The Modern-Day Rumor Mill
Good gossip has always been hard to resist, whether from Aunt Bea in Mayberry or on one of the hottest TV shows today.
Just as "Gossip Girl" spills secrets onto the Internet, in real life, college students are using sites like JuicyCampus.com - where posts about people range from inappropriate … to insulting, CBS News science and technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg reports.
What JuicyCampus touts as "always anonymous, always juicy," Austen Maness says is: "racist, homophobic, sexist, libelous slander that just really destroys people."
Pepperdine University is one of the 64 colleges featured on JuicyCampus.com.
"They posted that I'm in a gay relationship with one of my fraternity brothers; that I like to sleep with overweight women," Maness said.
Maness has been cyber-slimed.
"It hurts when somebody writes stuff like that about you," he said.
Pepperdine students tried, but failed, to block JuicyCampus.com, both New Jersey and Connecticut are investigating the site's practices.
The founder of JuicyCampus, 2005 Duke Grad Matt Ivester, wouldn't talk to us. But last week he posted a plea, asking, "where should we draw the line?"
Like it or not, there's a growing acceptance to letting it all hang out online. Facebook even offers the "honesty box," where you actually can ask people to anonymously post what they really think of you.
As if!
Now gossip researchers - and they really do exist - say gossip is not always bad. It can communicate useful information, and helps set community standards about what is - and isn't - acceptable behavior.
"The older generation is just astonished by the kind of conversations people have in person and on the Internet," said Andy Mann, who runs an anonymous gossip site at Johns Hopkins University.
"It is controversial, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong," Mann said. "You see all these different topics, talking about frats, talking about classes, teachers, hot girls, hot guys on campus."
His Web site, JHUConfessions, got more than a million hits in May.
"I say it's a bad idea, but I still read it obsessively," one Johns Hopkins student said.
I'm sure the businessperson in you knows that if it's a little more salacious, you're going to get more people going to the site," Sieberg said.
Couric & Co. Blog: Sieberg previews his report.
"Well uh, yes and no. I'm not so certain that more salacious means more people."
Mann says he doesn't want to be juicy - he wants to be about issues.
Someone can come on and make a racist remark and usually people will reply saying, 'you're an idiot and this is why,' and I think that's good discussion that might not go on otherwise," Mann said.
But there's a catch with the modern rumor mill. What's online today will probably be there forever - for future friends, lovers and even employers to find. And that's something Aunt Bea and her posse never had to worry about.