Features Reporter
Have you ever wanted to say something to the entire student body of CMU?
It can happen with just the click of an anonymous button. Since Feb. 21 around 8 p.m., CMU students have been doing just that via the Colorado Mesa University Confessions page, a viral social media phenomenon that has allowed students—and anyone else who follows the page—to share their darkest secrets, wildest nights and most private sexual escapades without fear of exposure.
John Marshall, Vice President of Student Services, spoke Friday about the page.
“I don’t see any redeeming qualities to the [CMU Confessions page],” Marshall said. “To me, it’s unsavory material that I haven’t given a lot of attention to. It’s a little bit like graffiti on the inside of a public bathroom. You don’t know who wrote it, you don’t know if it’s true and really, it’s just garbage that generally I think most people ignore.
Marshall emphasized that although the page bears CMU’s name, it is in no way affiliated with the university.
He also pointed out that if students need to communicate anonymously, resources like Behavioral Clinical Services and CrimeStoppers may be more valuable.
“We have an anonymous counseling line, CrimeStoppers and other venues where [students] can say, ‘Hey, something bad happened to me, and I want to report that,’” Marshall said.
The Criterion also reached out to the Confessions Page administrator, who branched out with the Colorado Mesa University Missed Connections page Thursday. Check out the interview below.
Why do you insist on remaining anonymous?
Everyone is completely anonymous under SurveyMonkey, but I feel like a lot of people maybe question it. So I feel like if everyone knows that I’m doing it, and they see a post that they really want to know who it is, they’ll be like, “Hey come on just tell me who it is.” I’m trying to control it so there’s no fights. Like any comments that people are commenting to start fights or calling people names and stuff, I’m taking them off and sending them some feedback. I don’t want some big fight started and for me to seem like the instigator.
Have you ever done anything like this before?
I’ve never actually had my own page that I created, but I love social media. I’m on Facebook all the time, I’m on Twitter, I’m on Instagram. Basically I just learned from bigger schools’ pages, I saw CSU’s and CU’s pages and I noticed that a lot of them had their’s deleted because maybe they weren’t clear enough that they were separate from the school or there were names being used, so maybe people were feeling harassed. At first people were putting names but I just stopped posting those. I have a disclaimer, like I have no affiliation with Colorado Mesa University.
It seems like some of the confessions that are submitted might reflect poorly on CMU. Are you worried about how administration might react to your page?
If it came to that, I hope it would be something like, they’ll terminate my page. I can’t see myself getting in honest trouble for the page. It doesn’t necessarily represent the school. These people might not attend the school. But I could understand why [the administration] wouldn’t be completely happy with it. I’m not too worried. If it goes down, it goes down. It was fun. This isn’t something long term. This trend will be over in a week, if that.
What gave you the idea for the page?
I liked to read the pages from other schools, and I would occasionally search for [a Colorado Mesa University] page. And I was talking to my friend and said, why don’t I just create one?
You’re confident that these posts are entirely anonymous?
There’s no way I can track your comments or anything like that. [SurveyMonkey] is a pretty big company. A lot of commercial and retail companies use it. If it’s something that you’re so concerned about people not knowing, don’t put it on the page. No one’s forcing you to make a confession. I’m not asking anyone to tell really personal stories. Mainly it revolves around funny stories. Like, don’t tell me you have cancer.
Are you worried that this might somehow get out of hand?
It’s gotten harder to control. I’ve been struggling with what I should and shouldn’t allow. I had an issue where people weren’t understanding that you had to go through the SurveyMonkey link, and they posted directly to the page and it wasn’t anonymous, and that started a huge fight with [these] girls, and people continue to put confessions relating to that, but I just don’t post them.
Tell me more about that instance.
It was funny. She posted directly to the page, saying the lacrosse girl’s team should focus more on lacrosse and less on doing some other sexual things. I commented on that saying “please use the link to remain anonymous, I’m not responsible for your comments if you don’t post it on the anonymous link.” I don’t want people thinking that you post it to me and I somehow make it anonymous. If you don’t post it on the anonymous [SurveyMonkey] link, then that’s you. It’s not anonymous. Most people after that actually started using the link. It wasn’t a big deal, it kinda died down from there. I didn’t delete it, she deleted it.
