Although Dartmouth's gallery of personalities makes for a diverse and enticing campus for prospective students, it also from time to time lends itself to uncontrolled chaos. Take for instance The Desperate--the type of personality that might advertise on personals websites with cute one-liners like "any 09 or 10 girls want to hook up with a decent looking 08 tonight?" They're just the lovely sort of students that have invested their time and effort in mastering the well-debated Dartmouth hookup culture. Or, The Educational who might be heard shouting "blackout or go home," and who stand as the campus preachers of our particular morality. Many are The Honest: the defeatists who can be heard claiming the obvious--that "there's no such thing as dating at Dartmouth--just organized hook ups." And every so often, you might discover one of The Inarticulate, who simply babble "tits" incoherently. But they can't be blamed. They don't know what they want to say, and yet, other Dartmouth students still might be heard muttering approvingly to their absurd non-statements.

But all these quotations from our favorite campus personalities do have something important in common. They can be found on the non-Dartmouth-sponsored (important: NON-Dartmouth sponsored) BoredatBaker.com, a site that asks students to “post their thoughts, but keep it anonymous.” The Boredat family, which hosts sites for each Ivy League school, Stanford, and NYU, maintains its intended purpose is innocent, if utopian: providing school-wide forums in which students of all personalities might post their feelings on the day’s activities, ask for advice on class choices, or advertise the night's party locations. Others contend, however, that the site is a train wreck of insults and helpless victims that should be shut down immediately.

Jonathan Pappas, the Columbia-educated creator of the Boredat franchise, said that the four-month-old site was “simply a product of boredom. But what [he] really wanted to do was [sic] try to create a space where free speech could go unhindered. If you toss out people's inhibitions by hiding them behind a veil of anonymity, the result is spectacular.” To anyone that has actually seen/posted on/heard of his creation, Pappas’ idealistic view of free speech seems a bit far from the reality. To the initiated, BoredatBaker looks more like an anthology of hormone-driven tirades. Pappas describes the no holds barred, rant-friendly site as “an infinite spectrum of extreme brilliance to extreme ignorance.” Well, Dartmouth students might be well-advised to work a bit on the former. Regardless of the dream Pappas has provided or the service he wishes he were bringing to Dartmouth, students of all personalities have come to realize that this website may be a bit out of proportion.

Kate Miller, one of BoredatBaker's most popular topics, seems to deviate from Pappas’ innocent perspective just a tad. She believes the site is an opportunity for people to single each other out. When asked for her initial reaction to the more than 50 posts discussing her, she said she was “disgusted that [she] chose to come to Dartmouth to surround [herself] with mature, intelligent people only to be disappointed by ignorant, superficial, vindictive, immoral, and stupid Dartmouth undergraduates.” One symptom that Miller alludes to, which we, as students, must understand is how BoredatBaker.com makes an already small school even smaller. It provides a rumor mill through which recipients cannot be limited. A freshman girl can no longer be careless about what she does on a Friday night, because by Saturday morning, someone might anonymously post her exploits (and comprehensive details) on the much vaunted website. So now, to prevent any immediate ostracism, newcomers to the Big Green campus must either hold back or find a partner with sealed lips and chronic carpal tunnel. Because although BoredatBaker tends to bring out the worst in people, save shutting down the website there ain’t nothin’ we can do about it.

But there is good news for the victims and victims’ families. Participation during fall finals peaked at 2,000-3,000 posts per day. On the other hand, Harvard’s sister site, BoredatLamont.com, boasts over ten times as many total posts and averages a good 3,000 during an ordinary day. To compare, throughout the most recent week at Dartmouth, only approximately 350 posts have appeared, with no drastic increase in sight. Have we finally put an end to the internet insanity?

Maybe. Whether the site has ten posts or 10,000 posts a day, it's still fair to call it a misuse of typing energy. But, if you insist, for whatever use you might find necessary--debating Keggy v. Dartmoose, soliciting a boot-knocking, or asking 17 randoms' opinions on your sex life--go ahead, feel free to waste your time on the controversial, super shady, and utterly useless BoredatBaker.com. I dare you.