Gemma Joyce reflects on the University’s support of the recent decision to shut down the Student Confessions Facebook page
Anyone with even the slightest predisposition to poo-poo humour has likely sought out or been linked to the ever popular online “Student Confessions” pages that are updated regularly with tales of drunkenness and debauchery for universities nationwide.
From the elaborately narrated (and likely fictitious) accounts of drunken nights spent cross-dressing, hitchhiking, trespassing, estate patrol hassling or being attacked by badgers, to disasters in the bedroom with your lecturer’s offspring, the majority of “Student Confessions”, most of which ending with excrement on the walls, floor or other people, are not for those made queasy easily. However, when the essays are stacking up and you chance a glance at your Facebook timeline the appeal of these pages is, of course, huge. I have no shame in admitting sometimes I’d prefer to have a little giggle at how some anonymous fool soiled their unfortunate flat mate’s bath mat than trawl through Marx’s Communist Manifesto.
Students have, though, been advised to abstain from sharing stories of their tomfoolery online. It’s not hard to see how these pages contradict the picture painted of students in the university prospectus. But, is there really any harm in a bit of light-hearted story telling?
I say no. Anyone put off applying to Exeter because of the “Student Confessions” pages will likely be put off going to any university in the country with access to the Internet. Do I think it’s a good idea to send in stories that might harm the reputation of the university? No. But I am also not in the business of denying freedom of speech, creativity and a bit of joking around when I need a break from coursework.
The natures of some of the confessions are distasteful, (see anything with ‘LAD’ in the comment section). Careless sex, violence and vandalism, around which some of the tales are centred, are causes for concern in student life. Do these pages glorify misdemeanour?
Herein lies the issue. Anyone able or willing to brag (even anonymously) about their involvement in the above idiocies is, of course, a moron. Stories of this kind, in my opinion, ruin the humour of these pages (unless they are blatantly untrue – in which case I like to laugh at the idiots who send them in).
The University is right to discourage involvement in these kinds of behaviour, but whether they are right to condemn anyone involved in the pages, as a whole is debatable. They are, as the administrators often stress, just meant as a bit of fun after all. Perhaps if stories that did ‘glorify’ the disrespecting of others for entertainment didn’t make it through to publication there would be no problem, but it is wrong to say that “Student Confessions” can’t play a part in enriching student life – if we can’t laugh at ourselves and each other (even if the story was induced from only two Jaeger-bombs, not seven, and they weren’t really wearing a silly hat when they called Jamie Laing a prick in Arena), then what can we laugh at?
Gemma Joyce
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