Frank Hood knew it would happen. He just knew.
As the Student Government Association President, Hood knew he would get smeared because of his visible campus position. But after users on the Web site Juicy Campus called him one of the biggest whores on campus, the "juice" left a sour taste in his mouth.
"This is what happens on the middle school playground, not college," he said. "This is a slander Web site."
JuicyCampus.com is an anonymous Web site where users can post gossip about people or something at their universities. Ball State University has been on the site for about a month, Hood said, and he thinks the site serves no purpose.
"This site just sucks," he said.
Because students can feel more vulnerable as a result of these attacks, SGA couldn't ignore the Web site. In response to Ball State's recent addition to Juicy Campus, SGA is taking a "proactive negative approach" in dealings with the site, he said.
Hood said people in SGA have just begun to organize efforts against the Web site, which threatens the closeness of the campus community.
Timothy Dykiel, SGA's chairman for Government Affairs and State Awareness, said his committee will make a list of the site's advertisers and will start writing letters of complaint to them soon.
"We want to make those companies feel threatened by the people," he said. "We control what we buy."
The next step after writing the letters might be to create a petition or a boycott, Dykiel said, but his committee is still in the process of organizing its attack.
"My committee is working hard to stop this," he said.
Hood said he has spoken to or been in contact with Vice President of Student Affairs Kay Bales about two times a week during the last month in regards to the site's possible implications to students on campus.
Hood said because the only way to stop Juicy Campus is to target its advertisers, petitions, letter writing and boycotting the products that are advertised on the site could shut it down.
University Computing Services can also block the site from students searching it, Hood said, but SGA doesn't want to force students into not seeing it.
Other campus organizations have qualms with the site as well.
Interfraternity President Cody Willis said he couldn't even let himself look at Ball State's page on Juicy Campus, but took a look at another school's page instead.
"I didn't even want to know what people said about my friends or my fraternity," he said.
Willis said the Greek community is a large target for the gossip site because Greek life encompasses such a large social network on campus.
The Web site also targets the campus as a whole, with its ability to bash people's self esteem with back and forth gossip posts.
"I hate that Web site," he said. "I don't think that's the freedom of speech our Founding Fathers were talking about."
Hood said the site can result in a tragedy with its racist and homophobic posts - all it takes to hurt someone's feelings or push them over the edge is a post that took someone 30 seconds to write.
Willis agreed and said he also saw the site's potential to hurt.
"Somebody might end up killing themselves," he said.
During the last IFC meeting Willis said he brought up the fact that the organization might start its own petition to stop the Web site.
"The leaders of our campus don't want it a part of our campus, and the greek community doesn't want it," he said.
Pan-Hellenic Council President Amanda Hendrix said it's unfortunate that problems in the Greek community are handled on Juicy Campus instead of face to face.
"I wish the Web site didn't exist and people had a more proactive, healthy way to deal with their frustration," she said. "I feel it's an unhealthy situation."
Hendrix said she thinks most greek organizations are promoting the complete avoidance of the site, and agrees the only way to stop the site is to target the advertisers.
"You can e-mail Juicy Campus all you want," she said. "But Juicy Campus isn't going to listen."
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