It was only a matter of time before Eric Barbalace saw his name pop up in a @TerpCrushes tweet, and he knew it.
“It was inevitable,” the freshman government and politics major said. “I saw a bunch of my friends start to get mentioned, so when it happened, I wasn’t very surprised.”
On March 28, the Twitter account @TerpCrushes tweeted, “Eric Barbalace … I don’t care if you’re legally a dwarf, i’d still let you rail me ;).”
Barbalace is one of many students who have seen their names show up on the account’s feed since its creation on March 24. Through @TerpCrushes, students can anonymously confess their sexual desires and the campus community seems to be responding: The account has more than 4,700 followers on the microblogging site.
The junior behind the account won’t reveal his name, but he said he modeled it after the ones he saw at other schools such as Rutgers, the University of Connecticut and James Madison University, adding he amassed a large following in just a few days.
Much like @UMDConfessions, which also garnered attention this semester, submissions are anonymous. @TerpCrushes, however, makes some of the antics published on @UMDConfessions look tame: In place of drunken escapades and secret pets in dorm rooms is sex, sex and more sex.
Some students approach the opportunity to confess their love with an eye for satire, submitting tweets such as, “I have a crush on this buffalo chicken wrap sitting in front of me.”
Others confess sincere crushes, while some submissions push the boundaries of taste to embarrass friends.
“I am aware that a large portion of the submissions are vulgar in nature,” the account’s creator wrote in an email. “As someone who personally has been mentioned a few times, I’ve learned to see the humor in a lot of the tweets, and I think most of my followers have as well.”
More than 4,500 submissions clutter the creator’s inbox, but only about half of those have made it online.
When it comes to the anonymous submissions, the account’s creator follows a few of his own rules. For one, he said, he won’t post submissions mentioning university faculty and staff or someone in a relationship. He also tries to avoid publishing clearly malicious crushes.
That isn’t to say, however, that the juiciest tweets face censorship. Several recent tweets on the account’s feed mention teaching assistants and employees with University Police, Dining Services and Stamp Student Union.
One submitter admitted a desire to hook up with a girl in his or her journalism class, adding, “You’re better looking with your mouth SHUT.”
“I’m not naive enough to think that there isn’t a substantial portion of submissions that are friends of people mentioned or are people who otherwise do not mean what they say,” the creator wrote. “I don’t think it really matters though … my personal favorites are the ridiculous analogies people come up with to describe their desire to do something.”
The creator wrote that he thinks one of the biggest reasons for the account’s success is its use of names. He publishes submissions unedited because he believes people follow the account to see their friends mentioned.
“Having names brings a social aspect to the page that expands it beyond vague mentions and guesses,” he wrote. “On Terp Crushes, you know exactly who is being talked about.”
People mentioned on @TerpCrushes can ask the creator to take the tweet down if they find it offensive. However, he said he has received surprisingly few requests to delete tweets — out of 2,000 tweets, he’s received about 20 or 30 such requests.
“Honestly, I think they could make a lot of money,” said Victor Chen, a sophomore computer science major. “They just have to say, ‘If you want to find out who sent it, pay us $5.’”
Barbalace said he began following @TerpCrushes as a joke. He, his brother and their friends submitted entries about each other.
“I thought the tweet about me was very funny and clever,” Barbalace said. “On the whole, I thought they were pretty funny.”
Barbalace added that some of the tweets seemed creepy, like the ones that gave descriptions of students or didn’t come from close friends.
“Why would they be offended?” said sophomore psychology major Nina Shen. “It’s not like they post anything negative. It’s intended to be lighthearted.”
newsumdbk@gmail.com