Are you willing to accept responsibility if someone’s identity is somehow revealed after posting something embarrassing on your page?
I’ll take as much responsibility as what the page is disclosing. What people know outside of the page I have absolutely no control of. I mean, I’ve seen stories that I recognize. It might not say who they are, but I know who they are because I’ve heard about them on campus. I’m only responsible for what the page reveals. If somehow [my page] starts revealing names, I will take full responsibility for it. If someone posts a confession of a story they they’ve already told to 30 other people and it somehow gets them in trouble, then no, I wouldn’t take any responsibility for that.
What if something really disturbing gets submitted to the SurveyMonkey?
I’ve thought about that. It’s probably my biggest concern. I’ve posted my rules, but they’re pretty ignored. Like, don’t tell me you’re depressed or whatever, this is for fun. But I did worry, what if someone posts like, “I’ve been thinking of killing myself,” or “I want to shoot up the school” or anything that’s beyond my control. Even though I can’t tell who they are, the most I can probably do for them is tell the authorities. I feel like I have some responsibility to do that. I have worried about that, but thankfully I haven’t gotten anything that serious, it’s basically just sex and drinking stories.
I’m not trying to be a counselor to anyone. I don’t know if maybe the police might have some form of finding out [who posted a confession], but I can’t send that person a personal message, I can’t do anything like that. Even though I can’t tell the authorities who it is, I’d probably have to report it. I feel a responsibility to say something.
What was your initial goal for this page?
It has achieved what I really thought it could become. Like, the CSU page has 800 likes, the CU page has like 1,000. I thought it’d be cool if it got big like that and became something our school could share too. Honestly the Harlem Shake got me interested in all of this, like let’s put our school on the map. And I thought, it’d be really cool if I could create it and I could manage this. And how fun is that for me? I’m the first one that gets to see these confessions all day, I don’t have to check the page or anything, and it became the major CMU confessions page. I was worried about other pages competing against me. But I’m the only one, so that was kind of cool.
How did you advertise the page to get it off the ground?
I started the page, and I told one friend. He shared it to three people, and I shared it with 15 people, not telling them that it was me. In the span of an hour it had 100 likes, but there was only two confessions, but then right after [the page broke] 100 likes, I would refresh, five confessions. Refresh, 15 confessions. Refresh, 25.
Have you ever read a confession that made you think, ‘I really want to know who that is’?
Yeah. There’s a lot of them. There was on where they said that last year they went around Tolman and knocked on busy rooms and saying they were RA’s and confiscating their alcohol. That one was really funny. There was a guy who said he had gonorrhea. He said he’s been sexually active lately, and he just tested positive.
Do you feel any responsibility to do something about a guy who’s possibly infected people with an STI and might not be doing anything about it?
I can’t help them. I don’t see what me posting it or not posting it helps or doesn’t help. In the sense of, somebody wants to kill themselves, if I inform someone, something can possibly be done.
Is there any circumstance in which you can see yourself completely abandoning this project?
Maybe if people kept posting just straight to the page and I just had to keep deleting them. But for the most part there’s nothing I don’t have control over. You can say anything you want, but if I don’t like it, I’m not going to post it. But if people are ignoring the anonymous part and just posting straight to the page and starting fights, I might have to delete the page. I don’t want to be part of some big bullying lawsuit because I ran the page, or because I was the one who published or I didn’t delete the comment.
If someone found out who you are, how do you think their opinion of you might change?
You can’t control anyone’s opinion. I’m not worried about that. But we’re not the only school that does it. I’m following a trend. It’s something I saw that other schools were doing. If someone can’t take a joke or see that it’s just a Facebook page that college students are telling funny stories on, then I’m not too concerned about what those people think.
Hypothetically, if your identity was revealed, how would you react?
Let’s just say, if everyone found out it was me, someone said “hey, I know who it is” and posted it on the page, I would think that the majority of people would probably react to it positively. I think the majority of people would be like “hey, cool page, man.” But if I became public, I think I would end the page also.
