 "Photo: Courtesy of GoodCrush.com")
School has only been in session two weeks, but it’s not hard for you to tell that you’re mad crushing on the boy who sits in front of you during Introduction to Psychology.
Valentine’s Day is only a week away, and your plans narrowed down to watching “The Notebook” or eating an entire box of Oreos. Wouldn’t it be nice to see if Psychology boy felt the same, and maybe you could spend the most romantic day of the year together?
With a new Web site the Student Government Association and GoodCrush have launched on Friday, Towson students will get just this opportunity.
Towson.goodcrush.com, a Towson University branch of Goodcrush.com, will allow students to list up to five “crushes” they have on other Towson students.
By entering these students' e-mails, it will notify them that “someone” on campus likes them.
The punch? The Crusher will never be revealed to who they like, unless that person has also listed them as a crush.
“The idea is that if there’s a connection you live happily ever after, and if not, the crushee, the person who’s crushed on, doesn’t find out the identity of the person who has the crush,” GoodCrush founder Josh Weinstein said.
GoodCrush.com was founded by Weinstein in 2007 while he was an undergraduate at Princeton University.
“I was like, ‘Hmm, I really wish there was a risk free way of connecting with my crushes,” he said.
Within the first day of the original GoodCrush Web site launching, more than 1,400 Princeton students sent over 5,000 e-mails to their crushes.
“When I found out how many people were using it and how many crushes were sent we knew this was a very useful tool,” Weinstein said.
Since then, GoodCrush has reached out to schools such as The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. and Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. to start their own divisions of the Web site.
“It’s not just a Princeton problem,” Weinstein said. “It’s clearly a service people need regardless of their school.”
Towson University’s SGA Attorney General Jillian Koller signed on to run the Towson GoodCrush campaign after SGA President Jon Graf told the executive board he had been contacted by Weinstein about launching a site.
“I just think it’s really good for the morale on campus especially right at the beginning of the semester,” Koller said.
“It’s going to be something that everyone’s going to be able to talk about, and also it’ll help people get some Valentine’s Day dates.”
The Web site was originally set to launch on Monday, Feb. 8, but with the snow storm that hit Maryland starting Friday night Koller decided to start Towson’s GoodCrush on Friday and promote it through viral advertising.
More than 200 people have joined a Facebook group titled “Towson GoodCrush.”
“I decided to launch the site this weekend one, to give Towson’s students a fun thing to do while they are snowed in, and two, just in case we cannot start the campaign on Monday,” Koller said in an e-mail.
The “risk-free” factor Weinstein advocates with GoodCrush is something Koller found important to the site’s success.
“If I wrote that I like this boy Joe, and Joe didn’t write that he liked me, Joe never finds out that I like him and I’m not embarrassed when I see Joe in math class the next day,” Koller said.
“Students are so cautious of how they appear to others … I think it’s important that its risk free because you can still have fun with it, but it doesn’t embarrass you or hurt you if it doesn’t work out.”
The timing of the Towson GoodCrush Web site launch fits perfectly with Valentine’s Day, which is the following Sunday.
SGA will be promoting the site with booths around campus and students in winged Cupid costumes spreading the word.
“Everybody’s thinking about ‘Oh, I want a Valentine’s Day date, I want a boyfriend or a girlfriend,’” Koller said.
“I think if we launch it any other time of the year it would be fun, but I don’t think it would be as successful as on Valentine’s Day when everyone thinking about it.”
Koller is excited to see the growth of the site’s participation and plans on using it herself.
“I’ve got some crushes so we’ll see how that works out,” she said.
“Put in as many crushes as you can, get you self that fun Valentine’s Day. Even if it’s not the love of your life you can still have fun on Sunday when we’re all snowed in.”
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