The Anonymous Students Behind the BC Confessions Page

BC Confessions is the latest procrastination trend that has swept over our campus.  Students can (and do) spend hours pouring over their fellow students’ admissions, affirmations, and other sorts of declarations, ranging from extremely funny to very serious.

HCBC had a chance to anonymously interview the creators of the Facebook page, and try and gain some insight into their mysterious behind the scenes workings.

HCBC: Where did you come up with the idea?
One night, Tufts Confessions came up on one of our news feeds, and we immediately tried to see if BC had one—and it didn’t exist.  So we just decided to start it ourselves, and figured BC’s page would be better than Tufts’.

How do you decide which ones shouldn’t be posted?
We have some general guidelines of what we do and do not post.  We try not post any confessions that are insulting to anyone or revealing of any personal information.  We also try to avoid statements of opinion, which we got a lot of during campaign season and the BCSSH controversy.

Approximately how many confessions do you get in a day?
At the peak we were getting 400-500 confessions a day, but now we are close to a steady 100 per day.  There also always seem to be an influx of confessions later in the night, a sure sign of procrastination.

How do you manage the influx of posts?
Originally there were only two of us, but once the page blew up it was impossible for us to keep up, so we outsourced to Bedroom B of our suite, and had our roommate help out.  We take turns doing the posting and try to update it whenever we get a little bit of free time.  One of us tried to write a computer program to automate the posting process, but we realized it would make us unable to screen the submissions before posting them, so we scrapped the idea.

Do your friends know it’s you?
Yes, most of our good friends know, but we don’t go out of our way to tell people.

What was the funniest/your favorite confession?
We each have our own favorites…
“I’ve used the excuse that I go to BU three times to escape being written up.”
“My mom is obsessed with BC confessions”
“Sorry, but eating chicken fingers at late night would have been so much more pleasurable than hooking up with you.”

Do you get any negative or positive feedback from people?
We’ve gotten a fair amount of both, along with some helpful feedback from administration.  Some of the negatives range from “Why didn’t my confession get posted?” to “This page is too much like ‘like-a-little.”  Also, The Heights gave us a Thumbs Down for the “Confession Obsession,” which was particularly devastating.  As far as good feedback goes, we’ve gotten a few anonymous submissions thanking us for making the page or saying how it has challenged them to be less judgmental of the people they see walking around on campus, which we see as a positive effect of the page.

Did you expect to garner this large of a following?
More or less…in the beginning we knew it was just a matter of time before it blew up, but when it did it was still a pleasant surprise.  We seriously underestimated how much time this would eventually consume and how much responsibility we were going to have as admins.

Are you surprised at the amount of advice/help fellow eagles are providing for each other?
Yes and no.  No because the whole premise of the page was for people to confess anonymously about struggles and have people comment supportively.  Yes because it’s just always great to see someone go out of their way to help another person, even if it’s just through a little Facebook comment.

Have you ever posted a confession/what is your confession?
Yes, but you’ll never guess which one.  Someone actually submitted a confession saying “I am the creator of BC confessions” and it was posted because each of us thought that a different one of us was the one who submitted it, and we eventually realized it was just a random person.

What’s it like when you receive a confession about one of you (if you have)?
We haven’t received many, but all the confessions about us so far have been from our friends just trying to mess around with us because they know we see them before we post it.  At this point we immediately become suspicious of our friends if our names come up in any of the submissions.

How do you decide when to intervene on specific posts/debates?
We try to avoid commenting under anyone’s confessions regardless of how much we may agree or disagree with it to keep the page as unbiased as possible.  Occasionally when someone submits a particularly troubling confession, we will post information regarding places where they may be able to find help.

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