A couple nights ago, a novelty Twitter account appeared on the OU Twitter scene.
OU Crushes, an account where students anonymously submit 140-character posts about their crushes, was suspended today on charges of sexual harassment. It’s easy to see why. Many of the tweets included full names and many of them were graphic in nature.
When some students took to Twitter to support the decision to suspend OU Crushes, they were quickly ridiculed and labeled wet blankets by fellow students.
When OU Crushes finally went back on line, they tweeted about their suspension, making sure to put sexual harassment in quotes. It’s not real sexual harassment, of course, their quotes said.
Folks, Imma admit it. At first, I was really into the idea of an OU Crushes. Mostly because I wanted to know who had a crush on me. And I think there is a world where OU Crushes is only cute, but we don’t live in that world.
There is a reason we want anonymity when we say things like “i would love to motorboat ____ but apparently she only goes for Jewish frat boy.” It’s because these things shouldn’t be said in the real world. Can you imagine a group of guys shouting that at a girl on the street? That would be sexual harassment. Anonymity and the Internet do not make it alright.
This is how rape culture is perpetuated. It’s perpetuated when we provide spaces that make it alright to publicly sexualize and objectify people. And then, when students speak up about it, they are labeled mean-spirited.
We need to stop thinking in this way–in this “don’t ruin the fun for everyone else way.” If one person is hurt by “fun,” then it shouldn’t be considered fun.
Spencer J Smith 
OU Crushes has said that if anyone is offended by the tweet they would take it down. Every tweet and interaction has been received by positive comments by the people they were about, myself included. If someone is hurt or offended by a comment, they can stand up for themselves and OU Crushes will not hesitate to take it down. Let’s not make this into something that it just isn’t.
I’m glad you received a tweet about you positively. I think it’s a far cry to say that all 570 tweets were received well, though. There have been plenty of harmless ones, certainly. But many of the tweets have been racist, sexist, and downright disgusting. I think that’s worth talking about.
Additionally, I think that it’s not enough to simply take down the tweet once someone is hurt because by that time, someone has already been hurt!
I completely understand where you are coming from but based on the positive comments people have sent in, yes it is reasonable to say that most of them are received well. This account isn’t sexual harassment, based on the responses the majority of the students are taking the tweets as just something funny to read. No one is doing this with cruel intentions and nothing negative has been posted. Sorry for the few that are offended but the majority are taking it positively the way it is meant to be taken.
Additionally, tagging “rape” and “rape culture” in association with your issue with the account is taking your issue way too far. No one has sent in any intention of raping, that isn’t funny and wouldn’t be posted. Please stop making this into something IT JUST ISN’T.