Smack College is a Twitter page with 52.8 thousand followers that unites college students across New England for some good old-fashioned “smack talk,” with the intentions of derailing any student conceptions of college superiority.
Besides the banter-like discourse and Friday night stories that account for a majority of Smack College’s Twitter feed, pictures of New England college parties and their overly-intoxicated attendees are often posted through this third-party page.
This past weekend, the Twitter account featured many comments about the riots that occurred during the weekend of the Keene Pumpkin Fest. With that being said, Smack College receives its content from students who write in and send pictures, so theoretically, everything posted has received consent, according to KSC junior Ali Lague. Lague said it exemplifies the perception of the college student partier to a T. Lague discussed how the Twitter account seemed to encourage debauchery during KSC’s Pumpkin Fest weekend, but quickly became worried about the state of Keene once the news about the riots broke. According to Lague, a lot of the tweets were from students at different schools talking about Keene.
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“All day long you would see tweets from other schools saying things like, ‘Oh, Keene doesn’t go that hard’ or ‘Come on Keene State,’” Lague said.
She continued, “Then once everyone started to hear about what was going on here there were some nice tweets telling everyone to stay safe.”
Lague discussed Smack College’s encouragement of partying.
“The conceptions that could be made because of Smack College’s posts would definitely be that college students like to party hard and publicize their sexual encounters. I think it’s a poor representation of what college is, at least as a whole,” Lague said.
Lague is not alone when it comes to believing that Smack College can be a misrepresentation of the college experience.
“The content posted on Smack College’s Twitter page tends to be one-sided and doesn’t represent other huge parts of the college experience. Partying definitely has its place for some, but so do classes and events put on by schools. I feel like because Smack College only talks about partying, non-students who visit that page probably get a sense that that’s all college is about,” junior Cassidy Cetti said.
Cetti discussed the Twitter account during the riots Saturday Oct. 18.
“It was nice to see people telling us to stay safe. That was the feeling on campus. We all wanted to be safe at that time — it was scary,” Cetti said.
Junior Maggie Finkelstein agreed with Lague and Cetti.
“It was scary on campus, but I didn’t like how the account kind of egged us on to party harder earlier in the day,” Finkelstein said.
“The way Smack College represents college gives a bad misrepresentation of what students’ priorities are, like partying hard and having sex,” Finkelstein said, “It’s fun to look at but it also doesn’t give the whole picture of what college really is; it just gives the stereotypes people already have.”
Not only does Smack College post comical party stories and competitively-driven statements about alternative colleges, they also post racy pictures of female students, labeling them “smokeshow” or “hottie of the week.”
“They post revealing pictures of girls from different colleges with their breasts and butts exposed. It’s pretty degrading; I feel like sometimes the account’s purpose is to show off how hot college girls are,” Lague said.
However, Tracy Mallozzi, junior, believes that although posting these pictures is degrading to female students, some responsibility must be given to the females who submit these pictures to begin with.
“Women objectify themselves to Smack College. They send in pictures completely intending on them being seen by thousands of followers. It’s no secret what Smack College does with them. That’s why I think the line is blurred when it comes to whether or not Smack College as a page is culpable for objectifying women through their posts,” Mallozzi said.
Smack College may have some controversial content, but there is one thing that makes students resist pressing that “unfollow” button — they said it is undeniably entertaining.
“Smack College is definitely entertaining because students like being able to see the crazy stuff other people are doing at other schools. It’s relatable to a lot of students, so it’s kind of fun to just read people’s stories; you get a good laugh from it,” junior Ben Neary said.
Finkelstein also agreed with Neary, and said that Smack College provides entertainment for students.
“Through this page, students can see all the fun party festivities that are happening in or around our area. It’s also kind of exciting when you see pictures or posts about Keene State. Like when Tracy Mallozzi’s picture of spring weekend got posted and got something like two hundred favorites — it’s cool seeing something familiar made public to such a big audience,” Finkelstein said.
Finkelstein talked more of the riots.
“At the end of the day, I think it was nice that everyone was kind of contributing to the news breaking out about the riots,” Finkelstein said.
Finkelstein continued, “They [Smack College] were posting pictures about the destruction happening just outside our doors. We were all staying tuned about what was happening. It was scary, but it was nice knowing that others were worried.”
Finkelstein continued, “I mean, accounts like this can be used for either good or bad. We saw both that day, but I’d like to believe that everyone posting on that account is good.”
Amanda Lashua can be contacted at alashua@keene-equinox.com