When I first heard about those groups on facebook where you can post anonymously about someone, I thought it sounded really cute. Sort of like that bit in the Metro paper where people confess undying love for the person they sat next to on the bus last Tuesday.

Unfortunately, the posts I read on the pages I’ve seen are nothing like that.

Most of them take the p*** out of people for the way that they look, and other ones are pretty creepy posts about girls that make me feel uncomfortable.

As its exam time, there are a lot of people in the library. A lot of stressed people too. I wonder what seeing a post about your hair or the way you dress would do to your concentration? I bet it would annoy you, or maybe upset you, especially if you’re not the type of person who can brush off that sort of thing easily. I know I can’t.

Everyone occasionally says something negative about someone else. We all have our own personal taste, and we can’t always resist a quick stupid comment for a cheap laugh from your friends.

But there is a MASSIVE difference between chuckling to yourself about a bad jumper and publicly humiliating someone on a page that has hundreds of followers.

Would you stand up and point at someone in the library, shouting at everyone about how crap their clothes are? No, because everyone would be absolutely appalled, and think you were really rude. There’s no real difference to posting it on these pages, apart from as well as being a twit (I’m trying not to swear), you‘re also being a coward.

Sure, reading them might be funny, but didn’t we get over ‘mass laughing at someone else’s expense’ at school? As soon as I think about the person in the library that is being looked at and laughed about, I stop finding it so funny.

What about the leery ones? As a girl, would I feel comfortable if someone identified me in the library in a way that was really sexual? Would that make me happy, or would that make me feel a bit sick, and a bit freaked out? It has the potential to be a really sweet thing, but the only ones I’ve seen so far have really creeped me out. I probably would get paranoid that people were looking me up and down, or actually deciding the post was wrong and that I’m actually ugly. And all when I’m supposed to be cramming for an exam...  great!

And let’s be honest – there is enough funny crap on the internet without having to resort to upsetting or winding other stressed/revising students out. Stupid little cartoons, you tube videos, writing hilarious statuses on your friend’s facebook when they go to the loo... these are all excellent and cause a lot less harm.

So please, in a time where everyone is climbing up the wall anyway– have a little compassion for your fellow student, and laugh at something else. Unlike the page if you agree with me, let it wither and die.

Best of luck with your exams, projects and dissertations.