Spring Break
College Gossip Girl shuts down, new one takes its place
Libby Segal
Issue date: 2/11/09 Section: Entertainment
02/11/09 - A lot of students faithfully watch the TV show "Gossip Girl," which focuses on teenagers who are stuck in the high school world with their very own gossip queen. A little under six months ago, the real college gossip girl Web site surfaced, and that site was Juicy Campus. Six months later, the site is gone.
The site was cited as shutting down for economic reasons. At Juicy Campus, students were found slandering other students, making fun of other students, posting names of other students for discussions, spreading truths and lies about fraternities and sororities, and posting who is hot and who is not lists all anonymously.
Senior Chris Kunzmann said, "I felt it targeted more of a Greek audience, with 99.9 percent of the things that were written as rumors."
What were these rumors? Guys who cheated on their girlfriends, and girls who … well who knew a lot of boys intimately. Then there were posts about what people wore on campus, off campus parties, "lame" nicknames.
Of course, the "cool idea" behind Juicy Campus was that you could leave messages without leaving your name, bring down students from their pedastals, and watch them suffer-while they had no idea who you were.
Kunzmann called the site "damaging."
"Imagine you log on and see a topic with your name on it ... most likely it's someone that doesn't like you trying to give a bad rep," he said.
Many college campuses even removed the site from being accessed on school grounds, however, students were still able to access the site from their home. Juicy Campus wasn't just one gossip girl, it was thousands of gossip girls-and boys-who would never have the guts to say anything that they said on the site in a face-to-face manner. Juicy Campus was for students who wanted to be big, but couldn't be big on the surface. It gave those who posted something to somehow be proud of and laugh about, but many people weren't laughing with them.
Sophomore Jason Hale said, "It was a site to go to see what people were talking about on campus."
The site was cited as shutting down for economic reasons. At Juicy Campus, students were found slandering other students, making fun of other students, posting names of other students for discussions, spreading truths and lies about fraternities and sororities, and posting who is hot and who is not lists all anonymously.
Senior Chris Kunzmann said, "I felt it targeted more of a Greek audience, with 99.9 percent of the things that were written as rumors."
What were these rumors? Guys who cheated on their girlfriends, and girls who … well who knew a lot of boys intimately. Then there were posts about what people wore on campus, off campus parties, "lame" nicknames.
Of course, the "cool idea" behind Juicy Campus was that you could leave messages without leaving your name, bring down students from their pedastals, and watch them suffer-while they had no idea who you were.
Kunzmann called the site "damaging."
"Imagine you log on and see a topic with your name on it ... most likely it's someone that doesn't like you trying to give a bad rep," he said.
Many college campuses even removed the site from being accessed on school grounds, however, students were still able to access the site from their home. Juicy Campus wasn't just one gossip girl, it was thousands of gossip girls-and boys-who would never have the guts to say anything that they said on the site in a face-to-face manner. Juicy Campus was for students who wanted to be big, but couldn't be big on the surface. It gave those who posted something to somehow be proud of and laugh about, but many people weren't laughing with them.
Sophomore Jason Hale said, "It was a site to go to see what people were talking about on campus."
