I had a rocky transition into college. My social life and general feeling of belonging on campus were struggling before everything shut down due to the pandemic, and in subsequent years, I have still sometimes felt like I exist on the periphery of my school, even when I’m surrounded by people. I won’t pretend to be the most social of butterflies, whether that’s in person or on social media, but I do like to feel connected to others. This is where, to me, the Fizz app is most convenient.
I’ve heard many comparisons between Fizz and YikYak, even using the easy analogy in my own conversations about the app, but the key differences are in Fizz’s commitment to keeping the platform closed to verifiable members of the school community and to keeping abuse off the platform by utilizing AI moderation, as well as a team of roughly fifteen students per school who can use their more specific knowledge of their campus in order to determine whether a post violates the app’s guidelines.
It would be irresponsible of me to treat the app like an official, reliable news source, but it’s helped me feel more knowledgeable about campus happenings, especially given that I’m someone who tends to stick to the familiar. I’ve posted a few times myself, mainly polls to see what my peers think on topics that I either have a very strong opinion on or am just curious about. Seeing posts from people sharing similar emotions reminds me that just because I haven’t had the college experience I envisioned in my younger years, it doesn’t mean I’m somehow abnormal or defective.
That being said, Fizz is messy. It can be super messy, no doubt because of how liberating the guarantee of anonymity can be. At any given moment, you can expect to see arguments in the comments section, Greek life callout posts, and the most random, out-of-pocket, sexually explicit confession that has a 50/50 chance of being a joke. People post their crush’s initials and graduation years like a secret code, and others use the platform to vent about the behavior of professors and other campus staff.
Is it all in good fun? Not by any means. I’ve had to report posts that encouraged bullying or discrimination against certain groups of people, and I recently took a break from checking the app after a string of fatphobic posts that negatively impacted my mood. People get really bold when they know they won’t be directly held accountable, and while I understand that my engagement with the app is voluntary, I want to be able to connect with my classmates without feeling like the next post I scroll to might be unnecessarily upsetting.
Fizz is growing in popularity, which means the more people join, the more mess there will be, whether it’s funny, shocking, or crosses a line. I’m somewhere in the center of the gradient between excited and scared, but I’m also grateful that Fizz has made me feel more integrated into campus life during my final year.