Forget Facebook. Canadian students now have a new place on the Internet where they can upload all their scandalous campus party pictures.
Canadian campus gossip site room110.com was launched online last week, and according to a press release, it’s generated opposition from six different universities, though spokesperson Derek Paul declined to name them “due to legal reasons.”
Users are required to sign up with their email address at the site and create a user name and password. Once signed in, one is invited to select from one of 15 universities, including McGill, University of Toronto, University of British Columbia and Ryerson University. Most of the schools are located in Ontario.
There are no restrictions on which schools the viewer can see. The photos are laid out on a plain black background, and the photos are mostly party shots, of students with beer bongs and the like. Underneath, captions, which suggest that photos are sent by friends of the subjects, expound mostly on the school’s ability to have a good time.
“The website was designed for students to submit information and gossip about each other, current school affairs or other events about their school,” said Paul.
Monitors for each school approve the pictures that go up on the site. “We make sure we don’t post any harmful things, anything dealing with violence, sexual orientation, and anything mean,” explained Paul. “We are just trying to have fun and give everyone a look into what real university life is like.”
One example is a photo of a woman under the header, “Montreal girls know how to drink!” The woman is dressed in a Dorothy costume and is on her knees with her eyes closed. She drinks alcohol from a bottle extended to her.
There is no censorship, save for black stars over women’s breasts. Paul said original submissions are altered to avoid using people’s real names. If readers see photos they do not like, they will remove them. “We don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Easy as that.”
He maintained that readers are enjoying the site, and that “the response has been amazing.”
Paul declined to comment on the site’s creators, maintaining that the website was designed by a few webmasters, and that site is “for the students, by the students.” The name originates with the room number of detention room at the founders’ elementary school, according to Paul, where they would go to gossip.
An online search for the domain name identified the domain owner only as godaddy.com, a popular domain registry.
At the moment, the only Quebec post-secondary institution with its own page is McGill. University. Representatives at McGill could not be reached for comment.
A page for Concordia may be in the works. “At this time, we are not adding anymore schools, but if enough people email in requesting a certain school such as Concordia, we will gladly look into adding it, as we will be expanding down the road,” said Paul. Until then, Concordia students will be delegated to Facebook for posting racy photos.
