Full disclosure: I don’t actually have genital warts, but that’s what JuicyCampus would have you believe.
The site, which was launched in October 2007 and took a big leap in popularity after the welcomed disappearance of the slightly less heinous — but equally frustrating — Rumor Royalty, is an online forum dedicated to revealing the latest gossip on campus. More than 500 campuses are featured on the site, and from what I can tell, posting about Northwestern began back in August and September.
The problem is that there is no filter for the content posted on JuicyCampus. Anyone can post anything anonymously. It’s part of their mission statement. The “About Us” section states that JuicyCampus was launched “with the simple mission of enabling online anonymous free speech on college campuses. Today it is a forum where college students discuss the topics that interest them most, and in the manner that they deem most appropriate.” Where Rumor Royalty wrote about “actual people” and their “actual lives,” the users at JuicyCampus can post whatever nonsensical and most likely fabricated story or bit of gossip that comes to their empty and malicious little minds.
To be fair, the only post on the site featuring me was actually well-deserved. I was at home over break when I received a phone call from a friend at school. She had been browsing the “Hottest Guy!” thread and saw my name. Unfortunately, my name wasn’t there as one of the hottest guys at Northwestern (ohmigod WTF!?!?!), instead there was this:
After a few minutes of confusion and anger, I knew what had happened. I had received my just comeuppance. Days before the original post was made, I discovered JuicyCampus for the first time. I stumbled across the “Hottest Guys!” thread and decided to play a harmless prank on a friend of mine who I knew occasionally read the site. He has a bit of an ego problem, so I figured I would add his name to the list and see how he reacted. The joke worked to a point. He had a big arrogant smile on his face the next day. I let him live in his deluded little world for a few days while another friend of mine and I laughed in the background. I’ve done nicer things in my day, I know. So, when the above post appeared a little more than a month later, the dots were easy to connect.
It’s easy to criticize a site like JuicyCampus when you’re the victim, but the truth is that many Northwestern students read and post things far worse than my genital warts scare on JuicyCampus every day. The plague of mindless bullshit that is sorority and fraternity rankings carried over from Rumor Royalty. Posts about penis sizes, “bone-able” teachers, and whether squirrels are creepy or not appear every day. There are disgusting, mean and downright false postings about girls who are among the top-searched terms. There are accusations made about specific people’s sexual orientations. All of it goes up without an ounce of truth or decency.
Is JuicyCampus really to blame, though? It’s the Northwestern students who create the content on the site — I’m guilty of it myself. There are times when 100 posts can appear in a day. What JuicyCampus does is provide a canvas for portraits of lies and malice to be painted for which no one ever has to take responsibility. What would have been said in jest to a friend or behind someone’s back has a place to call home on the Internet.
The only answer is to stop. Stop reading, stop posting, stop caring and just be nicer. It’s easy to forget that what’s written on JuicyCampus is about actual people. People who have feelings and whose names and reputations can be laid to waste by bitter anonymous postings of a cowardly, bored and conniving person on a gossip site.
And just as a reminder, I have never and do not currently have genital warts. No warts. Got that? None. Kevin Sullivan, no warts. That’s actually kind of the point of the article.