that the sports teams of Leicester are the birth place of BNOCs. With raucous socials, fire fancy dress and a general air of arrogance to boot, you’ll be climbing up from the Z to the A lists.

As a sportsperson, you’ve always got something to talk about. Need something to chat (boast) about? Bring up Varsity 12 times a day, or maybe that winning goal in 2013 that you can’t let go of.

‘I don’t know how to put this, but I’m kind of a big deal’

Shag everyone

There are two types of people at University: those who have shagged no one and those who’ve shagged everyone. You can’t really fall in between – it’s a mythical abyss. And we all know which type the campus gossip is really concerned by.

You might have slept with them, their housemate or their brother, but who cares when you’re the new mascot for Rugby Union?

Dominate the O2

Circulate that smoking area. If you know them, fine: have a slurred catch-up about the week’s events so far. If you don’t know them, even better. A trade of 50p for a cigarette is the opener to a beautiful new friendship. Granted, tomorrow you wont be able to pick them out of a line up, but as long as they know your name, year of study and course, everything is peachy.

“Use contactless!” you mouth to the bar staff with added hand gestures. Buying people a drink with your waning student loan might leave you starving by week 10 of the semester, but the hunger for fame will disappear – you’ll be a legend. VKs all round if you want the crowd’s attention and bonus points for knowing the bar staff, which brings the added benefit of getting served quicker than the peasants next to you.

Lastly, one word: Photobomb. Get involved. Don’t worry about pissing people off with your ninja-like moves and the addition of your face to their squad photo – there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Leave your mark on their night out and live to regret the pending uploads the following day.

“You’ve been tagged in 13 pictures”. Not ideal, but all in support of your cause to be the BNOC you’ve so longed to be.