Once a Cheater, Always a Cheater: CM Interviews CheaterU creator James McGibney

Imagine a website where you could pick your university from a list of schools and see a list of all the students who have cheated in relationships. Names, majors, pictures, proof, who they cheated on, EVERYTHING. Cheaterville.com is a popular website where the snubbed and scorned can create profiles for the nasty’s that have been less than faithful. The newest addition to the site is CheaterU, the ultimate guide to college debauchery.

James McGibney, creator of Cheaterville.com, came up with the idea of a cheater database after a friend returned from the military and found out his wife had been cheating while he’d been away. Now the site is an extremely popular tool for men and women between the ages of 20 and 50, and is looking to expand to the collegiate population.

Posting an article is incredible easy. All you need to do is create an account and respond to an email verification before you can post everything about any individual. “[Cheaterville] has been called the Yelp of people,” McGibney stated, “The one site where you have no control about the profile that has been made about you.” 

So the first thing that comes to my mind is, what happens when my ex decides to make a false profile about me out of spite. “We aren’t a judge or jury,” McGibney explained, “But we do have a 3rd party verification system working with Truth in Posting,” a site that uses an apparent algorithm to authenticate posts. So what happens if you find your name on the CheaterU list at your school? You cannot request to take down the post, but you can enter McGibney’s sister site Karmaville.com where you can take a course on how to be a better partner and upon graduating, you will have the entry pertaining to you taken down. 

Typical posts include a picture, name, age, sexual orientation, location, gender, height, weight, eye color, hair color, education level, occupation and, now, the school the cheater attended. This is a lot of information for one site to post about an individual who has no control of posting, but McGibney doesn’t think this is a breach of privacy. “Posts are specific and clear… Cheaterville isn’t about blasting people, it’s about warning people,” he defended. 

The creator also assured that there will be a portal for LGBT cheaters as well. 

Honestly, the site reminds me of a scarlet letter system where society can chastise infidelity publicly. Responding to this accusation McGibney stated, “It’s simple. If you don’t want to land on Cheaterville, don’t cheat.” He also  reiterated the importance of consensual relationships where there is a lot of communication, which is a concept that should be applied to any relationship.

So what does this mean for students in college, where non-monogamous open relationships are common and one partner’s “cheating” is another partner’s “benefits”?  It means we have just one more social media site to worry about. 

So is Cheaterville the newest way to cyber-bully, or the best way to date safely? Does a dating site belong in school systems, or is romance a natural part of college life? I think CheaterU is a combination of all these things and will hold a whole new bunch of ramifications on college life when the college-friendly site officially opens in May.