French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese are just a few examples of romance languages — but the conversation in the romance studies Listserv was anything but romantic.
On Friday, May 28, students subscribed to the romance studies Listserv were bombarded with hundreds of emails.
The romance studies Listserv is used to distribute academic information about courses and study abroad programs to students enrolled in romance studies courses.
Ashley Logue, a first-year political science major, said the incident started when someone asked to be removed from the Listserv with “reply all” enabled. Hundreds of additional emails were then sent in the same chain, and new chains were created.
“Tons of other people were asking to be unsubscribed,” she said. “People then started exchanging social media and talking about memes.”
But the emails didn’t stop that evening. Recent graduate Cameryn Gonzalez-Gibbs said the nonstop notifications continued well into Monday night.
“My phone was bugging out because I had never got that many notifications so consistently before,” she said. “It had been vibrating for ten minutes straight.”
The massive influx of emails made viewing any other exchanges on Outlook impossible. Logue said she couldn’t tell if any important information was hidden in between the email chain notifications.
Students are signed up for Listservs automatically based on the classes they have taken, regardless of whether or not they have a major or minor in the subject.
