Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself

By Stephanie Burke, Assistant Account Executive


Graduation is approaching, and when students look back on their time at Chico State they think of times of accomplishment, hard work and dedication. Sometimes they can also think of times of regret and embarrassment, but none would expect those times to be posted online for everyone to see. Thedirty.com has made this nightmare a reality.

  Thedirty.com is a website created and hosted by Nik Richie that allows viewers to post anonymously about another person. The posts usually include unflattering pictures and cruel words about the person. Richie then puts his own thoughts about the person at the end of each post. For example:

“The only reason women wear black is to hide fat. And the only reason Kat’s boobs are big is because she is fat. – nik”

You would think it would be easy to get your picture and post taken off, but it’s far from that. When Richie was featured on Anderson Cooper’s show, he stood behind his claim that it’s within his legal rights to let this information remain open to the public.

Because of websites like thedirty.com, being aware of your online presence is becoming very important in this time of the current social media revolution. More and more employers are Googling their potential employees to see how they portray themselves in the online world. If an employer would come across an image of a potential employee on “the Dirty,” do you think they would hire them? I doubt it.

So, what can you do?

Be aware of what pictures and content is posted about you online. If you use Facebook, change your privacy settings so you must approve pictures and posts to your wall before they go viral. But most of all stay classy, so you don’t have to worry about situations like being posted about on thedirty.com.