Apparently the ACB is popular. This is understandable: we long for the days when the internet was a place to be anonymous – now, of course, the very nature of online social networking requires our participation, lest we allow ourselves to be defined by others.
Wesleyan students now have two new options for anonymity online:
Aaron Larner ’08 has started a new ACB for all colleges, called CollegeACB.co
m (the Wes page is here). He says there are a couple of advantages to the normal ACB, one of which is that all the posts are searchable. Personally I think that takes some of the fun out of it, but for those searching to see if they’ve a secret, anonymous admirer, it may be just the ticket. It can also be accessed from http://wesfessup.com. He also says he is willing to let the users decide whether or not he should place ads on the site, the money from which would then be donated to a good cause.
The ACB chat is back as well, in the form of http://weschat.blogspot.com. Some people liked this, I imagine, but I don’t think it has quite the power of the ACB, simply because it will inherently have less users (since they have to be there in real time).
So for everyone who is feeling a little claustrophobic – get out and be anonymous! But read the NYT article I linked at the top: it’s an interesting study of why we value anonymity so much.