If you read PerezHilton.com, then you have probably heard of the band Gossip, formerly known as “The” Gossip. The band, fronted by singer Beth Ditto, is a favorite of the site’s creator and is therefore frequently featured on the Web site. The band’s new album, “Music for Men,” with its awesome ’80s-tinged music, shows why the band is one of his favorites, though it still has room for improvement.

Much of “Music for Men” sounds like it has been imported from the punk era in the ’80s. The heavy bass, simple drum beats and twinkling synthesizer-piano account for this, especially in songs like “Love Long Distance.” The heavy synthesizer in this song gives it a strong funky ’80s vibe, while Ditto’s singing also fits the music of that decade. It is fun and danceable, as is a lot of this album. “Heavy Cross” and “Men in Love” would also easily fit into the same genre of music.

The latter song (“Men in Love”) is certainly chock full of ’80s fun, but it doesn’t fully deliver the way other songs on the album do. On the song’s breakdown, Ditto restrains her voice so that it sounds weak and breathy, making her sound like she can’t sing. This is a problem throughout the album. While Ditto’s voice shines on some songs, on others its punk quality sounds strained and screechy. On “Spare Me from the Mold,” Ditto screams over the cacophonous punk track. Although this may fit into their intended genre, her “hut, hut, hut, hut”s are just grating to the ears. The song is the worst on “Music for Men.”

“Vertical Rhythm,” on the other hand, is clearly one of the best of the album. For the verses, Ditto sings soulfully over sparse guitar picking and drums. In the chorus, the song adds more instruments, but the verses are what really make this song interesting. Her punk voice sounds almost haunting over the instrumental track, and she emits a great “who cares” attitude when singing about her failed relationship. “2012” is another song on the album that is fairly simple but undeniably catchy. It is a bit more punk than some of the other songs on the album, for which Ditto strains her voice a little, but with success on this song. Although it is unclear what the song has to do with 2012, its lyrics are clever nonetheless.

While many of the songs on “Music for Men” are fun and danceable, Gossip makes sure to add in some that are slower and more relaxed. With its bluesy bass and strutting vibe, the album’s first track, “Dimestore Diamond,” is one such example. “Love and Let Love,” while a little faster, still has a chilled-out feel to the music, which can probably be attributed to its funky bass line. Although Ditto does wail on this song, she controls her voice in such a way that it fits in with the song and actually sounds good.

Gossip’s “Music for Men” is by no means perfect. It is boring in some parts (see “For Keeps”) and cacophonous in others (“Spare Me from the Mold”), so why does it deserve so much attention? No, it’s not great, but Gossip is bringing something to the industry that no one else is really doing: The band is bringing back the ’80s with funky basses and wild synthesizers.

Insulting random people on the Internet can be mildly interesting to watch from a third-party perspective, so long as enough fighting occurs. But now almost every post consists of “rankings” of fraternities and sororities based on various attributes: hottest girls, sluttiest girls, hottest guys, creepiest guys, etc. Of course, the poster is invariably a member of the sorority/fraternity listed as number one—either that, or one bored and disgruntled student wrote them all. Of course, every so often a gem pops up, with an interesting thread title such as “People you can’t stand” (one reply: “Fat people. Go for a walk”). But the overwhelming majority of the time, people just mudsling—not in a funny or provocative way, but in the boring, repetitive, obnoxious way (“The bros at Sig Nu rule!”).

What could account for the quick deterioration of an otherwise moderately interesting concept and Web site? Sturgeon’s Law, “90 percent of everything is crap,” might be an interesting rule of thumb. But I think my explanation runs a bit deeper: Anonymity ruined ACB. If someone decides to insult another person or group in real life, that insult has to be good, or at least worth saying—if your insult sucks, people will just make fun of you for it, regardless of whether or not they agree with you. With anonymous message boards, however, there’s no incentive to write anything decent, not even a decent rant or flame.

While anonymity allows people to speak their minds, that ability means little when nobody knows that it’s you writing that post. Along with protection from writing poorly, anonymity strips the incentive to even care—and when you can write bad posts and get away with it, why bother taking the time to write something good?

