O.T.R., the NKOTB
Best part of guest editing this blog? Discovering that there is a bizarro world of people who spend significant chunks of their day reading college blogs, writing college blogs, and starting new college blogs. And all this time I had been visiting with friends, reading books, cooking dinners, and enjoying sunsets!
Well, while I was off enjoying cold Carlsbergs, someone was hard at work. And as if IvyGate needed the competition, there's a new blog on the Ivy League -- or at least college -- beat: theU.com's own O.T.R., omg.
Doug Imbruce (Columbia '05) started the parent site, theU.com, whose current purpose seems to be a giving away scholarship money based on a hot-or-not scale. The same Doug who famously accepted defeat as Freshman Class President by declaiming, "'Don't come crying to me when they run this school into the shitter.'" Doug, however, has moved on -- not just from his defeat, but also from using WB stars to host online college tours.
Rumor had it Doug had something up his sleeves, but it was Penn's "sex blogger" Jessica Gold Haralson that was first to break the silence, forfeiting her anonymity and announcing on Monday that she was Penn: Off the Record's inaugural editor. Jessica, though, is just the start of it: theU is backing a whole series of O.T.R. blogs. According to Managing Editor Lena "I lowered my mouth over his cock and slid my lips over his shaft easily" Chen,* they have already recruited "75 writers at 40 campuses." OK, a list of active sites shows 21 schools, but at least the Ivies are represented. Well, except Brown, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, and Dartmouth.
What can we expect from O.T.R.?
"UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA O.T.R." is like a student newspaper written by ALL UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA students - in real time, online... anonymously. Any student can post, and the blog is edited by a few Juniors/Seniors (who basically filter out stuff that sucks).
So, chaos. Potentially interesting, potentially offensive, and potentially dumb Junior/Senior-filtered chaos.
Right now the main O.T.R. page, compiling posts from every school, boasts a little bit of everything: YouTube, photoshop, celebrities, Lolcatz, alumni news, course listings, and a surprisingly harsh attack on Penn boys. It's not entirely professional, but it's definitely got potential.
O.T.R., welcome to the blogging block.
--BETH MILTON
*[Ed.: Taken out 'cause it was mean; put back 'cause Nick made me]
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July 19th, 2007 at 5:05 am
this looks incredibly lame….they tried to recruit someone from the nass to run the princeton version, but like I said, it looks incredibly lame
July 19th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Eh, i think they’re pretty funny, though I don’t like how aforementioned Jessica jumps to conclusions by calling me a bitch
[http://www.otrblogs.com/university_of_pennsylvania/live_apart_from_the_plebes_the_green_conspicuous_consumption_way_1013]
though she’s right.
July 19th, 2007 at 11:12 am
hahahaha
http://www.otrblogs.com/university_of_pennsylvania/memo_to_penn_students_mystic_tan_is_not_your_friend_419
i go to penn and LIVE for shit like this
July 19th, 2007 at 11:13 am
looks pretty cool to me.
July 19th, 2007 at 11:15 am
ESPECIALLY THE MICHIGAN DUDE. HAHAHA
July 19th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
this seems to be just a way of a using college blogs to sell advertising and make some dude money. lame. college blogs should be pure, just to ‘make me lol’ and not make some golddiggers richer.
July 19th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
As much as I usually agree with Ivygate, I’m gonna have to say they’re facing an uphill battle here. The comments and posts are actually very funny and well written. Just give them sometime so that they can hit their stride. No blog is ever an over night success (well, maybe Perez Hilton…)
July 19th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
This is a good idea, and I can’t wait to read what they post about brown.
(brown ‘03)
July 19th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
that was put back in. as a devout reader of ivy gate, i knew it was missing.
that lena girl seems insane.
July 19th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
David Peck smells and nobody loves him.
July 19th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
is Ivy Gate not the same, “so to me” ?
July 19th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
If any student may post, then how does this differ from a Facebook group? I mean, *besides* the different marketing spin so as to capture some VC money.
Lena took what could have been a pretty hot writeup and, somehow, made it emotionally unstable and unappealing. Pray tell what she’ll do to the stories she edits?
July 19th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
I don’t think ivy gate is drawn by money in nearly the same way as these otr blogs. sure ivy gate makes money with ads, but i don’t think that is the primary objective. this group of otr blogs deliberately looks like it is ready to expand to new markets. it becomes a concept that attracts ‘franchises’ in a way of drawing in more and more readers (and by extension more add revenue.) i would also place the boredatbutler sites, facebook, as was as the failed ‘campusnetwork’ as groups with similar profit motives.
July 20th, 2007 at 7:07 am
A blog’s popularity is directly proportional to the quality and number of its updates on Alexsky Vayner. It’s a fact, and everybody knows it…except, apparently the new hack editors. Children, please… stop pulling 100% of your blog fodder from tipster emails and dig us up some new scoop on A.V. Is that so damn much to ask?
July 26th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Come on, one of the editors is an ‘11. He wasn’t even born when IvyGate ran the Vaynor posts. Alexsky who??
August 9th, 2007 at 9:35 pm
“Lena took what could have been a pretty hot writeup and, somehow, made it emotionally unstable and unappealing. Pray tell what she’ll do to the stories she edits?”
As an editor for one of these blogs, let me tell you: she butchers them.