When I was a freshman, I had a full-fledged mega-crush on IvyGateBlog.com. I thought it — and its editors — were the funniest and hottest shit ever. I’m talking banana phone levels of hilarious. I didn’t even know Chris Beam and Nick Summers (the founders), but I had these sort of creeper-esque fantasies about going to work for them, and becoming BFFs. And then, maybe one day we would all work at Slate together. In fact, the fame-whore in me would get excited whenever one of my articles made it onto Ragtime, even though it was rarely in a positive light.

But then Sirs Beam and Summers left for greener journalistic pastures, and like what happens with most creative babies when mom and dad leave the babysitter in charge, IvyGate lost its quippy voice and eye for content and just got bad. And then worse. And then sort of evil.

Yea, that’s right. IvyGate, I am taking you on.*

Most of you think I’m probably referring to the grossly inappropriate move IvyGate made a few weeks back when they chose to joke about a Cornell student’s death. The Sun’s recent Letter from the Editor covered that eloquently. But IvyGate’s descent into taking potshots at the innocent in order to up their hits began long before this most recent screw up. These dumb, needlessly hurtful, for the sake of “humor” posts sometimes took on friends of mine, (calling a writer racist because he called out T.I.; labeling a sex blogger a slut and linking to nude photos) often took on Cornell (at a higher ratio than the other schools, I might add), and left other undeserving students in their wake.

Arguably, IvyGate’s problem is not that it is actually trying to be evil, but that it inhabits a medium where you need to be a really, really, really strong writer to know how to toe the line between snarky-funny-with-a-point, and just-plain-obnoxious. (I know this problem well; I have an ex-boyfriend who likes to cite this as one of my bitchier flaws.) Chris and Nick, the site’s founders, did this, and did it well. IvyGate’s writers since just aren’t up to par, so any attempts they make at whimsy or irreverence just come off as desperate irrelevance. It’s one thing to be an asshole, if you’re funny. It’s another to just be an unfunny asshole. IvyGate, these days, is even worse: It does that thing that no humor writer ever wants to be caught dead doing — it tries too hard to be funny. And desperate and mean is never a good combination on anyone.

Does this mean I think IvyGate should go bye-bye? Well, while it would be fun to pretend that I am to college journalism what Jon Stewart was to Crossfire / Tucker Carlson’s bowtie, (a) I am not that powerful, and (b) we’d be losing a powerful medium. Or catching out toolbaggery, which I always thought was IvyGate’s reason for existing, anyway.

I may be an outlier, but I’ve never found Gawker/Jezebel/PerezHilton particularly funny; to me, they’re 40 percent boring, 50 percent grating, with a limited 10 percent funny — when they actually respond critically to goings-on in the world. And yet these sites are safe from my wrath, if only because they actually take on legitimate public figures. Not to mention that, as bad at sighting boundaries as they may be, they know the line between humor and inappropriate jokes at harmless people’s expense. They also understand what fact checking is.

This whole “gossip/news” blog thing is obviously not going anywhere. Mistakes in journalism are and will continue to be made, and “journalistic” blogging, with its immediate publishing capabilities, space for anonymous commenter-asshats, and role as print journalism’s less formal, sassier sister only makes it easier to make stupid mistakes and go too far. But just because mistakes will be made, doesn’t mean that its online writers and editors can just wave their hands in the air, and start pissing willy nilly into the wind, metaphorically speaking. For IvyGate to exist and be respected, it needs to prove that it takes what it says seriously, even when it’s just screwing around. As a writer, you need to be conscious that the jokes you’re making may be unnecessarily hurtful/libelous, or might just fall flat on your face.

I’d love a huge IvyGate takedown or revamping. In the meantime, dudes, it’s time to apologize for that screw up, and start thinking seriously about what your purpose is in the first place.

*I’m fully prepared, by the way, that IvyGate might decide to declare open season on me. The only relief I get is that I’m kind of too boring for them — no nude pictures or sex scandals. They could call me irrelevant, but I’m pretty sure the headline did that for you, bitches. Also, none of you can see this, but I just did the Johnny Bravo fight shoulders.

Julie Block, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, is a former Sun Arts and Entertainment Editor. She may be reached at jblock@cornellsun.com. WTF, Mate?! appears alternate Wednesdays this semester.