Book encourages "faking it"

With graduation quickly approaching, many students are left wondering "what next?" One thing is certain, though- time to grow up. No longer is it acceptable to spend every night at keggers, roll out of bed at 2p.m., and wear your logo hoodie any and everywhere.

Or is it? The kids from CollegeHumor.com are here to show you how to survive the world outside college, and according to them, there is still plenty of room for slackers.

Faking It: How to Seem Like a Better Person Without Actually Improving Yourself is the newest realease from Amir Blumenfeld, Ethan Trex and Neel Shah, writers of CollegeHumor.com.

The website, which totes over 10 million unique visitors per month and annual revenues exceeding $6 million, clearly has quite an audience. And anyone who's ever visited the site knows who the target audience is; with contests like "America's Hottest College Girl," CollegeHumor.com is clearly aimed at the heterosexual male college crowd.

But their new book seems to be an attempt to reach out to the twentysomething female crowd, at least from the looks of the cover; Faking It features not only a twenty-something male dressed to a T, but also a young woman in a black dress and matching pumps, sipping champagne.

It is again implied in the introduction that females are included in the intended audience. Here the book asks the reader to "take a moment and think about the person you would like to be. Is this guy or gal sophisticated, witty, and resourceful?". From this you would think the book is aimed at both sexes, but you'd be wrong. The next 277 pages of advice (and cartoons), although funny and often useful, are aimed at helping a decidedly male reader in his quest to appear more intelligent, knoweldgeable, and dateable. The thought of a female reader seems to be forgotten after the first page.

Though the dating and hygeine advice seem to apply exlusively to men, a female reader can still take away a lot from the book.

Covering topics from seeming well-read ("If anyone brings up a contemporary book, say 'Nothing good's been written since Ulysses,' and wave your hand dismissively. This isn't true, but it will end conversation as people sit in awe at your ability to finish Ulysses") to drug etiquette (If you're going to tie off to shoot up some heroin...don't carry your vials and syringes around in disorganized clumps in your pockets; instead, buy a sharp Euro carring case.), the book contains a plethora of advice for surviving in the real world.

And if reading a whole book is too much to ask, there are instructional cartoons and helpful "quick tips" at the end of each section, clearly catering to the laziest of the lazy.

Faking It is the perfect $20 graduation gift for guys, despite the fact that it cannot be funneled.