How to See and Be Seen on Campus

Now, there is a term for it: To SABS—or “to see and be seen”—is more than a new verb on campus, it’s an ideology. It is not just to be seen, but to offer oneself up to the adventures of happenstance. Whether it’s performatively reading by a tree or fruitlessly tossing a football back and forth at peak class time, every current college student knows SABSing when they see it. The Daily Pennsylvanian columnist Diya Choksey wrote of the superficial dark side of campus culture in a 2024 article titled, “The Art of de-SABSing.” Boogich // Getty Images NYC SABS culture in Washington Square ParkThe contagious pull of SABSing is everywhere.