L-Word launches lesbian linking site
Judy Jarvis ’07
Inspired by the fictional flow chart of hook-ups on Showtime’s The L-Word, an underground Vassar lesbian hook-up chart was sketched out this fall. The Vassar Chart spread quickly via sight, word-of-mouth, and a couple of e-mail forwards, with each recipient adding on her own knowledge to the many criss-crossing lines. Seeing the College’s lesbian networks displayed this way offered a subversive thrill, allowing viewers to visually chart the overlaps, the patterns and the obvious individual preferences.
It makes perfect sense, then, that an L-Word affiliated website, OurChart.com, has just launched a virtual version of the show’s brainchild to try to capitalize on this kind of information sharing. Though the television show’s version is exclusively about hook-ups, OurChart.com postures itself as more of a Facebook-like friend-and-maybe-more type of networking site. Visually the Chart itself looks like a spider web, with member photos linked to each other by thin gray lines, and photos that bob when you scroll your mouse across them. Clicking on another member’s snapshot opens a small window, which allows you to view their chart, add them as a friend, send them a message, or go to their profile.
Dedicated L-Word viewer Liza ’07 joined OurChart.com because “I thought it would be a fun way to connect with other women. I was interested to see how a lesbian-only online community would play itself out.” But her boifriend, Kaeden Field ’05, standing in the kitchen beside her, countered, “I’m friends with gay people already, I don’t need to know dykes all over the country.” But, s/he also concedes Liza’s point that OurChart “would be good for [advertising] events” to the lesbian community, possibly even inspiring the expansion of real-life lesbian-to-lesbian connections, especially in places with a high lesbian concentration. Liza also added that the OurChart format is not as limiting as Facebook, since you can see the profiles of all members, even before adding them as one of your vectors.
As for the site’s flaws, the total network is still under 1,000 people, and relies perhaps a little too much on the show. L-Word actresses Katherine Moennig and Leisha Hailey have profiles, but there’s a falsity to their presence, especially because they are founding partners of the site and thus have a vested interest in using their celebrity status to expand the site.
Liza points out that because the Chart is only about hookups on the L-Word, OurChart’s friend-ness “does make for this weird dynamic—it was about hook-ups, now it’s just about friends?” Kaeden jumps in coyly, “I think it’s be better if it was hook-ups, it’d be funny.” And perhaps that will be OurChart’s next step.