UHHHHH....!!

You all know that stomach drop feeling you get when you wake up on Sunday morning and you have 14 new pictures tagged of you on Facebook, or an overdraft notification email from Bank of America in your inbox, or when you get a text from an unknown number that says "Great getting to know you last night, come back any time ;)".

Or when your article is nationally critiqued on one of your favorite blogs (which, coincidentally, attracts millions of viewers- largely college students).

For those of you who read the ever-popular Barstool Sports blog, you may have been pleased to see that Fairfield got a mention last Thursday, December 2nd.

I, on the other hand, spit my coffee all over my laptop.

Sometime between Wednesday night when Fairfield published my article, and Thursday morning when the staff at Barstool were checking their inboxes, it fell into the hands of David Portnoy, the president and chief writer of Barstool's most read section of their trifecta: Boston Barstool.

The article, "Is Being the Next Smokeshow Worth an Eating Disorder", was just a piece I wrote for a journalism class investigating Anorexia and Bulimia on college campuses, specifically Fairfield. I discussed the growing pressure for young women to be skinny and appeal to the male audiences of campuses nationwide.

And for those of you who aren't familiar with Barstool, it's recently been described by a Boston reporter as such: "A crudely designed, widely read (and highly readable) sports/smut site that can only be described as the love child of ESPN and Girls Gone Wild.

There's a sector of the site that features local "Smokehows", girls who are hot enough and willing enough to put their pictures up for the viewing pleasure of the mass public.

Portnoy, who may be more commonly by his blogging name, El Presidente, or Pres, by his viewers, didn't like the use of his "Smokeshows" in the title of my article.

In the Thursday article entitled "Straight from Fairfield College: Is Being the Next Smokeshow worth and Eating Disorder?", he wrote, "Christ! What the fuck did I do to Fairfield to deserve this? I mean did this chick really have to put us in the title of this article like this? Like I’m the reason so many Lady Stags have bulimia and shit?"

Ok, I needed a catchy title, I'll admit. Maybe the headline was a tad dramatized. But at the end of the day- who doesn't want to read about Smokeshows?

Fair enough. But after his initial reaction, I think Pres got a little carried away. Following are some of his grievances with what I wrote:

"Listen let me say this loud and clear to all the uglies and fatties out there. Not everybody can be a smokeshow."

Let ME say this loud and clear to all the lady Stags out there. Not everybody is to sign away pictures of themselves clad in bikinis and lingerie, clutching Solo cups and whipping their hair over their shoulders to be posted on the internet.

"But if becoming a smokeshow is truly a life goal or something then do me a favor and earn it the old fashioned way. Hit the gym, hit the treadmill."

The gym? The treadmill? Kill me. Waiting for a treadmill at the Rec Plex at Fairfield these days is like waiting for the Messiah to come. So not worth it. Smells like B.O. in there anyway.

"And start eating salads around the clock."

The salads from Barone dining hall? Yes, the soggy, wilted, green-ish white, Caesar- drenched stuff that comes from a bowl that's the size of a swimming pool? Nah. I'll go with take out from Colony Grill.

"Cut the puking down to only once or twice a week. That’s how you catch my eye."

Dating Tip: If you want to nab yourself a guy like Pres, make sure he see's you vomiting at least once or twice. That'll get 'em.

"Who says the Stool doesn’t support women’s right?"

.....uh....

Either way, the post on Barstool now has 143 "likes" on Facebook (all from Fairfield kids, I'm sure), and 32 hilarious comments.

I think I consider my greatest (and most embarrassing) journalistic success yet!

So I guess I learned that getting your article published on the world-wide web is not always what it's cracked up to be.

But there's a lesson to be learned: if you need a catchy headline, avoid using your favorite blog's name in ridicule. It will backfire.

And since in a loyal reader of the Stool myself, I will flat out admit it. SORRY PRES. No harm meant.

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Visit Barstool. It's offensive, hilarious, and often times, pretty informational. There's a section for Boston, one for New York, and one for the ladies: "Stoolala". It's a laugh if anything.