Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Cyberbullying on LikeALittle

As I was reading about cyberbullying and cyberstalking in Paul Levinson's chapter "The Dark Side of New New Media," I reflected on bullying using of AIM when it was popular before MySpace and Facebook. However, there was one website that became popular this year that made me think about this topic. The infamous website is LikeALittle. For those of you who don't know, LikeALittle is a website dedicated to flirting with guys and girls specifically on Fordham's campus. Most people who comment or respond say the same thing, "Why don't you just tell them in person?" I'm not going to get into the flirtatious aspect of this site, but rather the dark side.

Though I do understand that it's all in fun, I have seen several posts that I would call inappropriate. One post said something along the lines of: blonde girl, i am waiting to attack you on Hoffman. The blonde girl was no one in particular, but it was saying that someone will be attacked when leaving Fordham's campus. On another note, students may get called out by name saying that someone in their class is watching them because they are beautiful/handsome. I am aware that some of these are people's friends and they are aware of the post, however, some of them are actually real. If you knew that one of your friends didn't post about you, but someone else did, then a part of you feels a little creeped out by it. Overall, I don't think this is a great site due to all of the cyberbullying that some people may get carried away with.

2 comments:

  1. What a great example, I've never heard of this site before. I think its a pretty strange site because I doubt any shy people ever use it for actual anonymous flirting. Its probably groups of people posting comments making fun of others and then checking back together to get a laugh. I wonder if the site's creators intended it to be a serious a site like for shy people or if the whole thing is one big gag.

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  2. very interesting development--it would make sense to include a live link here. Is cyberbullying more likely on this sort of site, and why?

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