Julia Allison in Tombs

It’s a bit of a challenge to describe dating columnist and alumna Julia Allison (COL `04) to anyone who isn’t already familiar with her micro-celebrity—perhaps because no two followers’ characterization of her are alike.  While Wired finds that her successful cultivation of herself and byline as an internet franchise makes her an item of curiosity and microcosm of modern media, a particularly vitriolic Gawker post described this same friend- and fame-making as “laying it on thicker than a toddler spreading peanut butter.”

But Allison’s observers do tend to agree that her life is prone to overexposure, with most bloggers concluding that other bloggers are guilty of giving her career and antics way too much attention. And Allison’s having “a Facebook account, a Myspace page, a Flickr, a Twitter, a Friendfeed, four Tumblrs, three Movable Type blogs, two Vimeos, [and] one YouTube,” certainly keeps her personal life in the public domain, if not in the limelight.

In fact, about the only portion of Allison’s career that others haven’t picked over or that she hasn’t divulged in intense detail is her two-year tenure at The Hoya as Georgetown University’s first sex columnist (which isn’t to say that her college career escaped scrutiny altogether; her relationship with Congressman Harold Ford, an incident in which she allegedly tried to get a free grapefruit by claiming to be from the Post, and allegations of plagiarism have all been much ballyhooed). So on Friday, Vox met Allison at Tombs to get her to do just that. Below is part of the resultant interview—which she kicked off, by citing her Hoya editors for limiting the scope of her columns.

Vox: Wow, I didn’t even have to ask you a question. So, how much freedom did you enjoy with your columns?

Allison: So, the administration didn’t step in and sanction my columns, but the editors did. Here’s the thing. The editor that I had my first semester Junior year was very supportive. And then you know, the editors change every semester, and by the time I ended my tenure there, I had an editor who was very conservative. In January of my senior year, I got fired, and it was very dramatic. I mean, it was massive.

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