Here are a few interesting sites. Enjoy!
Alive
Harvard FML: Based on the popular FML, the Harvard Voice designed this site to give students on campus (or abroad, MIT, Wellesley, and occasionally other Ivy League schools) a way to communicate their woes anonymously. One author at the Bostonist believes that the website’s topics are bland and not indicative of true FML moments. If you search long enough, however, you will find that Harvard FML houses posts about loneliness and social anxiety that go beyond MLIA “mediocrity.” The user comments range from empathy to outright meanness, so I think that the site captures the spirit of the Harvard community well.
I Saw You Harvard: Depending on your viewpoint, this website serves as the manifestation of our stalker-creeper fantasies OR as a chance to let that special person know that there is someone in the Harvard universe (hopefully) who cares about him or her. It’s also great for telling people–in a general manner, of course–that their opera singing sucks or that you saw them eating boogers when they thought no one was watching. Like Harvard FML, this website is moderated, so the posts never get too risqué.
Lifeline
Bored At Lamont: The most controversial social website at Harvard, post-Mark Zuckerberg. The name comes from Lamont library, a place that serves as a general hub for undergraduates who wish to do academic research, study, or fantasize about the person sitting next to them. Given the apparent lack of moderators, at its height this site became 4chan meets emo meets craigslist. Most posts were about racism (racist), elitism (elitist), sexual orientation/hookups, and depression. It was unavailable for some time and it has not reached anywhere near its former glory since its return. Now you know about it. Make the magic happen.
Dead
The Harvard Idea Bank: A child of the economic crisis, this website was not a social network in the traditional sense. Rather, it was a way for students, faculty, and staff to submit ideas for budget cuts. The few legitimate proposals mainly focused on obvious, albeit relatively small, cases of energy waste, such as sprinklers going off during a rainstorm. Enough joke posts made it past the censors so as to render the site useless. These orly srsly posts included selling the Harvard Lampoon and getting rid of Dunster House, an undergraduate dorm. I also posted a few jewels to see if I could make it past the censors. The Idea Bank probably had no real effect on Harvard’s cost-cutting strategy. As one of my professors told the class, Harvard’s decision to invest substantially in interest rate swaps meant that the elderly people who proctored exams in past years just could not do so anymore. It did not matter if the proposal was part of the Harvard Idea Bank. To be fair, in my case the exam process ran much better with the professor as the monitor.
