Those who thought rampant gossip ended the day of high school graduation may be surprised to find the trend reincarnated by a newly created Web site designed for scandal-hungry college students.
The site, JuicyCampus.com, is an open forum in which college students can anonymously post stories and information about their classmates. Although the site is technically legal, it has created an uproar among many students across the country and has inspired a Facebook.com group encouraging students to boycott.
The site contains specific forums for over 60 schools - and while Tufts doesn't currently have a page, JuicyCampus allows users to "Suggest a School" to be added to its list. Among its "Most Viewed" posts are stories of drug use, ratings of students' attractiveness and tales of sexual exploits.
Tufts freshman Kathleen Naranjo, who is familiar with the site, said her biggest qualm with JuicyCampus is in its potential to serve strictly malicious intentions.
"While it compares itself to sites like [MySpace.com] and other social networking sites, it doesn't have any other purpose except for mean gossip," Naranjo said.
Connor Diemand-Yauman, the sophomore class president at Princeton, is an active member of the Facebook group to boycott JuicyCampus. He also criticized the site's one-track purpose.
"In my opinion, JuicyCampus is trash," Diemand-Yauman told the Daily in an e-mail. "Its primary function is to create a safe haven for everyone who wants to belittle, embarrass and degrade other students [and protect themselves] with a blanket of anonymity."
In addition to concerns of hurtfulness and belittling, some worry that the posting of hateful rumors might pose other dangers.
"We have no idea what people go through daily or who might be on the edge," Diemand-Yauman said. "Due to the nature of the site, the people who say these things don't have to recognize the damage that they have done to these people. They can just have their fun and go on their merry way at someone else's expense. It's not funny. It's not cute. It's sadistic."
While Tufts does not have a JuicyCampus page of its own, one campus publication recently implemented a physical forum in which students may write anonymously. The Public Journal, which publishes students' writing anonymously each semester, placed a leather-bound book in the Tower Café last semester, which has since received dozens of entries from Tufts students.
Senior Andrew Hastings-Black, the creative director of the Public Journal who referred to the book as his "brainchild," said the book was created in opposition to a site similar to JuicyCampus. "I just feel strongly that Internet content is not very tangible; it's not very warm, posting confessions on the Internet," he said. "But for someone to actually sit and write in their own handwriting, in a leather-bound book, it's more personal."
"It reflects the way the Web content will have message boards," he added. "This book has kind of adapted all those nuances."
Hastings-Black said he was initially fearful of the potential for the book to be filled with many of the more crude topics featured on JuicyCampus. "What I was most afraid of was that it'd be filled with profanity and bathroom stall wall doodles - just crude writing," he said.
But according to Hasting-Black, the book has been used the way it was intended by the Public Journal. "I feel like people pretty much picked up on what we wanted it to be," he said. "It's all been done in good spirit."
While Hastings-Black said he supports the idea of an open forum like the physical representation of the Public Journal, he agreed that sites like JuicyCampus work to promote hostility. "I think the Internet is a place that is anonymous to a point where people wouldn't hesitate to write things that are malicious," he said.
In light of students' accusations of the site's potential for harm, many are working hard to have the site shut down, in large part by simply refusing to visit it.
"I think the first step is to realize that you cannot take anything on the site seriously," Diemand-Yauman said. "The next step is for each of us to make a concerted effort to stop going to the site and to discourage other people from doing so."
Naranjo also said that boycotting the site is the best way to make the postings stop.
"You can't shut it down because of free speech," Naranjo said. "The only way to really get rid of it is for people to stop using it, because the novelty will wear off if people stop posting things."
But Diemand-Yauman said it may be difficult to convince students to stop posting and viewing the site.
"I can see how the prospect of being able to call out that person who you have always secretly hated, or announcing to the world someone's deepest and darkest secret without any repercussions, would be thrilling to some people," Diemand-Yauman said.
With some posts reaching over 500 views a day, targeted students can do nothing to stop the posting or viewing of comments about them.
"All [students] can do is helplessly sit there and watch as the 'juicy rating' and view count steadily goes up, regardless of the validity of the post itself," Diemand-Yauman said.
Carrie Battan contributed reporting to this article.
