Listen, Do You Want To Know a Secret? — A freshman discovers the school’s seedy Internet underbelly: ConnCollConfessional.

One fateful night back in the fall, I decided to take a study break and found myself signing into Facebook to check up on the latest “news.” After checking the usual mundane notifications, I scrolled through my news feed to discover that Jack had a chem test tomorrow that he didn’t study for and Katie was excited to see the latest Harry Potter movie. As I began drifting off to sleep with my eyes open, a website that one of my friends had “Liked” caught my attention. It was called likealittle.com.

Hoping for an interesting or funny new addiction (Texts From Last Night was growing repetitive: beer, questionable acts of morality, lawn gnomes—same old story), I clicked on the link and was directed to a homepage with a banner proclaiming, “LikeALittle: Flirt anonymously with students on your campus!” With an incentive like that (what college student doesn’t like to anonymously flirt?), I thought this website had to be as fantastic as it sounded. I was not disappointed.

The basic structure of the site is as follows: you select boy or girl and hair color, then type in the place where you saw the person on campus and “flirt” by posting a compliment or a description of the person you’re crushin’ on. Some of them are cute; some are a bit strange, but I have yet to see any offensive postings. I searched for Conn’s name but was disappointed to discover we didn’t have a forum on the site. I signed off and forgot about it for a while. Until last week.

The last issue of the Voice introduced me to the existence of a website called ConnColl Confessional. At last! I thought. My hopes for a Conn Coll LikeALittle-style forum were answered. There was, in fact, a place for shy (or bold, depending on the post) students to post cute, flirty comments about people they’ve seen around Conn. And since it’s Conn and it takes only ten minutes or so to walk from one side of the campus to the other in non-blizzard conditions, you probably see your crush an average of five times a day.

I was ready for some witty or sweet declarations of love. In my head, Chuck Woolery was orchestrating a potential love match between students. My mind was muddled with pictures of rainbows and puppies. But, this time when I clicked on the link, I was disappointed. And a tad frightened.

The idea of a website where Conn students can anonymously post anything they want seems like it wouldn’t be a bad idea; in fact, it could be potentially helpful to the school if students posted constructive criticism, or it could be like likealittle.com, where students could write complimentary comments to other students. No harm, no foul.
But this website is particularly foul. Upon first glance, I saw some similarities to the other site; there were threads entitled, “Name the person you are secretly obsessed with” and the most commented thread: “who do you have a crush on at Conn?” Innocent enough. But upon further perusal, I noticed some messages that were particularly … obnoxious, such as, “Favorite porn. Go,” “Bitchiest sluts or sluttiest bitches” and “Castration…thoughts?” There’s so much hating, CCC. What’s up with that?

I’m not the only one who was semi-disturbed by the amount of personal and sexual questions people post (I won’t bother to rewrite them here), but in response to these raunchy questions, one thread is titled “WHY IS EVERYBODY ON THIS SITE BEING SO PORNOGRAPHIC?” Good question, anonymous user.

“I think it’s disgusting. I don’t even know what to say about it,” said Lindsey Placek ’14. She added, “It’s bad but I can’t stop reading it.”

Is it a guilty pleasure for some students? Another student said, “I love it but I’m glad I’m not on it. I went on once to make sure no one said I was a slut.” So most people tend to agree: the site can be catty, even degrading to students.

In CCC’s defense, it’s not ALL terrible. There are a few threads that actually seem useful and have been taken seriously, such as “Floralia ideas!” which received 86 comments, most of which were serious suggestions for bands and artists. Another person posted asking about what life in Blackstone was like because s/he is considering living there next year and received helpful feedback. So why can’t the rest of the website be like this? Why is it littered with negative commentary and sexual boasts?

“We’re adults. We’ve left high school. That door has closed. Leave that stuff behind. It doesn’t define who we are. College is where you should define who you are, and if this is how you define who you are, spending your time saying really mean things about people you don’t even know, you should go back to high school,” said Molly Bienstock ’14, adding, “But I do think it’s a good website if it’s used in a more positive way.”

Another student agreed, saying, “It’s a website for cowards, for people who don’t have the cojones to say something to someone’s face, but it’s positive for things like surveys.”
There are some posts that begin debates, which can be healthy and intellectually stimulating; some of these discussions may even provide constructive criticism to the school to help improve facilities or academics, such as one environmentally-charged post that reads, “No more paper cups in the dining halls. What do you think?” This is just one example of an effective way to use the website; other useful topics to discuss could be which professors are good, which classes are worth taking, what’s going on with the social scene at Conn, and the likes.

While the website has some productive and useful threads, there are still plenty of negative and inappropriate discussions. My biggest question: why all the student-bashing? How can websites like CCC and LikeALittle exist on the same interwebs? They both have similar premises and they both receive posts from anonymous college students. I’m not saying LikeALittle is perfect but it’s an awful lot nicer than CCC.

Said one student, “When I meet someone and find out they go on [CCC], my opinion of them changes. It’s horrible and not productive at all. It’s an embarrassment to our school.”
One of the first posts on CCC was “[name withheld] is a BITCH.” This isn’t a necessary post. It’s not doing anything except hurting the subject if s/he were to see it and expressing the frustrations of the poster. It’s cyber bullying. And CCC isn’t the only website that allows these things to be posted; check out the wonderful invention that is Formspring and the site collegeacb.com if you want to read some more insulting comments.

The idea for ConColl Confessional began with a similar site at Oberlin, the purpose of which was to allow students to talk freely about their college in an anonymous online setting. According to the Confessionals Wikipedia page: “They’ve become a source for advice, but have also generated controversy over the prevalence of anonymous personal attacks.” Conn is not the only school to have a Confessional; Middlebury, Bates, Williams, Amherst and Mount Holyoke are just a few others.

So how can we stop the spread of online negativity? I’m not sure that we can ever eliminate its existence, but we can decide to make a conscious change. It’s no secret: I think we can transform the Confessional and make it a more positive place with comments, debates and suggestions that reflect our intelligence and maturity as students of Connecticut College, or college students in general. Or maybe just make it a place to anonymously flirt. The choice is yours. •

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