Gossip site: harsh, yet amusing

Sarah DiFilippe Asst. Features Editor

While there are countless sites devoted to the finding of friends, the cultivation of romantic relationships, and the discourse of groups of animal lovers, there simultaneously exists sites whose main goals include dishing the dirt on others, airing people’s “dirty laundry,” and discussing just who should be put on the “Ten Most Sexiest Freshmen” list.

If you’re into that kind of thing, or if you just want to know if people think your new jacket is so five minutes ago, then welcome to www.heterosexualsanonymous.org/vassar —Vassar’s unofficial gossip website.

This site, whose motto is “I waste time with VassarGossip,” exists to provide the Vassar campus with a fresh and constant flow of posted rumors and personal opinions about students, teachers, campus sports, dorms, drugs, sex, couples, and where to find the best parties on campus. Once on the site, members have the options of logging in, reading the posts, creating an alias, and responding to the various comments—although non-members can also do these things as well.

Yet the main draw on the site is a forum aptly named the “Cesspool,” where you’ll mostly find members bickering within the 636+ posts about fashion, sexual orientation, and who’s working it on campus; all in between bits of mindless jabber that end with various forms of comebacks like, “your mom.” The voices of the posts range from desperate to horny, egotistical to intelligent, defensive to bitter. Once in a while, these narcissistic views will be challenged by a few kinder voices belonging to people who seemingly enjoy just being in-the-know, but who aren’t into talking trash.

Yet in this land of anonymous gossip, most members feel the extreme need to show others up to establish who’s really boss, by correcting each other’s spelling, grammar, and sentence structure. And while a few Liz Smith wannabees do try to come forth with provocative questions to claim their time in the cesspool spotlight, it’s hardly page six of The New York Post.

Since no one in the student body has come forth to identify his or herself as the sole mastermind for the site, it is, at this point, mere speculation about exactly who the creators are and who maintains the site.

Student reactions towards the VassarGossip site seem to be mostly negative. Steven Beauregaurd ’07 said, “The first time I heard about the site was last year, and I went online to check it out—it was stupid.”

Schuyler Schuster ’05, said, “The gossip server is really stupid because you go on guiltily looking for actual gossip and half the time it’s just people talking shit instead. And the other half is people pretending they’re someone else, writing good things about their sexual prowess.”

So on some Sunday afternoon when you feel like procrastinating, spend 15 or 20 minutes on this site and you’ll emerge wiping the muck from your shoes, more fashion conscious, utilizing better grammatical skills, and with about half the brain cells with which you started with.