Author: Ella Fornari
Occidental students love to spill their souls. Their anonymous souls. Their apparently really horny anonymous souls.
Since the Facebook page “Oxy Confessions” started last year, students have become obsessed with keeping up-to-date on the postings of their anonymous peers. The content of the confessions is fairly split between sexually frustrated co-eds and students with real confessions and thoughts about real campus issues. There are also clearly some trolls.
Here’s a non-anonymous confession: I loathe anonymous confessions. Another non-anonymous confession: I read them anyway.
Anonymous confession sites, whether on Tumblr, Facebook or elsewhere, are not unique to Occidental and are published in some iteration on most American college campuses. The trend of these sites is yet another manifestation of Internet culture. The Internet is all about anonymity; just ask the National Security Agency (NSA). The perceived anonymity students are afforded by posting to the “Oxy Confessions” Google form has made students admit to and bring up things that they would otherwise never share.
The result of giving Occidental students anonymity sounds a lot like something from “Mean Girls,” specifically the scene where the students absolve themselves of the lies they have told about each other and trust fall (or actually fall) into a crowd of supportive (or unsupportive) peers. Many posts on the site also leave me asking myself: “Do they even go here?”
Regardless of the ubiquitous sharing of personal information propagated by social media, students likely find comfort posting anonymously in “Oxy Confessions” because it’s the only place they can find breathing room from the suffocating effect of going to a school of 2,123 students.
To the sexually frustrated posters, try getting off of Facebook and into the real world. Posting anonymously about your attraction to the girl or guy with the eyes, nose and ears leaves you at square one, square one being no human contact. Regardless of this light-hearted suggestion, kids will be kids.
The group confessing real insights and concerns about campus politics and life at Occidental seem to be only willing to express their opinions anonymously, most likely as a result of students claiming to be intimidated by the college’s “PC” culture. Because these students are otherwise uncomfortable expressing their feelings about Occidental for fear of criticism, the “Oxy Confessions” page acts as a kind of judgment-free forum. These students can use their anonymity on “Oxy Confessions” to gauge a reaction on their opinion, but they should learn to be accountable and actively discuss these issues on campus. After all, anonymous complaints are unaccountable complaints.
Not all concerns and insights shared on the site are easy ones to make publicly. Some posts are very serious in nature, including a student this week who admitted to having thoughts of suicide. This post was met with over 20 non-anonymous comments from fellow students who urged the poster to message, email or call them if they wanted to talk to someone. Many also commented information about campus resources that could help this individual.
Even though this was an extremely serious and productive case of an “Oxy Confession,” upon seeing this I could not help but imagine a campus where this student could feel comfortable admitting this to someone in person; admitting this to someone who knew who they were.
Ella Fornari is a sophomore Media Arts and Culture and biology double major. She can be reached at fornari@oxy.edu or on Twitter @WklyEFornari.
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