The Carl Online

There are two notable Carleton gossip blogs floating around cyberspace, and I’d like to share my thoughts on them. First is Knights Nights. It takes its format from gossip girl, referring to people as “B”, “S”, and “D”, but who the heck are these people? Do these letters correspond to the names of people here or did the blogger keep the GG initials? The people don’t seem interesting enough for me to recognize who they are; therefore they probably aren’t interesting enough to be gossiped about. I’m not interested in some stranger’s friendgroup. I want real gossip about interesting semi-strangers.

Second is Bald Spotted. It obviously has the cleverer name, but more notable is the writing. It’s everything you want in a juicy Sunday brunch sesh, with tidbits that are usually enough to clue you in to the identities of the people but can be deciphered with a little bit of Stalkernet. Some of the information is lacking a desired specificity and most puns and monikers have yet to really develop, but it has come a long way content-wise in just a week. The good thing is that the gossip is about a range of identifiable personalities canoodling, breaking up, and doing the walk of shame all over the greater Northfield area.

One thing the two blogs have in common is that the templates are heinous. If I want to see gossip online, I don’t want to look at a puke green background, light blue headlines, and grey visited links. It’s disgusting. And I recognize that blogger template – someone chose those hard-on-the-eyes colors and thought to his or herself “Stellar job, this looks great.” I don’t even want to go into the hawk silhouetted against a sunset header banner thing, but really, guys, those are the templates you chose? From now on, I want anyone creating a template for a gossip blog to imagine Tim Gunn looking at it. He would scowl, castigate you with his $3 words, and move the heck on. You would feel foolish, and well you should.

The main thing, though, is that Carleton absolutely does not need more gossip. As much as no one wants to admit it, Carleton is already a more expensive version of high school. Since these blogs popped up, I’ve found myself gossiping more and I’ve heard more on a daily basis. Gossip is punishing enough with word of mouth alone, and if an incident is embarrassing enough you’re going to hear it in due time anyways. Just like hearing something through the grape vine, some stories are bound to be false. It’s only a matter of time before someone really gets hurt. As bad as it is, gossip happens, but I am certain we do not need the internet to speed up the process.

- Allie Schwartz