Editor’s note: This article was initially published in The Daily Gazette, Swarthmore’s online, daily newspaper founded in Fall 1996. As of Fall 2018, the DG has merged with The Phoenix. See the about page to read more about the DG.
Like-a-Little has reached new heights of popularity at Swarthmore, going from sporadic posts about crush-sightings to multiple threads per hour that detail everything like-able on campus, from a brunette’s luscious locks to an AP resident’s curvaceous calves.
At The Daily Gazette, however, we feel that these and other posts would have been Missed Connections were it not for Like-a-Little. It is under these circumstances that we feel we must take action against Like-a-Little’s plagiarized material.
Since September of 2009, the Gazette has been providing an outlet for students to publish their “wish-they-had-happeneds.” We were shocked to see the obvious similarity in Like-a-Little’s content.
To illustrate our point, here is a sample comparison from Missed Connections and Like-a-Little:
Missed Connection: “Dear tall trendy freshman boy that looks like Andy Samberg: I think that you’re cute. Let’s be trendy together. — trendy senior girl”
Like-a-Little: “you look EXACTLY like Seth Rogan. We want to know more.”
As you can see, these entries share numerous similarities: both reference a student who resembles a B-list celebrity and both express an interest in getting to know this student further. But ours is spelled correctly.
Although the Editorial Board of the Gazette is saddened by this clear misconduct, we are speaking out because we believe that Like-a-Little could be harmful to the campus community.
As Like-a-Little offers an unedited assortment of “missed connections” in a chaotic web environment, we fear that many campus sightings will get lost in the abundance of material.
At the Gazette, we use a process similar to that used by Match.com and other top dating sites. We only display missed encounters that have passed a series of compatibility tests.
But, in the end, this is not about the Gazette’s precedent; this is about providing good “spottings” at Swarthmore. And, as such, we hope that you will support the Gazette when we schedule our day-long boycott of Like-a-Little in the coming weeks.