Many thought Juicy Campus was great until someone posted their names online, bearing the ominous invitation to ‘discuss.” And discuss they did. The hottest freshmen, the best Greek organizations, the girls with the lowest standards and even an upperclassman with a penchant for scaling walls in Phase. Everything was fair game. My own sexuality was debated in over 20 riveting posts (the real answer? Sorry bros, I’m straight).
Largely home to the same innocuous gossip that pervades much of our campus through word of mouth the good parties, the students with the hottest bodies and the boring professors the site stepped too far when reckless posters inquired into what should have been private affairs; deaths are not the sort of subject that have a place on any site. At this point, I began spamming the site with bits of Wikipedia or pieces of an E.E. Cummings poem, an idea pioneered by a couple of bloggers at George Washington University.
Juicy Campus, like most anonymous affairs, tended to bring out the worst and the best in people. Many sought to gossip about the lives of others, often people they knew through casual encounters. Flinging acidic remarks often reserved only for drunken nights when that person wasn’t in the room, Juicy Campus posters made the social scene on our campus much smaller.
I know way more than I ever wished to about certain members of this school. Clearly, it wasn’t all true, but when you don’t know the source, how could you tell the difference?
Of course, Juicy Campus also brought out the better side of some people, too. Friends were quick to defend, and while there was normally nothing especially enlightening, there was a particularly well-written acerbic Panhellenic essay posted in response to a girl who argued that to every sorority, other sororites was irrelevant, and clearly not a real sorority.
Like the university we attend, the site was home to its share of characters. First, I’m surprised that so many people here still can’t write. Seriously, the spelling, punctuation and basic grammar were lacking. A lot. Clearly the population of Juicy Campus posters was largely freshmen, because anyone who has taken CAS should know better. There were RAs dishing on other RAs, and there was a mysterious tool who signed every post ‘RW.” This campus used to be cool. What on earth happened?
Juicy Campus was controversial; it sparked debate on and offline between friends and strangers alike. Concerns over free speech and net neutrality were wide-spread.
While banning the Web address on this campus may have seemed like a good idea at first, it would have been a slippery slope that none of us should want to cross. To ban Web addresses just because they cause drama would be a terrible idea. In addition, everyone is entitled to freedom of assembly through the fourth Amendment, meaning you can go where you want to go &- even on the Internet. Kudos are owed to the University for sticking to this policy, but that debate belongs in another article.
Personally, I’ve never been more happy to see a business fail. It caused way too much drama for a campus this small, and I quickly got tired of hearing people talk about it. Juicy Campus is dead, please feel no need to discuss. Now we can all get back to what really matters: Facebook.
Moebcfhuasbcearte is a member of the class of 2011.
