Juicier than celebrity tabloids and more addictive than heroin, Wesleyan’s Anonymous Confession Board (ACB) has claimed many a victim. Few have managed to avoid its gossipy grasp, and those who have succumbed to it require a heavy dosage, lest withdrawal sets in. This dependency made the twenty-four-hour ACB outage last week particularly dreadful for a select few.
“I was definitely wigging out when the ACB was down,” said Anonymous Student X, referring to the outage. “That was at the peak of my addiction, and it had almost reached 5,000 comments so it was a huge let down for me.”
“I freaked out,” said Anonymous Student Y, commenting on the same ACB disappearance. “I felt like there was nothing to do online. That’s what I do when I’m bored: I check the ACB.”
When asked about the amount of time spent on the Confession Board, X claimed to spend at least 15 minutes of each hour reading and commenting anonymously. Other students, such as Anonymous Student Z, were slightly more erratic in the amount of time spent on the ACB.
“About half the days, I never even check it,” Z said. “When I do read the ACB, it’s usually for 20 minutes to 2 hours. I really didn’t mind all that much when it was shut down for a day.”
Though still highly addicting, many have noticed a few new trends on the Board. Of late, organizations and groups have been advertising certain causes and events. Some people have even signed their names, much to the chagrin of posters.
“When people plug events or ask about things they’ve lost, it annoys me,” Y said.
“I wish people wouldn’t post events on the ACB,” X said. “That’s what Wesleying is for, but in all honesty, more people probably read the ACB.”
When asked about the issue of anonymity, ACBers have a mixed reaction.
“I hate when people get too specific or post their names. The best part is deciphering whether or not people are talking about you. It’s a game we all play. It’s also funny how everyone thinks everyone else doesn’t read the board, then they post about someone and the next day they [are confronted],” X said.
Y has a similar story, involving people mentioning her by name.
“There are rumors on there about me. Someone thought I was a lesbian and asked about it, and then a whole thread started,” Y said.
As for whether or not the ACB is “truly” anonymous, X put forth a theory based on months of experience.
“There is an ACB clique of sorts,” X said. “Everyone on the ’in’ knows which posts are bullshit, and there are a lot of them. It’s easy to pick out people by their syntax after a while, too.”
Of course, not all ACBers agree.
“There’s no real ACB clique, but there certainly are heavy ACB lurkers. It’s a relatively small amount of the campus that posts…As for true anonymity, there really is no way for someone to figure out who you are based on anything other than content,” Z said.
New to the ACB is the ACC, or Anonymous Confession Chat, where individuals assume a new online name every time they enter, allowing anonymous confessions in real time.
“The ACC, active mostly between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m., requires you to assume a handle, and many people return with the same handle and continue,” Z said.
The issue of continued online names irritates other ACC users, who feel that it compromises the anonymity of the Chat.
“I hate when people stay logged in all day or don’t change their handles,” X said. “It beats the anonymity, the real purpose of the chat. I’ve changed my handles as much as seven times in one day just to keep the chat on its toes. I’ve even been logged in as multiple users at one; that was fun.”
Whether or not the ACB really is anonymous, there is a general consensus among the posters that things are not changing for the better.
“I hear it used to be more like PostSecret when it started out,” Y said, referring to the now famous collection of anonymous postcard confessions, which originated online but have since been collected in print. “Now it’s less confession and more of people being dumb.”
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