Every Step You Take... | Una Farrell
“Every breath you take,Every move you make,Every bond you break, Every step you take,I’ll be watching you…" The emergence of the “Spotted In ___” pages on Facebook has me worried. I mean you literally cannot go anywhere in college now without the fear that someone will be watching you and before you know it there’s an exact description of you on Facebook from an anonymous creeper. There’s a page for the Library, Boole Basement, UCC Gym, Brookfield and just in case we missed anything a general Spotted Around UCC. We’ll just all watch everyone all over campus and forever live in fear of being caught looking rough on campus.The Library page has me donning my very best in order to return a book. The Mardyke page has me contemplating wearing make-up to the gym. I am living in the fear that someone will see me in a tracksuit on campus and then the whole of UCC will know! I have a reputation to uphold and it is becoming ever so difficult with every Tom, Dick and Harry thinking they have some sort of valid opinion on some person they’ve “spotted”.These pages serve three main functions. Firstly they are a source of ultimate creeping. Anonymous tipsters let us know exactly which floor in the library contains the biggest number of beours and feens to ogle while we try and learn about 18th centaury laws about taxes on food or something equally as boring. As a girl I should probably condemn these pages because they most certainly objectify women with comments along the lines of “To the girl on Q+2 in the red jumper, I'd say there aren't enough fingers in the world to keep you happy but I'm willing to try” However the males of UCC do not escape the objectification and so all is fair in study and creeping.Secondly, these pages serve as a forum for students to do what they love best, complain. Every second post on the library page is about some “annoying wans on q+2 who won’t stop giggling” or a complaint about someone’s loud laptop fan. Fair enough if there are people who want to study but don’t use these pages to complain about noise etc leave more room for those of us who want to find out where all the good-looking people studying are.Lastly these pages, as with every other university associated page, are used for spam. “Hey guy just wondering if anyone found a black USB stick last night. It has my entire FYP on it and because I’m stupid I only have it saved on this very generic looking USB stick and it’s due tomorrow.” If someone has found it and is going to give it back, it will be handed in to lost and found not posted on a Facebook page.Even more annoying, “Hey everyone, I’m a final year psych student looking for volunteers. All you have to do is give me an hour of your time and I’ll subject you to a boring and mentally draining test and reward you with one funsize choc bar.” No. I’ve gotten the emails and I haven’t responded. I’m not going to volunteer to help you no matter how many pages you post it on on Facebook. Go hassle your own friends.These pages serve only one real purpose, creeping. We all love a good creep even if we must sacrifice all our privacy on campus it is for a good cause. We will always know where to find someone nice to look at while we pretend we are studying and for this we thank you “Spotted in UCC ____”
