“It’s not official unless it’s on Facebook.”

You know the phrase is true. Did you hook up with a new boyfriend lately? Get a new job? Start grad school? Yeah, you probably updated your Facebook to let everyone know about it. Facebook has acquired a terrifically powerful role in our culture, one which legitimizes every facet of our lives.

As much as passing the bar exam officially makes you an attorney, updating your relationship status officially makes you one-half of the new “It” couple in your social network. Bring on the wall-comments and congratulations! But what about when Facebook users begin posting personal details that don’t merit digital high-fives?

Such is the case with a new trend in Facebook groups that actually promote such eating disorders as anorexia nervosa and bulemia nervosa. Think about your average, “Hell Yeah I Went To Public School!” group and channel all of that enthusiasm towards the idea of starving yourself. Imagine scrolling through a list of your friend’s groups and finding one like “Ana Boot Camp” (which has recently been disabled by the Facebook administration) which attracts users who view anorexia as a fitness goal, not an eating disorder. They’ve even co-opted the name “anorexia” to just “Ana,” as a way of reinforcing the idea of anorexia positively. Members of “pro-Ana” groups collaborate on starvation plans and look to one another for “thinspiration.” Read More »

The other night, while eating dinner with a friend at one of the 4874 Thai restaurants in my neighborhood, we got into a discussion about being single.

“I’ve decided that deep down, no girl really wants to be alone,” my friend announced as she cut into her spring rolls. “Even if she says she doesn’t want a boyfriend, if the right guy stepped into her life, she’d take him.”

“What about So-And-So?” I asked, naming another mutual friend. “She kept saying how happy she was without a guy, and how she was too busy anyway. She seemed fine.”

“Didn’t you hear? Last month she landed a dude.” My friend handed me half of her spring roll, using the other half to point in my direction. “She bumped into this guy at a party and two weeks later she was updating her Facebook status to read So-And-So is totally in love.”

“Ew. Really?” Inwardly, I was jealous. When was the last time I had updated my Facebook status to say I was totally in love? Never, I realized, since the last time I was in love, Facebook hadn’t even been invented.

“Really.” My friend declared. “Us women all need to face the fact that being single just isn’t our natural stasis.” Read More »

According to the Chicago Sun Times and Fox News, the shooter was an Asian National, in the US on a student visa. Unfortunately, in typical new media fashion, they soaked the wrong person’s name, Facebook and MySpace page ALL OVER THE NEWS. If I had not seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it. They pasted his name, bashed him, and then went, “Oh…uh…our bad, we have just been notified this person is still alive and was not involved in the shooting.” They think they have the right name now, but we will see over the next couple of hours.

…OK…time to slow down people. If we have learned ANYTHING as Americans and our global media machine, it is that we cannot rush to media bash innocent-till-proven-guilty people until we have some shred of proof. Then again, I am actually WATCHING Geraldo re-showing his MySpace page to show WHY they thought it was him. In good conscience, I will not link you to it but I am sure by tomorrow we will all know.

Regardless, we know it was 1 guy with a gun and a lot of bullets. There are more comments and updates from people all over the country on Bloomberg. com.

The truth right now is, no one knows why the hell anyone would do this or who this person is. They are assuming that the same person who shot at the dorm in the morning, is the same one who shot up the classrooms. (It seems logical to me.)

However, witnesses have popped up who were in class where the shooting occured. He shot with no words, no comments, nothing. Read more

This person matched the description of the shooter, but was later released.

President Bush weighed in here and promised to help support the investigations in any way.

CNN posted a student video of the events (a little tasteless but they ARE the media).

MSNBC posted a map and timeline of the events.

The sad part is, while the news and every other TV station in the US was covering this - the students had very little information except for an email blast. That is crap. They blamed it on trying to keep students in the safest possible place. If I was a commuter student, the safest place is AT HOME - cancel class for F–KSAKE! But instead, more students were subjected to harm. Now, of course, there is a reasonable expectation - but call radio station, tell the news, do SOMETHING. But early in morning after it happened they thought it was an “isolated” situation.

The students disagree.

What do you think about the University’s decision?

Some sites like CollegeHumor have said that they will continue business as usual, and that’s ok. We, on the other hand, have made the decision to post some links to the most concise information we can find.