Captain America

Today is a sad day. In actuality, the day in question was February 5th of this year. But July 28th, 2009 will forever be known as the day I found out Juicy Campus was no longer a live website.



Now for those of you that didn't graduate from college within the past two years, JuicyCampus.com was basically setup across various universities to allow students to anonymously badmouth people they know. You would go on, no login information require, and either start or respond to existing threads.

Now I can only recall going on to the site when it was live twice- once was during a BTW250 lecture (if we're going to hold class in a computer lab, you have put too much faith into me), and the other time was for the sole purpose of listing my catholic friend under the thread of "Hottest Jews."

Sadly, or I suppose it depends on your viewpoint, "Hottest Jews" was one of the least offensive categories available on line. Let's just say specific body parts were an area of emphasis across both genders, with people getting specifics with names, fraternities and sororities, and more. Who was gay, racial epithets and a general disregard for any tact was how most of those who posted treated the site.



And as the above video indicates, the people running the site clearly weren't very concerned with content control, so long as their bank accounts we're getting larger (which begs the question, which companies were dying to advertise next to the thread "Sweetest Bros on Campus!").

Now admittedly by posting, it's a bit hypocritical of me to reprimand the site. But unlike everyone who used the site, I was able to distinguish between what is in good fun, and what on that site was just downright rude.

So while I had initially said this was a sad day for me, the truth of the matter is that JuicyCampus.com wasn't really positive for anyone except the people making money off of it. And the fact of the matter is, I'm not sad to read that they can't profit any longer of the ignorant and uneducated comments being posted on the forums they prided themselves on. While I won't link to it, Juicy Campus continues on at another URL, and a some simple googling can find it for you. But as you'll see, the information being discussed is no less profane or offensive.

The thing that still amazes me in retrospect was that there were people actively using this website. It's not like a traditional message board where there is a common theme people are uniting around, like say a sports team or "Lost" nerds (I'm sure it's the best show on TV). This site was to provide a forum for other students to bash their peers. Only University of Illinois, with the graduate programs, has over 40,000 students. How many people probably went to this site and didn't recognize a single name on it? Who (outside of myself in BTW250) was actively going to this site? I'm concerned to think that students existed who thought to themselves

"I kind of like Guy X. I wonder if I can find more about his genitals, sexual preferences, and disease history online. Of course I can. JuicyCampus.com! Oh no, it says he got gonorrhea riding a tractor in his bathing suit. This date is way off!

The only thing that upsets me in retrospect is that the site is not still live now when I have plenty of time to read it and anonymously talk myself up. I definitely felt like I had some of the most well kept chest hair on campus.

Here's to the only thing that's juicy on college campuses this fall being those overpriced velour sweatpants.

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