The leg warmers of the internet.

People who were alive in the 80s occasionally remind me of leg warmers. Apparently, a decade before my birth, it was actually stylish to garnish oneself with what looked like a tube sock missing its bottom half. In a similar way, current tweenage girls find it "fashionable" to wear short shorts with winter boots. Oddly enough, this trend seems equally as impractical as a sock that doesn't keep your feet warm.

I'm always pretty happy to see trends like these buried deep within the archives of fashion history never to be heard from again (hopefully). Recently, our campus fell ill with an obsession that started much faster than those ugly boots with the fur. It developed into what I like to think of as "the leg warmers of the internet." The fad was the website likealittle. Its name seems innocent, right? Wrong. This little guy had razor sharp fangs. And talons.

Likealittle's premise is to provide students at a particular university, in this case Indiana Wesleyan, the opportunity to anonymously express their thoughts about others. A constant stream of notes flow from anonymous senders to make a "wall" of comments. This is how it works:

1. A person makes the decision to publicly post an internet comment about another person in the room.
2. He or she goes to likealittle's IWU page.
3. This individual selects the location in which he or she is currently located (along with their unsuspecting victim).
4. The person then selects the hair color and sex of his or her victim.
5. They disregard dignity, integrity, respect, and whatever other qualities they are normally expected to uphold to anonymously (and often vulgarly) express an opinion about his or her victim.

Sounds harmless, right? It wasn't. Needless to say, IWU rightfully blocked this website in less than 24 hours after its inception.

I was shocked at the number of students who took to Facebook in defense of their "violated right to free speech," or the "way we are always treated like children." Well, you know what IWU students, you acted like children. Of course, the content was far too mature for most children's eyes, but regardless, most of those posts were immature, vulgar, and disrespectful. It made me honestly question the dignity of the students with whom I live. Perhaps if we did not want to be treated like children, we should hold ourselves to a higher standard.

Another lesson I learned from this experience, whether others did or not, was the dangers of anonymity. Online, people will say far more than they would about one another to their faces. When you throw in anonymity to that, there is no end to human depravity. The entire situation is just sad. This is yet another indicator of why we do have such strict rules and regulations in place on our campus, because with even the slightest bit of what some call "freedom," many of us loose what everyone else calls "dignity."

Good bye, likealittle. I hope leg warmers make a return from the grave before you do. Good riddance.