Likealittle is nothing but a forum for cyber trolling

The newest social networking sensation hit the Laurier campus during the exam period and students seem to like it, a lot. No longer can you walk around campus without thinking someone is checking you out; professing their attraction to you via an online forum. Likealittle.com seemed like an early Christmas gift for those in procrastination mode from exams and faster than you could say “what happened to Overheard at Laurier,” everyone seemed to be creepily searching for that hot person in their vicinity to write about.

Walking around campus, you see tons of laptop screens focused on the same website with the user hoping that the person sitting across from them replied to their passionate confession by offering to meet them in the library bathroom in five minutes.

Likealittle, as much fun as it appears, seems nothing more than internet banality at its finest. It is marketed to bored students who will use any excuse they can muster to avoid doing anything that remotely resembles attaining an education they complain they pay so much for. Mind you, it’s ingenious in reaching its audience, but what does that say about the audience?

Instead, Likealittle represents two polar extremes when it comes to appealing to the current status of online communities. Most people use it as a trolling forum to make fun of posts, talk a lot of smack and make fun of people. People may say, “oh it’s all in good fun,” but in reality this is nothing more than an evolved form of bullying that exemplifies cowardice even more because it’s within the confines of digital space.

Sure, it would seem that some people deserve criticism for publicly seeking out coitus, but on Likealittle it goes beyond that. Within a few moments on the site it doesn’t take long to find posts with racist, sexist and homophobic messages that I’m sure the Laurier administration would frown upon given its supposed commitment to inclusivity.

This doesn’t stop the trolls from coming out and stirring the pot though. If you’re a troll, go to Reddit or Digg where the mainstream ones lurk. Oh and by the way, for all those who use Likealittle as their novice entry to trolling, talking about making fun of people and what you said to “Guava” on your Facebook status defeats the purpose. Go find another way to feel better about yourself.
The other users, which probably make up a minute minority of those on the site, are actually using it for its intended purpose as a FFP (flirting-facilitator program). Some people are shy, self-conscious and lack the game required to approach people they like.

Likealittle was created to help people like this on campus (however many of them there might be), but instead it quickly became bastardized by users who realized they could get away with cheeky comments under hilariously fruit-themed poster names.

All those that are so heavily ingrained in the university experience often forget that university can be a lonely place if one is not so socially adept. The university experience is one of the prime facilitators of match-making, but for some people this isn’t the case.

Desperate people will often resort to desperate measures, like looking for love on Likealittle of all places. Chirping these people will only further develop their introverted tendencies.

The appeal of Likealittle should, hopefully, last for all but three seconds ending with the previous exam period.

Sadly, people bitching to each other
through the guise of anonymity is what
the internet has become most
predominant for these days.

Likealittle doesn’t help stop this slippery slope. The university doesn’t need its own variation of eHarmony or whatever online dating website you might happen to use.

This is nothing more than time wasting at its worst. I’m almost frightened to ask what the next fad will be for the Laurier online community.

Hold that thought. At Concourse, Female, Blonde, just walked by. I hope she sees what I just posted. Please respond, please respond, blast! Another love lost.