Bartlett Dirt

Bartlett Dirt is Bartlett High School’s gossip publication, a school rag whose website is described as spreading across the internet. Its coverage turns students’ private crises into public stories: it sensationalizes the bell-tower rescue and later ranks students by presumed suicide risk, even as practical prevention information struggles to attract attention.

Identity and Reach

The publication is characterized as a gossip rag with its own website, apparently expanding its reach beyond the school. Its online presence and attention-grabbing material make it a conspicuous part of the students’ information environment, where a story can become a subject of general conversation.

Coverage of the Bell-Tower Rescue

After Theodore Finch saves Violet Markey from the bell tower, Bartlett Dirt posts the headline “Senior Hero Saves Crazy Classmate from Bell Tower Jump.” The students are not named, but the post includes a photograph of Violet wearing Eleanor’s glasses and another of Theodore Finch. By turning the rescue into a sensational headline and pairing it with identifiable images, the publication makes the incident publicly legible while withholding the students’ names.

Ranking and Its Consequences

Bartlett Dirt later publishes a list naming the school’s ten students it considers most likely to die by suicide, placing Theodore Finch first. The ranking reaches Violet through repeated phone notifications. In contrast, Jordan Gripenwaldt, editor of the school paper, fills its front page with information about teen suicide and how to seek help, but Violet observes that no one is paying attention to it. The juxtaposition shows two forms of publication in the same school: a ranking that attracts notice and a resource-oriented response that goes unread.

Place in the Narrative

The publication’s stories do not remain mere background noise. Violet’s reaction to the ranking becomes evident when an adult raises the Bartlett Dirt article with her: she first deflects the subject, then admits through a cracked voice that it bothers her more than she had let on. Bartlett Dirt’s role is therefore not only to spread gossip but also to make private distress visible in a form that can intensify scrutiny, while offering no comparable account of what support might look like.