With Housing Day having been moved to the Friday after Spring Break, our GCals were beautifully devoid of midterms. So what better way to spend our free time than to rewatch the 12 Housing Day videos that were somehow longer than the Panopto lectures we swore we’d rewatch over break. (Seriously, HoCo’s, please consider instituting an eight-minute cap on your videos next year. It’s called a video and not a movie for a reason.) Forget whatever ranking you came up with in your group chats or those that you upvoted on Sidechat. Ours is the only one that matters.

S Tier

Currier

Alas, we meet again. Although we could not, in good faith, put you in this tier last year (s/o Pfoho Housing Day Video circa 2025, we’re still thinking about you, sweetie), you finally made the cut #treepeat. The Quad Renaissance is back and better than ever — same with Chuby. Although now that we mention it, while we love the man, the myth, the legend, it might be time for everyone’s favorite resident unc to retire. In the most loving way possible, we need to see what Currierites are capable of without him co-directing. Speaking of, we’re still thinking about that one motorcycle transition. Oh, and the “asking why she got sap on her lips” line. Almost tops “let me get quadded again.”

A Tier

Eliot

Listen, this might upset some of you Sidechat OPs, but Eliot truly came through their non-existent gates swinging this year. To start off, publishing first among all the houses easily gives them extra brownie points. Oh, and extra votes for that coveted Johnnies award. Plus, for all the smack Eliot gets for their renovations, they actually turned it into a plus with an amazing rendition of Broccoli ft. hard hats and snowboards galore. Talk about enviable financial stability. So, if Eliot’s video was able to gain the approval of the Faculty Deans’ initially disinterested son AND even a cameo from campus celebrity Professor Imparato, it surely deserves a spot in our A tier. Go Domus!

B Tier

Lowell

Before y’all get big mad, let us preface what we are about to say with the following: yay, you guys had a great video across the board! Yay, we can see why you won two awards at the Johnnies, including the highly coveted Harvard’s Choice Award! But, if we’re being as honest as your bells are loud, no other house could have won that title, because no other house relied on as much stock footage as you. We’re talking ready-made propaganda footage fit for a college pamphlet. Or, better yet, an incoming Class of 2030 post. But if we put aside this “Party 4 U” stock footage fever dream, the rest of the video — from the culty chanting in the “Carnival” segment to the scenes from packed Thursday Teas — truly makes Lowell seem like the place to be. In fact, this year’s video might have begun to chip away at claims that the house lacks community…

Mather

Mather came in HOT this year. Get Your Single On was an absolute bop, and the dorm montage in it was really cute to see. Extra credit for the Aritzia Jean Gate roast and the feature of a certain Harvard alum, which were really creative. But let’s pump the brakes on the Quad slander and the Passio Go hate, because last time we checked, Mather has its own shuttle — the Mather Express. Truly snubbed at the Johnnies this year, and we will be investigating. #rigged

Kirkland

We love The Office. Well, at least back in 2015, we really did. But Kirkland might have loved it too much. The twelve-minute video had us reaching for our phones to doomscroll and fighting the urge to fall asleep. However, the song choice slapped, and unlike many of the houses on this list, Kirkland actually showed us the inside of their house (a revolutionary idea, truly). The Dhall mirror scenes? Cinematic. The lack of captions? Criminal. We’re a generation that has to read the words for videos, people. B tier, and the B stands for be sure to have captions next time.

C Tier

Winthrop House

Oh Winthrop. You had the choreography. You had the vibes. The intro was strong… and then that was sort of it. We were promised a throprenaisance and instead got a thropaissance adjacent situation that was close, but not much to look at. The opening segment had us excited, and then poof. Where did the community go? Where did the house go? We want to see the house, Winthrop. We know they exist… but just not in this video.

Pfoho Pfall Off

The bagpipes were absolutely pfire. The rest? A bit of a pflop, which we say with pflove in our hearts. The color grading really detracted from the second segment, which could have been quite solid otherwise. We didn’t really get the Harveys reference in the video, though. However, major points for rallying the community to be in the video and trekking all the way from the Quad to all the other houses on campus for the disses. The pfohomies showed up for their pfohome, which deserved recognition. Now please, someone pfix the pfilter for next year.

D Tier

Quincy

Dear old ran through Quincy. This year fell a little flat in comparison to the straight heat you guys brought when you “settled the score” last year. Although you guys took the 2016 theme seriously and ran with it, it is not enough to get Sidechat users questioning if y’all bought likes on YouTube again. For the People’s House, your scenes frankly lacked people. Except for that one scene where your Alissa Violet x Sexyy Red carried you all with her stylish bob and stylish entourage #staroftheshow. Her “you know she loves our D(hall)” line, and Mr. Bad Bunny Penguin were your only saving graces. D Tier 100%.

Dunster

We’re not legal experts, but opening the Housing Day video with what appeared to be a copyright violation is certainly a choice. The music selection throughout was, how do we put this charitably… eclectic and interesting. It was our first time seeing a cappella rapping with snapping in the background, and hopefully the only time we’ll ever have to see something like this. The house disses were genuinely pretty funny, which makes it tragic that the rest of the video couldn’t keep up. The squash court scenes were a bit awkward, and we weren’t sure when they would end. D tier for Dunster — we believe in you, but maybe hire someone to do the music next year.

Adams

Look, we absolutely loved the sazón you brought to these videos that typically rely way too much on Taylor Swift. From your fire Karol G song choice to the black-and-white photos from the acorn archive, you made a compelling case for red and gold. And, besides Winthrop, you were the only house that brought your A-game with choreography. Gold (coast) stars for you! But — and there’s always a but — there were a few pitfalls we could not overlook, such as the editing and color grading that should have come with a photosensitivity warning and that one guy who was the star of the show for two minutes and 42 seconds. TWO MINUTES AND 42 SECONDS of a SIX-MINUTE video. Guys, c’mon. Was it really that hard to walk from Westmorly, Russell, Claverly, and Randolph to convince more people to participate? Oh, that’s right…

Cabot House

Ah, the fall of the Quadfather. Alas, Cabot’s video this year is probably what made Timothée Chalamet say what he did about ballet and opera. There’s just an overreliance on monologues and drawn-out boxing scenes that would make even those of us with non-cooked attention spans lose interest. Theatre is a dying Housing Day video art for a reason; consider getting Coach Chris and his wife Bela on a diss track next year! We have no doubt that they can cook in more ways than one. But, not to fret, you guys get major props for your rendition of “Nuevayol” that really rallied the fish troops. Not to mention the captions that, for some reason, didn’t match the witty, incredibly PG lyrics… hmm, must have been a YouTube error!

F Tier

Leverett

Oh Lev. In a world of chopped attention spans, 12 minutes is simply far too long to expect your audience to remain engaged. The multimedia approach was interesting, though perhaps the actual execution did not lev up to our expectations. As a current Lev resident described, “the best part of the video was when it ended.” The video, start to finish, just had a lot going on, like the reels didn’t make much sense. We couldn’t even finish watching it the second time.