The College Grind, a social media site that launched last fall, is generating buzz among St. Thomas students for its party and humor-based posts that cater to students in the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

Junior Ben Watson said that he found the website just by Googling “MIAC.”

“I kind of stumbled upon it on the Internet one day,” Watson said. “I just clicked on it and started messing around on the website. It was cool.”

The founder of TCG, Matt, would not reveal his last name or college that he attends for privacy reasons but described the website as a content-based, community-driven site that is used to connect students within the MIAC conference. He said that there is no affiliation with the MIAC or any educational institutions.

“I was pretty surprised that there was no social media platform or anything that connected all the MIAC students together,” Matt said. “It’s 57,000 plus students and a lot of us are from the same background and have the same interests.”

The site spiked student interest when it announced its hottest girls of the MIAC competition in early December, allowing people to submit pictures of attractive, local girls. TCG received mostly positive feedback, but there were a few concerns.

“For the hottest girl (competition), 85 percent were submitted to us and the other 15 percent were the campus representatives that did some digging,” Matt said.

Matt said that the girls who did not want their pictures included in the competition, along with the copyrighted photos, were removed when his staff was notified.

“There is a copyright law at the bottom (of the site) where it says if your photo is up and you don’t want it up, you can email us and we will take it right down. We’re not trying to create negativity… we’re just trying to spark some interest,” Matt said.

Sophomore Chris Nathan thinks TCG’s posts are an accurate portrayal of St. Thomas students’ college life.

“You just really don’t have like a good judge of social life. You can’t find that anywhere,” Nathan said. “I came up for an overnight visit and I played video games in a dorm room. I don’t think I’ve stayed in on a Friday night and played video games since then.”

Watson said that the site is a good tool for determining the social life at each university.

“I like the site because it shows a different perspective than maybe what the university openly presents,” Watson said. “If you had an older brother or sister on campus, it’s kind of all the stuff that they would tell you that goes on.”

Junior Sibel Dikmen said the website portrays the fun and light-hearted side of college students.

“I think everyone can appreciate that. Even the Tommies go to the site and laugh at their own stereotypes that other people portray,” Dikmen said.

The university had no comment about the website.

TCG’s most recent competition is for the hottest guys in the MIAC, and Matt said that 100 percent of the pictures have been submitted directly from the guys.

The hottest guys of the MIAC is one of many projects TCG has in the works, but there is one competition that Nathan would like to see included.

“Hottest professors, that would be the greatest,” he said.

Olivia Cronin can be reached at cron2722@stthomas.edu.