Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Student Ranks Female Classmates on Facebook, But the Ladies Fight Back

by Caleb Johnson on January 21, 2011 at 12:30 PM

haley reaA suburban Illinois student is facing expulsion for ranking 50 of his female classmates, and posting the list to Facebook. The unnamed Oak Park-River Forest High School student, who has since been suspended, also gave other male students hard copies of the list, which ranked girls based on their physical attractiveness and level of alleged promiscuity, and labeled them with names such as "Fallen Angel," "Blonde Bombshell" and "The Hangover."

Sound familiar? If you've watched 'The Social Network,' you'll remember the scene in which Mark Zuckerberg creates a website called FaceMash that ranks the women in his college. The coeds in the film weren't particularly pleased with young Zuck's list, and neither were the young women in Oak Park. And they weren't about stay quiet.

Two students who were named on the list, Haley Rea and Julia Levy, told CBS 2 Chicago how they were horrified that hundreds of their fellow students supported the list, which they say contained misogynistic and racist comments. "They didn't see the just fundamental wrong, and the sexism and racism of it, and the misogyny of it," Levy said.

In response, Rea has created a Facebook group of her own, dubbed Unlisted, which serves as a place for girls to talk about bullying and misogyny. "It's kind of a pun on the list that he made, to show we're not defined by a list," Rea told CBS.

It's unclear whether or not the list's creator was actually influenced by 'The Social Network,' but it seems unlikely that the film sowed the initial seed. One concerned parent told CBS 2 that she believes "this is the third year the same student has created the list." Another student remarked that the list's author had been removed from school during his freshman year for creating a similar list.

Tags: CyberBullying, facebook, facemash, HighSchool, privacy, SocialNetworking, students, TheSocialNetwork, top

Comments

3

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular