When it come to online interactions, there are things that the university staff does well — like making sure all the latest Men’s Hockey news is updated on its Twitter account. However, another major feed that has over 5,600 followers is that of
@UNDPassouts1, a place where we can humiliate our drunk blacked-out peers.

The idea behind UND Passouts is that after a hard night of partying, your “friends” take a picture of you wasted and send it in to an anonymously-run Twitter account to be shared online.

The following that UND Passouts has is one that the official university feeds needs to win over, by showing off goofy pictures, putting on fun contests and just being more entertaining to the average student.

There are, among others, two extracurricular activities that UND is known for — hockey and drinking. When looking at the social networking side of UND, especially when it comes to Twitter usage, it is pretty clear what types of things people associated with UND care about, at least in the social networking world.

Of all the official UND Twitter feeds,
@UNDMHockey has the most followers at 13,772 — almost more than the number of enrolled students at UND. The second most popular feed, @myUND, comes in at just over 6,000 followers.

That doesn’t seem too bad until you look at UND Passouts’s following. With just under 5,600 followers, it has thousands more followers than the Twitter feeds of the UND Alumni Association and Foundation, the UND Career Center, the UND Law School, the UND School of Arts and Sciences and
@UNDNews combined.

I would not advocate for the shutdown of a feed like @UNDPassouts1. Free speech is important. But the official university Twitter accounts need to improve their image.

Unlike UND Passouts, they are dull and unentertaining. There has to be someone in the public relations office that can take the initiative and make the feeds worth “following.” I would really like to think someone would take the time and do this already.

Micah Dewey is a staff writer for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at micah.dewey@my.und.edu.