By Zorian Edwards & Laura Klotzkin, staff writers
Have you ever used Rockbot? Rockbot is a third-person subscription service that Daemen utilizes to allow students to request music in the Yurtchuk Dining Hall, as voted on by the Student Government Association (SGA) during the last academic year. Through the app, students can request songs, upvote songs, and downvote songs. This determines the order in which the songs are played.
“I will use Rockbot when I am in the dining hall and do not like the current music being played,” junior animation major Dominick Mason said. “It’s an interesting app that can lead to some great fun when everyone hops on to use it.”
When it comes to deciding what songs are available on the Rockbot system, students are limited to what the official system offers. Daemen is still building its library of available songs. You can request to add a song by searching for it on the app and selecting the option. From there, it will be reviewed by the moderator.
“I typically try to take a look once a month and see what has been requested, do a quick search and listen to the song, and then decide from there if it would be OK to add to the available library,” Dominic Hannon, assistant director of Student Center Operations, and the moderator of Rockbot at Daemen, said. “Typically, the songs that are requested to be added are from more niche genres or have lyrical content that treads the line between PG-13 and R. With how vast the Rockbot catalog is, I also try to mitigate any song that may be overly lengthy or more of an ambient sound.”
Originally, the dining hall music system was controlled by a stream of Pandora playlists. Students enjoy being able to have input on the dining hall speakers.
“Thunderstorm with Light Rain & Crackling Thunder’ for 42 minutes is one that comes to mind. The catalog is so deep that sometimes I don’t know a song exists in the catalog until I see it in the playback log or hear it for myself,” Hannon said.
Despite this very peaceful music suggestion, the dining hall also tends to go to war. A “Rockbot war” is when a large group of people gets involved in upvoting and downvoting songs for various reasons.
“Typically, my friends and I will engage in Rockbot wars because the songs that are playing are not our favorites, and we want to help get our songs to the top or want to get back at other people for downvoting our songs,” Mason said.
This is a common dining hall occurrence. When students eat with a decently large group, they can gather a large number of people to fight by their side.
“I have been a part of the Rockbot war a few times,” transfer animation student Lee Rodriguez-Espada said. “Usually, certain users downvote everyone else or come after only my songs. When this happens, each side gathers its friends to help upvote songs. This is what I try to do.”
Students have strong opinions about their musical experiences. Allowing students to have input on what they listen to in the dining hall has been an overall positive thing for the university.
“We’re always looking for feedback and recommendations on what we can do better with Rockbot,” Hannon said. “I’m also always open to talking more about the system and offering some more insight on how it works.”