Meanwhile, at the Washingtonian

In its February issue, the Washingtonian has an article that chronicles the party scenes of five area colleges. It can be trite (the writers have either long since graduated or are trying hard to indicate that they’re so over college) but I can’t say I knew much about the George Mason party scene before I read it.

However, the article incorrectly states that a fifth of all calls to GERMS are alcohol related. In reality, it’s only 7 percent. Give us a little credit!

Charms and out-of-touch touches in the article:

• Necessary explanations of the curious drinking games we play: “He uses a beer bong for ['pregaming,' or warming up with drinks at home]; the funnel attached to a tube is great for drinking fast.”

• The weird decision to view Howard University scene through the lens of a student who is identified outright as not your typical Howard student in a feature that implies it’s looking at the typical party scene at each college: the hyper-alcoholic Tiffany, who’s had a fake since she was 12, and friends, one of whom can chug a pitcher of margharitas in two minutes.

• Delightfully transparent references to Towne: “You could walk in with a piece of cardboard that says ‘I am 21 years old,’ and they will give you alcohol”  and probably Rhino: “So she heads to a bar that’s popular with freshmen because it’s so easy to get into.”

• Those crazy kids at UMD: “I blacked out a little bit, but I remember playing around with a fire extinguisher in the hallway.”

The GWU section also awkwardly transitions into a three-paragraph detour to discuss our old friend Juicy Campus:

Kids worry more about a new Web site called Juicy Campus. It has pages for schools across the country where students can post gossip. “C’mon. Give us the juice,” it says. “Posts are totally, 100% anonymous.” Topics are often things like who the biggest slut on campus is or which guys are secretly gay. Or they’ll target one person, using first and last names and asking others to weigh in.

On the GW page, someone wrote that a certain guy “is a loser. He hit on his straight friend. Twice. What a FAGGOT.” On the Georgetown page, one girl is labeled “the dirtiest slut around.” Someone else wrote about her: “definitely a huge whore. probably has STD’s, so stay away!”

Some student governments are considering blocking Juicy Campus, and students have started flooding the site with poems, off-topic questions, and messages about how Juicy Campus is cruel.

Hey, it’s all college culture, right?

Photo taken from Flickr user ThisIsIt2 under a Creative Commons license.

How could you not date that smile?

As a huge fan and sometime critic of journalistic interventions in the dating lives of the District’s singles, I’m pretty pumped about Washingtonian’s new Dating Diaries feature.

After being introduced to the internet public through a quick but informative questionnaire (celebrity crush, favorite drink), the seven daters — an early 30s science nerd who needs someone to watch Gossip Girl with, a divorced mother of three who listens to 3 Doors Down, a government-employed lesbian who won’t date a teetotaler, a Mormon who wants to bang Angelina Jolie, the only girl in America who had fun at her high school prom, a nice Jewish blogger boy right out of college, and a gay McCain-hater with a penchant for girly adult beverages — are off to the races.

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