It sounds like you’re running from something.
I’m running from the possibility of something going wrong. I’m not running from anything that’s going on right now, not anything that I’ve created or anything that I’ve seen right now. Everything that I’ve seen I like, I think it’s funny, but like we talked about, in a situation that’s out of my control, then that’s something that I wouldn’t want to be linked to. If someone put that they were going to [commit suicide] and I was the only person who knew and I didn’t do anything about, then everyone would say, “hey [name of Confessions Page Administrator] knew about it and he didn’t do anything about it.” So I wouldn’t want something in the future affecting me. But as far as, do I think I’m doing anything wrong right now, or do I think I have anything to run from or hide from, no.
But you’re not willing to stand by the page if your identity is revealed? If you’re not doing anything wrong, why would you leave the page?
I’m more concerned about the rest of my life than what this page will do or not do to my reputation. I wouldn’t want to risk my reputation of anything happening because of some Facebook page.
So you’re worried about your reputation?
[Laughs] No. No, I’m not too worried about my reputation to be honest. It sounds like that, but it’s not.
There’s obviously something keeping you from attaching your name to the page.
I think if I put my name to the page then it’ll become, ‘Tell [Admin’s name] Your Problems.’ It takes away from the page, I think. There are people who are not very smart who message the page directly, and obviously I can see who they are, and I have to tell them ‘hey use the [SurveyMonkey] link don’t message me, I don’t want to know who you are.” And then they post it to the link and it’s the same thing and I’m like, ‘I know who that is.’ I don’t want people to be like ‘hey [Admin’s name] put this one’, or I wouldn’t want people to see a confession that didn’t like and come up to me and ask me to delete it. So that’s why I don’t want this to be ‘me’. I want this to be “Colorado Mesa University Confessions.”
Some confessions seem obviously fabricated. Why do you still choose to post them?
It’s a simple policy – Does it make me laugh? I’ll ask my friends, ‘Is this funny?’ and I’ll read it, and they might like it, and I’ll post it or we might not like and I won’t. If it’s outrageous, like above and beyond, like ‘we stole a cop car’ I won’t post it. If it’s so obvious that it’s a lie then I’m not gonna put it. But if it’s possible and it’s funny, or even if it’s not possible but it’s not something that seems harmful, then sure. I mean, this is just for a laugh.
When people read your page, what do you want their reaction to be?
Just laughter. Positive thoughts.
What if you get a good confession that’s more somber-toned? Will you post that?
Depends on if it’s funny. I’ve tried to make as specific as possible that this is for funny confessions. This isn’t church, you’re not confessing your sins. Try to make us laugh, try to tell us a funny story. I’ve posted links to the University of Wyoming [confessions] page, because they had a really, really good page, like essays of these really funny nights, and that’s where I’m trying to go with this. If it’s funny, I’ll probably put it. Some I have an issue with, like I probably won’t post this one:
[The admin reads an anonymous post in his SurveyMonkey inbox.]
“A certain CMU football player was super pissed after his house threw a party and his precious Octoberfest boot went missing. The boot is still sitting in my room after all this time being used as a coin jar.”
When it talks about a “certain football player,” someone knows who this player is. It’s calling for a name to me. I’m not going to put that.
[The admin reads another anonymous post.]
“Last year my roommate started wearing my clothes and stealing my s***. I had enough of it so I pissed in his shampoo bottle. He never found out and he used it. Sorry, not sorry.”
[laughs] Yeah, I’ll post it. I mean, if this guy is that mad that he got piss in his shampoo, take it up with [the anonymous submitter].
So you dislike posts that ‘call people out’ so to speak?
No [I don’t like those posts]. Like, if it’s a compliment, I don’t mind. There was one about how gorgeous number 32 on the basketball team is. I’ll post those. It didn’t say his name, and it’s saying something positive about the kid. If it’s saying like “I know a certain someone is a d***** and all that,” I’m not posting that, I’m not trying to start a fight here.
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