Confession #1707: “I’m a freshman and I only cried twice. This week.”
University confessions, and other forms of “confession” pages, have become ubiquitous on Facebook and social media as a whole. As their popularity suggests, they can be seriously entertaining.
The UBC Confessions page, which has an impressive 16,526 likes, encourages students to “inbox us your most heart felt, disgusting, hilarious, filthy, and embarrassing confessions from UBC!”, assuring that “they will be posted ANONYMOUSLY on [the] page.” The title of this blog post is an example of such. Anonymity is clearly a major motivator for contributors, for it provides a means to reveal controversial, humiliating, or deeply personal stories or sentiments with zero accountability. I highly doubt someone would want to admit “I was too lazy to do my laundry so I went commando for a week” (confession #1614 on the UBC page) to the general public if their name was also revealed. However, this feature can be considered a double-edged sword, for not all confessions are harmless.
The popularity of these pages can most likely be attributed to the voyeuristic motivations behind most media consumers—a subject discussed in Carolyn Miller and Dawn Shepard’s analysis of the weblog. People are inherently fascinated by and want to gain access to others’ private lives. While their research was focused on studying blogs, similar reasoning can be applied to help explain the appeal of these anonymous, secret-sharing forums.
The crumbling barriers between what is public and private and the growing popularity of exhibitionism in media, both phenomenons Miller and Shepard discuss, are apparent aspects of the “confessions” trend. While it’s obvious why people would be fascinated by others’ secrets, why are people so willing to share intimate or self-incriminating information in the first place? One explanation could be that with a certain number of “likes” and comments on individual posts, popular confessions have the potential to achieve “celebrity” within the community of viewers. Comments on posts, which are not anonymous, have the opportunity to gain notoriety as well. Consequentially, these motivators help promote active participation, for many people try to gain attention—even when it’s uncredited—through their contributions to a particular page.
Confessions are nothing new in Western society, but through social media, the potential for the mass contribution and consumption of these personal declarations has reached unprecedented levels. Is the practice of sharing secrets on social media just a trend, or does it have the potential to evolve into something more?
Do you follow the “UBC Confessions” page? What purposes do you think it serves for both individual students and the UBC community as a whole?
Leigha,
I enjoyed reading your post! I follow the page, and I never put much thought into the purposes and hidden intentions behind it. Sometimes, I see posts and they seem so far fetched, I can’t believe they are true. Almost as if people had lied about it. Do you think the desire to have the “most scandalous” post is driving people to lie? How could that be if they are just anonymous? Just throwing that out there!
Hi Leigha,
I really enjoyed reading your post as I too can relate to the pure enjoyment that comes from reading anonymous UBC confessions. What I find most entertaining (and relieving as well) is reading confessions that I can relate to, those that make me realize that I’m not the only one struggling through a certain aspect of university life. For example, confession #1729: “I wish I read my textbooks as much as I read the UBC Confessions page…” This page serves the purpose of amusement, but it also provides a sense of unity and community amongst such a large population of students that would not be as strong otherwise.
Thanks again for sharing such an interesting perspective on anonymity!
Hi Leigha,
I enjoyed how your post explored UBC Confessions. I have never read UBC Confessions, but after reading your post, I am inspired to look at this site more deeply and draw parallels between people’s posts as life narratives. I feel UBC confessions is an outlet for students to share their thoughts with the comfort of anonymity. For the UBC community, I feel this site is a unique way for readers to be able to empathize with someone. In your title, “Confession #1707: “I’m a freshman and I only cried twice. This week,” another freshman could have read this and have been in the same situation. I feel the reader would be reassured that they are not in this position alone, and through this connection- that is when I believe confession sites like you mentioned, “have the potential to evolve into so much more.” than just embarrassing confessions.
Thanks for the incredible post!
Tara
Hey everyone!
Sorry about the delay in response, I really appreciated reading your comments and insights! Tara-I hadn’t read UBC Confessions before either! It’s interesting how we both must have considered it in a different light after reading the Miller & Shepard article. I agree with you and Jasmine as well, a lot of the posts have the ability to bring people together and let them know they’re not alone in many aspects. Addressing doubts about school, personal ability, and other things of the sort is a lot easier when knowing they’re other people out there who are facing similar issues and feel the same way about them. And Camille I agree with you! A lot of that stuff has to be made up. There’s no way to know for certain though, which I suppose makes the lies as effective as the truthful posts?
Thanks again for your responses!
Leigha