JuicyCulture

If you haven't guessed the topic of this post from its title, odds are you're not a member of Duke's class of 2012.

JuicyCampus.com is an online forum where college students can anonymously gossip about their peers (or, in the case of fraternities, about themselves). Students from universities across the country can start a topic for discussion, respond to emerginc topics, and rate whether the thread of discussion is "Juicy" or not. Up and running since Aug. 2007, the site has been a hotbed of ultra-democratic discussion, ranging from the mundane (Which Gay Guy Has the Biggest Penis?—0% Juicy) to the profound (Which Gay Guy Has the Smallest Penis?—100% Juicy).

The site has its own budding history, filled with adventure and intrigue, à la Tucker Max. The first major incident came when a Loyola Marymount student wrote on the site, "I am going to shoot and kill as many people as I can until which time I am incapacitated or killed by the police." Not to be outdone, a Cornell student wrote, "I wonder if i could shut down the school by saying I'm going to shoot as many people as i can in my second class tomorrow. I hope I get more than 50." These and other such controversies compelled creator Matt Ivestor, a Duke alum, to riddle the web with rationalizations and his site with disclaimers.

Such is the shyster ethic that emerges in any country that vigorously defends its citizens' right to free speech. Matt Ivester has no intention of keeping his fora clean, nor does he regret that racist, sexist, homophobic, and generally incendiary posts pepper his website. In reality, that's exactly what he's looking for. The site feeds off the bad press and ensuing debates surrounding its flashpoints of controversy, and every time someone guesses at an informant in an ongoing police investigation or drops an "n-bomb" or lists the ugliest girls in a sorority, the site becomes more popular. At least, it used to.

With our current freshmen as the first class to enter college with JuicyCampus in full operation, the site has taken on a new meaning. By the time the wee 2012ers reached Duke, JuicyCampus.com was established as an institution of campus gossip. By virtue of it existing prior to their admission, it gained the mystique of something important. As such, I can't really blame them for entrusting it as the vanguard of fraternity and sorority quality control. From the fall of the Thetas to the rise of the East Campus Fratstars, a plurality, if not a majority of froshies are plugged in to see what's new and exciting in the world of campus chit-chat.

The upshot: JuicyCampus.com is no longer suckling at the teat of media attention and administrators' public ire, but is a full-fledged, self-sustained entity. Students, especially freshmen, are actually plugging in of their own accord-- not to track the latest scandal, but in the same way as we check Facebook or e-mail in-boxes. And if students are legitimately concerned with the social status of fraternities and sororities and individuals as per JuicyCampus, then those students are also inundated with the smutty threads that come along with them. Put bluntly, that sucks a juicy one.

Now I'd love to announce the legitimization of JuicyCampus.com as the death knell of intellectualism at our university, but it's clearly not. Anonymous commentary everywhere attracts the worst and the dullest, whether you're looking at PostSecret or the online comments to New York Times articles. JuicyCampus.com is no exception to this already well-established rule. This fledgling forum to express our more base thoughts, while infuriating, can only marginally impact our campus culture. Clearly, without JuicyCampus, people will harbor nasty thoughts about the opposite sex. Fraternities will judge other fraternities. Sororities will declare themselves proud owners of the best damn pledge class ever. For now, I'll find solace in simply not going to the site, and I figure the class of 2012 will eventually tire of it as well. In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to figure out the difference between the Key Three on my own.