Juicy Campus, the controversial Web site that allowed students to anonymously post gossip about their college campus, officially shut down on Thursday.
Juicy Campus founder and CEO Matt Ivester said financial problems led to the forum’s demise.
“Juicy Campus’ exponential growth outpaced our ability to muster the resources needed to survive this economic downturn, and as a result, we are closing down the site,” Ivester said in a news release.
The Web site, which hosted gossip forums for more than 500 college campuses across the country, caused controversy this year because of the slanderous nature of many anonymous posts.
In September, Juicy Campus added GW to its list of colleges. Students were quick to utilize the site, creating posts on “Biggest Slut on Campus,” “Most Surprising Gay Guys” and “Best Places to Get High on Campus,” prompting some outraged students to take action against the Web site.
Student Association Executive Vice President Kyle Boyer voiced his discontent with the site when it appeared on campus in the fall.
“I don’t know anyone who liked having Juicy Campus around, and for that reason most of us chose to kill it by ignoring it,” Boyer said.
Ad revenue dropped “across the board” as a result of the failing economy, according to Ivester’s blog. He denies that the shutdown is at all related to the controversial nature of the site, though some college campuses went so far as to ban the domain.
“The vast majority of campuses decided not to censor their students,” Ivester wrote. “Our traffic levels remained very strong. Any revenue lost as a result of the campuses that banned us was negligible.”
There are no current plans to bring back Juicy Campus, Ivester said on his blog.
“At the end of the day, it is probably not a financially sustainable model for a Web site,” Boyer said. “On any campus, the popularity of the site peaks for a few weeks, and then people get over it and move on like most GW students were mature enough to do.”
The GW Patriot and The Colonialist, two GW blogs, began spamming the site with random Wikipedia entries in October.
“While I certainly take no credit for the demise of that Web site, it feels good that decency prevailed,” said Travis Helwig, a contributor to The Colonialist.
He added, “Once again the horrible rumors of undergraduate life will have an exclusive contract with McFaddens and Japone.”
-Emily Cahn contributed to this report.
