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MSU alumni spread funny texts via Web

June 14, 2009
Photo by Illustration by Laura Evangelista | The State News

If you’ve ever woken up to discover your text message outbox full and your mind a bit hazy on how it got that way, you can probably testify along with other bizarre, bold and dirty texters that a cell phone “send” button has no restrictions.

Whether it’s an embarrassing occurrence or the exposure of quirky habits, TextsFromLastNight.com, a Web site founded in February 2009 by MSU alumni Benjamin Bator and Lauren Leto, allows users to post
outrageous text messages and is quickly becoming a bookmark in browsers everywhere.

“Well, it was kind of the result of a few really good weekends,” Bator said. “Lauren and I would always forward each text … when we’d wake up in the morning. We’d send it to all of our friends, kind of like ‘guess who sent this last night?’”

TFLN began as a blog with posts from the founders and their friends, and after a redesign in April 2009, the site’s popularity grew exponentially, Bator said.

It all started with 517

“Finals week has to be one of the reasons it got big as fast as it did,” Bator said. “I wish we could have the numbers to show how many people have logged on from the MSU library.”

One of the initial increases in page views happened around April 22-23, in line with crunch time for college students all over, Leto said. Since then, the page receives as many as 1.2 million hits daily.

Allison McGreevy, an arts and humanities sophomore, said she visits the site regularly and had no idea it was created by MSU alumni.

“It’s absurd and ridiculous but really funny,” McGreevy said. “I kind of sit in class and just laugh reading it.”

On top of giving some credit to patrons of the MSU’s Main Library for the viral spread of TFLN, Leto said much of the idea’s development can be credited to East Lansing’s bar scene.

“This idea was born out of Lou and Harry’s,” she said. “I think Harry literally gave birth to it.”

Leto said Lou and Harry’s, 245 Ann St., and the Landshark, 101 E. Grand River Ave., were regular hangout spots for the duo, who have been friends since their junior year at MSU.

“We are probably going to have to give them half of our revenue from this year.”

Nation’s dirtiest texters

Each day, Bator and Leto check the site at least 10 times, sort through the thousands of potential posts and select the funniest for publication.

“I’d like to say there is a really complicated algorithm, and we have created this funny meter where it picks out good texts, but usually if it is something that we laugh at, then it goes up,” Bator said.

Because posts are anonymous and the only identification required is an area code, only extremely “grotesque” texts are deemed too dirty, Bator said.

Leto, currently a law student at Wayne State University, said along with reading outrageous text messages, her morning routine includes attempts to justify her job as “the nation’s dirtiest texter” to her parents.

“My mom will send texts to the site — I recognize the 313 (area code) — and she’ll send something like ‘Lauren, this is your mom. Please put nicer texts on that site.’”

Telecommunication, information studies and media junior Richelle Witbrodt said dirtiness aside, she was proud of fellow Spartans for creating such a funny site.

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“I have a file on my computer and I save all of my favorite ones,” she said.

Text from next year

The duo began including advertising on the site in mid–May, but Bator said current revenue is not yet enough to give up on other career goals.

“I’d love it if we could profit and do this forever,” he said. “It’s so new right now, but we are kind of looking into different ways for the site to grow.”

Bator said they hope to expand the site internationally with versions in other languages.

“The U.S. is really far behind in text message popularity,” he said.

“There is a lot more out there. Who knows, there might be a Spanish or Italian Texts From Last Night.”

Currently, TFLN is waiting on approval of an iPhone application and T–shirts with texts from different area codes might happen in the near future, Leto said.

“We gotta do some T–shirts,” she said.

“There was one text that said something like, ‘I think I made out with the entire MSU campus last night.’”

Leto said that text received a number of user comments about which university it was referring too.

She was sure it was her own alma mater and thought it would be a popular T–shirt slogan in East Lansing.

“There was a big debate about which MSU it was,” she said. “You know that has to be Michigan State.”

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