Unless you walk around with blinders on (and let’s face it, with technology these days, many of us are guilty of this), you may have noticed the University’s latest anti-smoking campaign — cutely dubbed Smoke and Tobacco Free University, or STFU. Now, before I completely eviscerate such a stupid, sophomoric and (mostly) pointless campaign acronym, I’d like to speak to smokers first.

First, congratulations on pissing off enough people with your smoke to get a campus-wide ban. You smoked where you weren’t supposed to, and you ticked off enough people to rally against your air-polluting ways.

Naturally, this doesn’t apply to everyone who smokes on campus, but there are enough of you out there (yes, you) to annoy me and all the rest of us nonsmokers. So good job at making yourselves as maligned on campus as you are in the rest of society.

I honestly don’t care if you smoke, but seriously, be a decent human being and think of the countless others who don’t want to smell that on their way to class. In fact, I applaud people who smoke because it means that despite all this outside criticism and constant barrage of “Don’t you know that smoking causes cancer!?”, they’ve decided that they’d rather die doing something they like rather than live without it. After all, we all have to die somehow.

Now that I’ve thoroughly angered one great segment of the campus population, let’s go for the other. University officials and the ASUO earlier this month happily unveiled their STFU campaign to rid the campus of tobacco use (because they’ve already succeeded at removing illegal drug and guns while preventing minors from drinking).

In fact, former Senior Vice President and Provost Jim Bean said, “This is a great statement about our commitment to a healthy campus.”

I get where Bean is coming from; it does feel good every now and then to tell someone to STFU. But I don’t know how effective such a campaign tactic will be to get someone to see the issue from your side.

Perhaps supporters know something I don’t about reasoning and argumentation. After all, these are pretty smart people. Right? Perhaps that’s the most stupefying aspect of this whole initiative: There is a .1 percent chance the creation of the STFU campaign acronym was done on accident. It’s 2011, and unless you’re from the Dark Ages, you know the Internet and its lingo.

Of course, the natural response to critics of the acronym is “Lighten up, man. It’s just a joke.” And my reply is, “There are some jokes that are funny, others that aren’t. It’s not offensive because it’s a joke in poor taste. It’s offensive because it’s so stupid and unfunny.”

Clearly, there are instances when a silly acronym can be amusing. Take for instance the now-defunct Coalition of On Campus Smokers, or COCS for short. See, didn’t you at least smile, if not outright chuckle?

It proves that silly, juvenile humor can work. I also find it fittingly poetic that one dumb acronym has given birth to a new one via the same debate. (We all know how successful the COCS’ protests were, after all.)

STFU came on the heels of the launch of the Healthy Campus Initiative (HCI), an admirable program that is encouraging students and staff to make healthier choices. But the manner in which they are trying to get people to stop smoking is downright ineffective and short-sighted. Is negative reinforcement with such an acronym really the best manner to get individuals to quit smoking?

If it did, wouldn’t countless folk have quit years ago? Having a nonsmoker talk down or reiterate how smoking is bad (m’kay) to an adamant smoker usually leads to nothing positive for either party. Having witnessed this result first-hand on different occasions, I can tentatively conclude that the “shame approach” leads only to loud, unreasonable arguments that — despite their entertainment value —  are utterly an exercise in frustration for all parties involved.

That said, I think it’s great the University is supplying resources and support to those individuals who have, on their own terms, decided to quit. It’s a nice gesture and one that warrants praise. Yet, history has shown time and again that catchy little phrases and “clever” acronyms don’t really work. Otherwise the children of the 1980s would’ve thought “crack is whack,” and our generation would’ve listened during those DARE lectures we were forced to sit through.

The STFU message the HCI is promoting isn’t some terrible, ill-conceived message. I mean, being healthy is something we should all do. But resorting to such idiotic rhetoric doesn’t do them or us any favors — it just pisses people off.