Students across the campus were unsettled after reading “I will strike again,” written by the supposed “College Park cuddler” on the TerpSecret blog Wednesday. Twitter, Facebook and the blog exploded after someone sent me a confessional secret — the controversy had begun.
About 7:30 p.m., I received the toxic secret that read, “I’m the College Park cuddler. Some may not understand why I like to get in bed with girls, but I think it’s the sexiest thing ever. To be in a bed with a girl who has no idea I’m there turns me on more than anything. I will strike again.” My roommate and I agreed it was probably just a student trying to be funny and brushed it off.
The secret was posted around 10 p.m. that night. Knowing the secret would interest many students, I also posted the link to the secret on my Facebook wall with a caption that read: “I just received a CP Cuddler secret … Real or not real? You decide.” This was my way of publicizing the secret while still expressing that I didn’t feel the post could be a true threat.
Within minutes of posting the link, a friend messaged me and said, “I would report the CP Cuddler secret to the police … And if it’s fake, whoever sent it should have formal reprimand.” I was shocked at this reaction. I continued to receive messages from people, all with conflicting ideas on how to handle the situation. Unsure of how to react, I decided to collect a public vote.
I created a poll asking for students’ opinions. To my surprise, more than 60 percent of voters said I should report the secret to the authorities. At this point, I was torn between upholding my confidentiality promise to the secret-senders and my growing feeling of moral obligation to the public. Meanwhile, my journalistic mind was ecstatic about the potential story at hand, which was fighting my logical belief, as a student, that this was likely just a joke.
Within an hour and a half of posting the secret on the site, the supposed “College Park cuddler” sent me another message confessing, “I was the one who made up the College Park cuddler secret. It was a joke …” I promptly updated everyone about the situation to diffuse the bomb before it exploded.
However, this wasn’t the end. Around 10:30 a.m. yesterday, I received a knock on my door. Within 12 hours of the post going online, University Police Chief David Mitchell had caught wind of the ordeal, tracked me down and sent two police detectives directly to my living room to speak to me. The detectives believed the message was a hoax, but they still had to follow up to make sure. “We aren’t here to prosecute people for saying stupid things,” one detective said. “We’re just here to protect you guys and it’s our job to make sure you all are safe.”
I never expected such an uproar to result from something as simple as a secret on my blog. The ruckus lasted less than two hours, but that time period was complete mayhem for me. The number of hits on the site skyrocketed, and everyone was suddenly in a state of panic that was my responsibility to tame. While I must admit that I enjoyed the excitement of the situation, I am glad the phony came forward before it got completely out of control. If nothing else, I hope we all learned a lesson from this: Don’t be stupid.
Sarah Tincher is a sophomore journalism major and creator of the blog TerpSecret.She can be reached at sarah.tincher18@gmail.com.
