A new website, CornellFetch.com, is all the rage at Cornell University, garnering 4,000 unique visitors in its first day alone. In just three days, they’ve received over a million hits. So, what’s so enticing to students about the new website. How did Cornell make fetch happen?
The website, launched on August 12 at 1:00AM EST is simple in design. The homepage features the photographs, names, and sororities of two girls, whom users are then expected to vote on. That’s it. Here are two Cornell sorority girls. Pick one. One would assume you’re supposed to vote based on beauty, as there is virtually no other information listed about the girls. It seems as if it’s supposed to be a little “game” in nature. With each vote you cast, you’re told how your vote compares with votes before yours. If you picked the “right” girl, you get 10 points. The goal is to get 1,000 points, at which time you receive a grand prize of knowing you’re the most judgmental person in all the land, one would assume.
CornellFetch has an about section, which is mainly just a place for them to brag about the notoriety they’ve come upon, in addition to a “Top 10” section with photographs of the sorority girls who’ve received the most votes. Because the names and photos were taken from the sorority girls’ Facebook profiles without their permission, it’s no surprise that the site is getting some negative feedback…from everyone but Alpha Phi, presumably, as 70% of the most highly rated sorority girls throw the ivy.
The creators of the site are taking the outrage super duper lightly, as they have the backlash featured all over the place. They mock naysayers with “Stop trying to make CornellFetch happen!” and “Quick Charlie! Look what they’re saying about us!” They’ve also linked to opposition articles on their site, encouraging visitors to read them with pulled quotes such as “‘Childish, objectifying and completely unnecessary” from The Cornell Daily Sun, and “[CornellFetch] has received multiple death threats, harassments… MySQL injection hacks. It has certainly caught the attention of the Cornell community, but perhaps not in a positive way” from The Cornell Review.
If I found my photograph featured on a website such as this, I’d probably just KMS…unless I was winning, in which case, I’d pretend to feel outraged, but secretly use it to fuel my over-inflated ego. Luckily, that probably won’t happen, because as of now, the movement is only affecting Cornell students and hasn’t spread to other universities. Also, I graduated. WHO’S WISHING THEY WERE STILL IN COLLEGE NOW?! Actually, I still am.
I’m not sure the legality of the whole thing, but I’m sure there’s a lawyer’s daughter or two featured on the site who will straighten this whole thing out, otherwise, a lot more girls will need to learn how to use Photoshop if they want a fighting chance. Either way, I feel for you Cornell sorority girls. This is a crazy thing to happen. It’s like CollegeACB, but worse, because you can’t even have your best friend pretend to be a guy who thinks you’re really hot. There is a silver lining, though: you’ll never again have to wonder if your sisters are being sincere when they say “Oh my God, no, you’re soooo much prettier than she is.”
[via Cornell Daily Sun]