Students repeatedly hit the delete button in their inboxes last night, as an e-mail advocating to sign a petition for Kanye West and Jay-Z to play at the Big House turned into a hodgepodge of profane replies and pleas for an end to the spamming.

LSA senior Joe Linden sent the initial e-mail at about 10 p.m. last night to the W11StudentULWR listserv, with a link to the petition that calls for rap artists West and Jay-Z to perform at halftime of the Michigan-Ohio State football game on Nov. 26 — the same day the pair is scheduled to perform a concert at the Palace of Auburn Hills.

The listserv includes all students who took courses that fulfilled the Upper-Level writing requirement in the College of Literature, Science and Arts.

The original e-mail multiplied into hundreds of e-mails as many students replied all and directly to Linden, causing every student on the listserv to receive the requests.

In an interview at about 1:10 a.m., Linden said he received mixed responses from students. He said some thanked him for the entertainment, while others threatened him. Still, he said he was surprised that the situation accelerated so quickly.

“I was astonished, very astonished,” Linden said.

Linden is the co-president of New Beat Happening — a group in the University’s Division of Student Affairs that puts on concerts in the University Unions. He said he is advocating for West and Jay-Z to come to campus in part because he has experience bringing tour groups to campus.

The listserv was shutdown at about 12:45 a.m. A representative of the University’s Information and Technology Services declined to comment about the situation when contacted by The Michigan Daily early this morning.

But not all of the e-mails sent in response to Linden’s initial message were from angry and annoyed students. Some students took advantage of the opportunity to promote social causes and connect with friends. One student even asked others on the listserv if they wanted to go to Rick’s American Café.

Engineering junior Trent Hibbard wrote in an e-mail interview that he was not angry about the spamming and thought it was a nice surprise. 



"It was a fun accident that led to thousands of students engaging in meaningless conversation with each other,” Hibbard wrote. “I don't see it as a bad thing at all.”

LSA senior Peter Feng wrote in an e-mail interview that he also found the incident entertaining and “a great way to procrastinate.”