Spring Break
Down With Juicy Campus
Attacking the worst web site ever
Hunter Patterson
Issue date: 3/4/09 Section: Opinion
Hope
About a week into the libeling flow of the "Juice", Bill Flanigen, our finest writer here at the Patriot, wrote his JC manifesto called "Engaging Juicy Campus". While acknowledging that Juicy Campus was never going away, Bill realized that those of us who despised it must use its popularity against it. So began the revolt against JuicyCampus. With the help of our blogosphere partners at The Colonialist as well as many friends across GW who shared our disdain and concern, we began spamming the reply sections of the site. Submitting everything from poetry and Wikipedia excerpts to updates on the on-campus whereabouts of the most feared Pokémon, Mewtwo. Just a few hours after the call was sent out, JuicyCampus was rendered gossip-less as the reply sections began to fill with nonsense. We were successful in spamming the hatesite into submission. Weeks later, our efforts still seem to be working as the reply sections for the most popular topics are still clogged with the most absurd and whimsical. I believe the latest sighting of Mewtwo was in the library, torturing librarians.
Will it Fade?
Much of what I just wrote was hyperbolic and melodramatic, much like what was written in Juicy Campus, but the questions its existence bring up are serious. Should sites like Juicy Campus concern us and should we try to stop them? Yes to first part, and no to the second. Gossip sites that run on the worst forms of scuttlebutt and defamation should cause us to be concerned; they are mild yet true representations of the human mind at its worse. While gossip is of course nothing as horrid as thoughts of murder and genocide, acts of vitriolic prattle too should not go tolerated. Intolerance does not equal an abolition of the site however. Free Speech, however abused and misrepresented it is on JC, is still the law of the land and just because unpleasant things are being posted there doesn't mean there in-lies merit banning it.
About a week into the libeling flow of the "Juice", Bill Flanigen, our finest writer here at the Patriot, wrote his JC manifesto called "Engaging Juicy Campus". While acknowledging that Juicy Campus was never going away, Bill realized that those of us who despised it must use its popularity against it. So began the revolt against JuicyCampus. With the help of our blogosphere partners at The Colonialist as well as many friends across GW who shared our disdain and concern, we began spamming the reply sections of the site. Submitting everything from poetry and Wikipedia excerpts to updates on the on-campus whereabouts of the most feared Pokémon, Mewtwo. Just a few hours after the call was sent out, JuicyCampus was rendered gossip-less as the reply sections began to fill with nonsense. We were successful in spamming the hatesite into submission. Weeks later, our efforts still seem to be working as the reply sections for the most popular topics are still clogged with the most absurd and whimsical. I believe the latest sighting of Mewtwo was in the library, torturing librarians.
Will it Fade?
Much of what I just wrote was hyperbolic and melodramatic, much like what was written in Juicy Campus, but the questions its existence bring up are serious. Should sites like Juicy Campus concern us and should we try to stop them? Yes to first part, and no to the second. Gossip sites that run on the worst forms of scuttlebutt and defamation should cause us to be concerned; they are mild yet true representations of the human mind at its worse. While gossip is of course nothing as horrid as thoughts of murder and genocide, acts of vitriolic prattle too should not go tolerated. Intolerance does not equal an abolition of the site however. Free Speech, however abused and misrepresented it is on JC, is still the law of the land and just because unpleasant things are being posted there doesn't mean there in-lies merit banning it.
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