Mudslinging and wanton insults probably take more effort than we give them credit for; after all, there’s a reason “Your mama” jokes suck. Of course, without a reason to bother to make good insults, ACB is left with boring, repetitive offensiveness that resembles other anonymous discussion boards. The strongest and most novel element of ACB’s core—anonymity—ends up being its worst enemy, an enemy that likely ended up taking down Juicy Campus as well. Until someone finds an end to this cycle, I’m resigned to spend my procrastination time elsewhere—because I’m definitely not going to do any work.

Senior Elyse Sadow said that though many students visited the site, gossip will not stop because it has shut down.

“People are going to say this stuff no matter what, whether it’s online or whether it’s to another person behind your back regardless,” she said. “I just think it’s another medium of talking badly about people.”

Matt Ivester, founder and chief executive officer of Juicy Campus, announced Wednesday morning that the site was unable to generate the advertising revenue needed to sustain it.

“Unfortunately, even with great traffic and strong user loyalty, a business can’t survive and grow without a steady stream of revenue to support it,” Ivester wrote in a press release. “In these historically difficult economic times, online ad revenue has plummeted and venture capital funding has dissolved.”

Ivester added that the rapid growth of the site contributed to the closure, making it hard to keep such a large venture functioning. Ivester wrote that Juicy Campus serves 500 campuses nationwide and drew 1 million unique visitors each month.

While the site has reached nationwide popularity, some students on campus never visit Juicy Campus.

“I’ve never gone on it but I don’t think it’s a great asset to the Wash. U. community in any way,” senior Kaitlin Mattos said. “I don’t know that it matters that much. I don’t feel like it’s as prevalent on Wash. U.’s campus as it might be other places. I don’t think that it will make a huge difference, at least in my life.”

While he did not attribute his decision to the moral debate surrounding the site, Ivester did mention it in his announcement.

“I’d like to thank everyone who has engaged in meaningful discussion about online privacy and Internet censorship,” he wrote. “Juicy Campus has raised issues that have passionate advocates on both sides, and I hope that dialogue will continue.”

Some students, however, will be glad to see some of the dialogue on the site stop because of the detrimental social effect it has had.
“I’m happy about [Juicy Campus closing],” freshman Laura April said. “I’ve never shown up on it but I’m glad I never will. I know [people] are really hurt by what was on there so I’m just glad it won’t happen again.”

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Juicy Campus, a Web site that has recently become extremely popular at Washington University, facilitates the same kind of Internet bullying on college campuses nationwide, and it’s time we collectively stand up to this immature and harmful activity by making an effort to boycott it.

Though Juicycampus.com has some tame elements, including discussions about entertaining professors, good or bad class experiences and whether the University’s admissions office is telling the truth about its selectiveness, many threads on the Web site take on unavoidably hurtful topics. These range from discussing which freshmen are the sluttiest to which seniors are the hottest, or listing a person’s name and allowing the cyber-community to anonymously trash or praise that person. The topics and content on the site can certainly be quite painful for the individuals and groups publicly dissected on the thread, depending on how they react to their public humiliation. 

There is something about the anonymity of the Internet that allows otherwise respectable and reasonable human beings to verbalize their most hurtful and damaging opinions without concern for how deeply others may be affected. We are mature enough to take responsibility for our own words and actions. It is a shame that even Wash. U. students, who as a whole are such friendly and compassionate individuals, have fallen prey to the petty temptation of verbally destroying their fellow students on this Web site.

The University community should be a place where all students feel welcome and valued. Juicy Campus has the possibility to deeply alter the community and comradeship that we currently enjoy, and we should all be working to stop this from happening. By visiting this Web site, we only increase the potency of its pettiness. If we collectively refrain from using it, then posting there won’t be an effective way to express one’s jealousy, disgust or hatred. If you really need a way to let out angst or indulge in petty gossip, do something useful instead. We have plenty of engaging ways to spend our time that can beneficial to ourselves and our community, so there is no reason to sit at our computers and act like whiny preteens instead.