Olsen site dupes many on campus

Did you think that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, better known as Michelle Tanner from Full House, were going to be members of Penn's Class of 2007? If your answer is yes, you are not alone -- many students were fooled into thinking that the Olsen twins might soon become their neighbors in the Quad, their sorority sisters or their dates for a fraternity formal. But how were so many Ivy League students tricked into believing that the Olsens were going to become Quakers? Students obtained their information from a seemingly reliable source -- a Web page that contained the backdrop of the actual CNN World site, complete with working links. The page featured an article that announced the Olsens' decision to pursue a degree at Penn and escape the distractions of Hollywood. However, the Web site was a fake -- the news was brought to students not by CNN, but by Engineering junior Robert Lavan who created the faux Web site on Monday night. College sophomore Lauren Eveland heard of the rumor from a friend. "I was kind of getting pumped," she said. "We need some celebrities at this school." Lavan got the idea from a friend of his at Northwestern University, who had already created a site claiming that the Olsens were off to Illinois. He added that he had seen similar sites originating from the University of Maryland and Duke University. Lavan admitted that he thought creating a Web site stating that West Philly was the Olsens' location of choice would be a "funny thing to do," so he posted the fake news page link onto his AOL Instant Messenger away message Monday night and went to bed. The next day, rumors were already circulating, and by Tuesday night, over 7,000 people -- from Maryland to the Netherlands -- had accessed the link. Word that the Olsens were coming to Penn spread all over campus and even got back to Lavan. "I was sitting in class, and someone was arguing with me and telling me that it was true," Lavan said. Students got wind of the Web site and e-mailed the link to friends and even sent it out to listservs. "At first I fell for it, but then I realized it was fake," College and Wharton sophomore Jan Supawong said. But Lavan's rumor wasn't the only Olsen gossip that had been spreading around campus. "I heard that they were going to Penn State," College sophomore Gina Geheb said. According to a rumor heard by Engineering freshman Rachel Allen, one of the twins was going to be a student at the Wharton School and the other didn't get in. "I heard a rumor that there's only one of them," Nursing freshman Maryellen Guinan said. Lavan, who has been making Web sites since he was 13 years old, said that constructing his fake site was easy and that it was something he did simply out of boredom. Several students, however, described Lavan's efforts to create a fake CNN site as "pathetic." Regardless of this sentiment, Lavan's site reached many Penn students and even made them double check to see if the site was legitimate by searching the real CNN Web site World page. Lavan explained that this Olsen frenzy shows that "everybody hopes that a celebrity will come here and hang out with them." College sophomore Brad Sawchuk took it upon himself to explain his interest in passing the Olsens on Locust Walk. "They're kind of hot," he said, grinning widely.

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