"It was Me" Said Anonymous

Confession pages have moved out of slam books and into Facebook. To help you get on board with the trend, Razi Shaikh takes you through the various levels of college confessions

If cowering behind computer screens and pretending to lord over the virtual world is your thing, then look no further! Presenting the place to confess and discuss your deepest desires, the college confessions page – now on Facebook. Stuff that was just confined to the school’s yearbooks, or in shuddering minds, has now made it way to cyberspace and in quite a rebellious fashion. Colleges and schools, unknown to themselves, have taken a fetish for these pages as soon as they were deemed ‘trending’ by the social media pundits. So how do you participate? Here is a picture-perfect way of going about it the way the tweens and teens, and all those refusing to step out of adolescence, pour out their feelings on Facebook, the anonymous way.

Level 1
Look around your college campus. Do you feel subjected to a lack of popularity or have a tiff which you can’t do much about? You still won’t be popular but you can plot a sinister plan to get back at the ones who you hate for some reason, and more importantly, the ones you hate for no reason. All it takes is a single post to get started. Alternatively, if you did something crazy within the college campus and no one knows about it, chances are that you want to tell the whole world but can’t risk getting thrown out of college. Here is your perfect opportunity to tell everyone your secret and still keep it your own.

Level 2
You can say a prayer of thanks to the admin of your college’s confessions page. Never mind that the admin, when creating the page, had contrary ideas about its creation. Something on the lines that it would create a sene of nostalgia in the alumni and create some fun for collegians on Facebook. Instead, it has become a  sort of public forum where you can rant and rave about everything that the college has done and denied its students. A few good souls may have a few better things to add about the institution but that’s disregarded. You see, the ‘anonymous’ tag usually brings out the worst in people.

Level 3
As has been chronicled through the ages, right from Romeo to the current day roadside Romeos, asking a person out is hard, to put it mildly. Harder to explain is the logic behind asking out online by shouting it out on a public page. But being anonymous has its perks. Gather the guts to tell them how you feel and you can continue to lament about the lovethat-never-was but feel good about getting it out of your system.

Level 4
Now that you’re done patting yourself on the back for having submitted your post, it’s time to sit back and wait for the comments with the same level of eagerness that befits fooddeprived beings. In an attempt to soothe their egos, someone is bound to comment with their own perspective on the post, only to inspire some corresponding replies. Feel free to join in if you have anything to say, but if you don’t find the need to comment, simply grab a tub of your favourite popcorn and savour the fights. Facebookers with nothing more constructive to do are sure to draw other people into long discussions.

Level 5
College’s reputation? Who cares? It’s not exactly opening Pandora’s Box when you say that you’ve made out or got drunk in your institute. But doing that in school and then washing your dirty linen in public won’t do any good for your  college. You may love or hate it but the least you can do is not to leave its reputation in tatters. Stuff which is best described as an ‘open secret’ should be kept that way instead of being flagged on social media platforms. Let’s be honest people, we may not love everyone in college or school and that can’t be helped. But squabbling in public, ranting about your professors and ruining the prestige of your institution isn’t exactly the cool thing to do. Done in the right spirit and taken in that sense as well, these pages can be a hotspot for entertainment and joy.

Confessions? Good or Bad?

Srinidhi Iyer, 18, FYBA student
It’s the new ‘ in’ thing and its fun to read a few of these confessions. But sometimes, it can become quite personal, turning into insulting or hurtful stuff.

Percy Karat, 18, media student
It’s good for those timid people who want to express their views or confess their feelings. It’s entertaining as long as it doesn’t go against you.

Phalin Shah, 19, social media professional
It’s fun to an extent. Lately, a lot of my WhatsApp conversations have been centred on who likes whom and who b**ched what about someone. I feel these pages have made Facebook more interesting. You can discuss or laugh together  over a confession. The virality will die soon; confessions will get boring but let’s enjoy the fun while it lasts!

Trupti Panicker, professor, Ruia College
Personally, the idea of the confessions page is fantastic as each confession brings back the memories of our own college days. At the same time, people should exercise basic common sense when using the college’s name.

 

Volume 2 Issue 10