Love-Ins Give Way to Chat-Ins

What if there were a place for artsy college students from all over the country to meet? A place as cozy as he coffeehouses of the Beat generation and as idealistically pure as ‘60s communes?

Welcome to Webdorm.com (https:www.webdorm.com)--the site that invites students into a virtual community and, with a bow to Jimi Hendrix, asks, “Are you experienced?” No, the query is not psychedelic, or even drug related. But, according to Webdorm’s founders, the “experience” of communicating with other college students from around the country can be mind altering.

“This is real life, real college, people talking about real issues through poems, journals, even music criticism,” says the site’s marketing director, 1997 Skidmore College graduate Allison Mahoney.

The site fired up in the spring when founders Alex Chriss and Todd Ragaza invited students from four areas of the country to join the interactive group for free. The men, both recent Tufts graduates, offered 90 cameras (also free) for select Webdormers to install above their computer screens.

What students from such California campuses as Stanford, UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley began sharing with students from Michigan, Nebraska, Florida and New England was sometimes art, sometimes feelings. But always, says Mahoney, “real passions.” (But do not confuse Webdorm with the more sexy than artful Voyeur Dorm site.)

A Great Lakes Webdormer went online--and on camera--with her struggle to lose weight, writing an online journal titled “Diary of a Fat Girl.” The site has also become a safe place for students to air fears and outrage, which they did en masse after the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado and the recent earthquake in Turkey.

“Of course, this is a forum for dealing with many troublesome issues,” says Mahoney, “but a place that sometimes reaches out to more sensitive students.”

And, it should be noted, students with money to spend. A few weeks ago, Webdorm was purchased by YouthStream Media Network, a New York-based campus marketing firm. Perhaps, site visitors who sign on to share poems can pick up a few Hendrix CDs while they’re at it.