Last night my roommate came into my room with a very sad look on her face. She told me that she had just spent the last 45 minutes comforting one of my friends. My roommate said that our friend had been a thread on the website Juicycampus.com. After hearing those words, I knew it could not be a good thread. Our friend was listed under the “fattest girls on SMU campus for 2008”. After reading the horrible and degrading comments that people posted for this thread, I thought to myself: “What if I was in that situation? What if I had read those mean comments about my?” My friend who was blogged about on juicycampus.com is a very strong person for hearing those mean comments. I could never be that strong; I would have been an emotional wreck for weeks.
Threads on juicycampus.com are sometimes things that people wouldn’t even dream of sharing with their best friend behind a closed door. Do you think people would post information on the website if they knew it would be traced back to them? Liability is a term that is inexistent in the realm of anonymous threads. A moral compass is completely disregarded once a person knows there will be no repercussions for whatever they want to say about another. Do college students really need an anonymous website to trash talk each other? Apparently we do.
While writing this blog, I was reminded of a quote from Mean Girls. After Cady Heron spent months of sabotaging her friends, she had a revelation and said: “Calling someone fat won’t make you skinner. Calling someone stupid doesn’t make you any smarter. And ruining Regina George’s life definitely didn’t make me any happier. All you can do in life is try to solve the problem in front of you.” I completely agree with that statement. Do people really need to bash another to feel better about themselves?
5 comments:
My mom used to tell me to never say anything you didn't want on the front page of a newspaper with a large picture of you next to it. Websites like Juicy Campus are awful in that there is no accountability for anything that people say. Do you really think any of these people would post the nasty and cruel things they say if their name or picture was attached? I think not. And worse off, I've heard of people posting about people they barely even know. As opposed to giving someone the time of day, they judge and decide that the best thing to do is go on Juicy Campus and call someone names. Why do people find the need to do this?
Before our English class today I had never heard of or seen Juicy Campus. It's comletely ridiculous that sites like this even exist. The sole purpose of this site is to give people a chance to make fun of others without ever having to own up to what they say. The solution for sites like this is to install a regulation that forces you to identify yourself. That would stop all the bashing and hate that runs rampant through this site. If you have a legitimate problem with someone you need to be a big enough person to confront them in person, not hidden behind a screen and keyboard. It just shows the lack of class that some people have in throwing obscene remarks at people they don't like or happen to be jealous of.
That being said, I would like to congratulate those people that went into the warfare of a heated conversation over a person and stood up for the person being bashed. That takes a lot of balls, but in the end it's what real friends do for each other. That might be the only positive thing i saw on this site at all.
I agree. I think there really isn’t a solution. We are all insecure. It sucks, but it is true. As I remember it, in that movie, they all tried to solve that problem and it didn’t work. Sadly, that’s also true. You can’t solve an issue like this. But you can be bigger. One day it is just going to click, that fighting back just doesn’t work. You could post another comment back in secrecy saying something equally offensive but at the end of the day you are still crushed. You just have to let it go.
On another note, I think there are two types of comments on websites like these. There are those which your friends or others don’t have to courage to tell you. For instance, maybe you’re rude to someone, or you have a big ego. Than in the end it is good that you know so you can change. Then there are the ones which are unwarranted and just rude. Like that fat comment, these are the kinds that make me sick to my stomach. People, who say stuff like this, are the lowest kind of people and at the end of the day, are going to be alone.
So to your friend, keep your head held high, don’t ever show that it hurts, take a deep breath, and let it all go.
Agreed. I had seen the website before I read this post, and it really is horrible. I don't see why people would write some of the things they do. If you have time to bash someone on that website, you have too much free time. Why don't you get off your ass and do something else? Go to the Dedman Center, work on homework or go hang out with friends. Don't sit around and bash on people you probably do not even know.
And even if you do have a problem with someone, go talk to them about it. What in the hell are you accomplishing by writing things about them on juicycampus.com? Nothing.
Like everyone else, I am completely amazed at how this website is so popular for being such trash. It is sad that our classmates are hiding behind an anonymous website to bash one another. I thought by leaving high school we would be done with things like this. This just shows that there will always be insecure and immature people out there. I've only visited the website a few times and each time have seen many of my friends and acquaintances in the posts. The ironic aspect is that the majority of the people mentioned on the website are some of the friendliest and most well-liked people I've met at SMU. Hopefully JuicyCampus is just a fad and soon people will move on to better things to do with their time.
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