November 6, 2009 - 12:05am
Even without Juicy Campus, University students are still gossiping
By: Michele Narov
In early February, popular campus gossip site JuicyCampus.com folded and its closure left a void in the world of college gossip, eagerly filled by a new website.
CollegeACB.com, which stands for College Anonymous Confession Board, was developed by Peter Frank, a sophomore at Wesleyan University.
In order to redirect traffic from JuicyCampus.com to CollegeACB.com, Frank negotiated a five-figure deal with the creators of JuicyCampus.com, which Frank said was well worth the cost.
“I profit from the advertisements I run on the site,” Frank said. “My only expense is the few hundred dollars I pay monthly to my hosting provider.”
Scott Campbell, professor of communication studies at the University and an expert in social networking, said these types of sites really aren’t as revolutionary as they seem.
“These sites are an extension of what people have always been doing — gossiping, telling secrets,” he said. “There’s just a new channel of interaction.”
However, Campbell said the sites are especially prevalent on college campuses for a reason.
“Within a college campus, these sites provide students with deinstitutionalized control,” he said. “Within the university, there’s a struggle for a voice. The downside (with sites like these) is that eventually things spin out of control.”
Although the site has taken on the persona of a gossip forum, Frank said that was not the original intent.
“Basically I wanted to create a site where students could decide what they wanted to talk about,” he said. “I didn’t create CollegeACB to be a gossip site, I created it as a public forum. It’s about what the students make it.”
The site boasts thousands of posts under hundreds of topics. Most of the topics portray students in a negative light, though there is the occasional post asking for hotel recommendations or requesting advice about rushing a sorority.
Frank said to appease users he is responsive to complaints.
“I don’t go around deleting posts right off the site on my own whims,” he said. “I mostly delete whatever people e-mail me about or posts that are reported enough times by regular users.”
Although Frank does not advertise the sight publicly, it is well-known on campus, especially among students affiliated with Greek life, athletics and other clubs.
LSA freshman Kendall Getts said she occasionally uses the site.
“I think that students in Greek life get posted about the most,” she said. “It’s a big competition about which fraternity or sorority is the best.”
Interfraternity Council President, Ari Parritz disagrees. He said he is largely unaffected by the site.
“I think the site has no impact whatsoever, and people should be finding better things to do with their time,” Parritz said.
Many of the posts offer discussion about fraternity rankings. Students offer commentary about different houses and their positions on campus.
Jon Lindner, president of the University's chapter of Delta Tau Delta, said he has never used the site, but he does not feel it is a reliable source for information about Greek life.
“If I found out that my fraternity was ranked last, I wouldn’t really care,” Lindner said. “It would just be a reflection of one person’s opinion.”
LSA sophomore Spencer Christovale said he remains unfazed by the site’s widespread allure.
“I think the appeal of the site is that it’s anonymous,” he said. “And other people are reading what people say, so they feel like their words matter even if they’re completely meaningless.”
Though many students said college gossip websites often get out of control, Getts said it’s also an important way for students to escape the pressures of class.
“Students use it to relax,” Getts said. “Sometimes, it can get a little malicious, but in the end, it’s all in good fun.”
In terms of popularity, the University of Michigan is one of the top 15 schools most commonly visited on CollegeACB.com. The Michigan site had gotten about 23,780 pageviews through the first half of October.
LSA freshman Samira Monavvari said she didn’t think University students would be as affected by the site.
“I think in a smaller school everyone uses the site,” she said. “In big schools, the impact is less intense because the information is only reaching about 50 percent of students.”
However, Frank said he thought the implications would be the same in any environment.
“At small schools, people post more about events and individuals. At a school like Michigan, I think students post more about Greek life,” he said. “It’s not that the site is more viable at a small school like Wesleyan or a big school like Michigan, there are just different topics of discussion.”
