Davidson Makeouts wasn’t around during my first year here, and I thank the heavens for that. The concept is simple: a collective group of people–who are alert and ready to expose people making out–take pictures of unsuspecting love-birds and send said pictures to a generic email. Next, the curator of these pictures tweets them (usually with a funny caption) to an audience of 800+ followers. The appeal of Davidson Makeouts is the fact that it could be your picture up there at any given point. Maybe you and your Mr./Mrs. Right thought you were being stealthy in the shadows of “The F” or whichever court party and stole away for a moment. Or, maybe you wanted to be seen. When I was a Young Warthog, if my friends found me in a compromising position they would absolutely take a picture and then show the picture to me at Commons the next day or send it to our group text. At most, they would have it printed at CVS to make sure I never live the moment down. Nowadays, if you do something even slightly questionable, anyone can take a picture of it, send it to an anonymous page, and expose that moment to the masses. Now everyone is in on the inside joke and can laugh or applaud at your expense. It should be noted that most of the pictures are too blurry to identify the people getting frisky. However, this creates speculation only adding to the “omg is that me?” aspect of Davidson Makeouts.
I was lucky enough to have a “conversation” (via email) with the creator of Davidson Makeouts. To be honest, I felt like I was talking to Gossip Girl, desperate for some information.
I received a quick but confusing response filled with riddled and non-descript wording, only adding to their aura of all-knowing-mystery. While most of their answers left me confused, here are some memorable quotes:
“Something about those brick walls facilitates the tonsil hockey. They also photograph well, giving the account a nice aesthetic.”
“…A makeout Twitter is like the Christening of a college.”
“There was a couple that had 3 kids: somebody, nobody and crazy. Nobody was the favorite child and somebody was jealous of nobody. Crazy saw the whole thing and called the police saying, “somebody killed nobody” the police said “are you crazy?” Crazy said “yes I’m crazy.” (In response to the question: “Any crazy stories?”)
“Mac Speed’s smile.” (In response to the question: “Your inspiration?”)
DMO says that for the most part they receive positive feedback along with on average 3-5 pictures per weekend for them to sift through. While they have also received some negative attention, they also asserted that anyone featured on the Twitter page has the option of Direct Messaging or emailing the page and asking for the picture to be removed. They do not take requests nor do they target any particular group of people, so it really all depends on who sends them pictures that particular weekend.
Kudos to whoever came up with the idea (I’m guessing it’s a sophomore, maybe a junior…) and make sure you’re on the lookout for those camera flashes and Twitpics–may the odds be in your favor!