A global online phenomenon, college confession pages are viral at the moment, including in Kathmandu. It’s perhaps the first thing that most students or alumni check on their Facebook pages, and no doubt that it’s the hottest topic in colleges at present. It’s also an example of how individuals will respond to the power of anonymity and an easy access platform to either use or abuse the freedom of expression.[break]
Mohit Rauniyar, Little Angels’ School alumnae, found himself hooked to the Little Angels Confession page. “I regularly check this page, even more so after I posted a confession myself, and a girl confessed that she used to like me for four years, back when we were in school. The posts tell funny as well as interesting stories,” shares Rauniyar. “This page is very active. On an average, there’s at least one post every five minutes. In less than a week, the page has received over 2,000 likes already,” he adds.
The idea is simple. Someone creates a college confession page of a particular college they are or were associated with and takes up the responsibility of administrating it, waiting for confessions from fellow collegians who can anonymously post in their confessions in a Google form. The confessions that come in are then posted on the institution’s Facebook page, to which there’s public access. Although this page isn’t officially owned by the college authorities, the page does use the name of the institution.
The consequences, uncannily, can turn nasty.
According to Ayush Man Tamrakar, President of Kathmandu College of Management (KCM) Student Council, KCM Confession page was one of the first to instigate the fad here in Kathmandu. It’s also one of the first to be shut down, due to orders from the college management after the page started to create havoc. “This idea was a powerful tool which, if it had been used in a better way, could have been something positive,” says Tamrakar who believes that this trend was inevitable. However, when in the hands of the wrong people, things tend to quickly go the other way round.
“People were crossing their limits with the confessions,” shares Tamrakar. He points out that the power to control the direction of the page was in the hands of the admin, but in this case, they had failed to show responsibility and sensitivity.
In a matter of three weeks, for which the page was active, the page managed to disturb the students’ social lives and relationships, says Tamrakar. “People were the same but people’s opinions of other people change,” he opines.
However, Tamrakar isn’t totally against such platforms. “These confession pages are a good thing as it allows people to put down their views without fear. However, the way it was being used was an act of defamation,” he continues.
Elsewhere, too, the scenario seems to be pretty much similar. Posts have been directed to teachers, friends, seniors, college management, and that too by naming names in derogatory terms and abusive language. Since administrators of these pages have their say in what to post and what not to, the responsibility of making this a fun and positive platform is on the administrator’s shoulders. Lack of discretion and filtering from the administrator’s sides can also easily change the atmosphere of the page and the institution itself.
“I started a confessions page for Kathmandu School of Law (KSL) thinking that it would be something fun. And initially, it was fun. There was a lot of previously unseen interaction between seniors and juniors too,” says the admin of KSL Confessions page. “But later, I was flooded with negative posts about teachers, college students and alumni. At first, I posted everything that came in, but later I started being careful about the confessions I made visible on the page,” the admin adds. The admin is now thinking of deactivating the KSL Confessions page.
While there are a majority of students who have been hooked by this page and idea (hence, the spread of it like wildfire), there are those who abhor the idea. “No matter how good the intentions of starting such pages, at the end of the day things will turn unpleasant. People are going to get hurt. In these pages, the level of decency is lacking,” opines Smriti Basnet, 20.
“This trend caught up so quickly because it’s an exciting pastime for most young people. What could be more interesting than being able to read people’s secrets?” says Basnet who wants to keep her distance from such pages. She hasn’t ‘liked’ her high school’s confession page, although she has taken a brief look at it.
Anonymity itself has dual standards. While this invisibility cloak gives the privilege to students to voice their thoughts without having to be fearful of any repercussions, it also can awake their devilish side, and be a free pass to take revenge on or attack their classmates, seniors or teachers on the basis of personal grudges.
Yes, there are also innocent crush confessions, funny school anecdotes and some thought-provoking confessions which altogether promote college sprit. But a large part of these pages are breeding a culture of online bullying and hatred.
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