Kids need places to vent. It’s a shame they attack certain kids online, but I think JD made this point..that you could just as easily be sitting in the café saying stuff about a person with them in earshot. I know people that disagree with me will be like, “what if you were the person being made fun of?...you wouldnt like it…blah blah etc”. My response would be well that sucks, and I might be a little upset, I might be a little embarrased, but I wouldn’t take it to heart. Obviously, no one likes to be made fun of, but it happens, that’s life. You need to have a thick skin…there are always going to be people that don’t like you or criticize you, but at the end of the day, it’s your choice as to whether or not you are going to let what other people say affect you.
Going back to that idea of exposure…I know people talk about me, the thing is, I’m not about to subject myself to it. If I cant control what people orally say about me, why should I expect to control what they post about me?
In response to the question:
--does the fact that people's feelings and reputations are damaged make juicy campus a disciplinary issue? an ethical issue?
Esentially the stuff we see on juicy campus are just rumors /gossip in the digital form. Remove the digital from the equation and we are left with rumors / gossip. What action would be taken if these messages were written on bathroom walls? Probably not much. You can't punish someone for their thoughts. Ethically, i think juicy campus does push the limits a bit, but again, what does it say about the person's character who is posting the hurtful comments?
You cant stop gossip. You have to be above it. Are people’s reputations really damaged?..perhaps on a personal level, but I can’t imagine most people take half the stuff written on the site seriously. It’s a gossip site, people should recognize that as an invalid tool to judge a person. I highly doubt companies or people of great importance are going to check out juicy campus as a way to evalaute the characteristics / qualifications of a person. The more slanderous / vicious the post is, the more it dequalifies juicycampus and the validy of it.
In response to the question: does the fact that we are very small campus amplify the impact of juicy campus?
Yes and no. Yes, if we were a big school it would be much easier for those discussed on juicy campus to blend in and hide. But with or without juicy campus word still gets around at our school because it’s a small campus.
At the end of the day I look at juicy campus and consider it unecessary slander. I find it a little messed up that there’s a site out there encouraging kids to bad mouth one another. But most unsettling is how quick kids on our campus are to do so and the overall popularity of the site in general. I think the anonymity factor draws kids into the site, because they feel less acountable for posting stuff. But atleast for me, if a person isn't willing to sign their name next to their claim, then their post doesn't mean much to me.
-Adrienne