“Would hit that,” “She bad asf,” and “I call dibs.” These are all very infuriating posts on the anonymous social posting app titled Fizz.
If you don’t already know, Fizz is an anonymous posting app similar to Yik Yak or Reddit. People from the school can join the app and post anonymous posts similar to Twitter about anything they really want.
This includes a post as simple as “Where are the parties at tonight?” or “Our football team sucks.”
The app, like most regressive online trends, has grown popular at schools all over the United States. Its growth has been very apparent at Millikin.
The Instagram for Fizz Millikin has grown from 0 to almost 300 followers within less than a week. This number, even now, is still growing.
The problem with Fizz isn’t its popularity or the amount of time people spend on it; the problem is with what the students are posting and saying on Fizz and the reaction to the post. One of the posts is a picture that an unnamed student posted to their public Instagram page of herself in a bikini.
The caption of the post the anonymous person left reads, “WOULD, also dibs.”
Now, the proper solution to this would simply be to have this removed or not to pay any attention to it if you are not able to remove it.
However, that doesn’t happen.
Instead of a normal, responsible approach, the anonymous person running the Fizz Instagram page posted it to the story and made an official post on their feed, bringing a disgusting action like calling “dibs” on a human out of the anonymous app and putting it on a much more popular and vibrant app.
This issue has not only happened once within the little time that Fizz has been functioning at Millikin, but it has also had about 4-5 majorly popular posts where people are calling dibs on girls or saying that they would have sex with them.
Not only is it disrespectful, but it is also a blatant objectification of women.
If that were the only problem with Fizz, it would be less angering, but sadly, it isn’t. These anonymous students have also turned this anonymous app into a hookup app where they are shamelessly hitting on other students.
These students harass others in direct messages as well as post hookup solicitations, which was not the intended purpose of the app.
The anonymity function works as a shield for toxicity, so students can be overtly disrespectful to their peers. This might be a baseless claim if it weren’t for the fact that this issue isn’t just on the Millikin campus, and it’s not just on Fizz.
This harmful anonymous posting is an issue on other anonymous apps like Whisper and YikYak, but it is also an issue on apps like Twitter and Instagram.
The real question here is, how do we stop this? How do we continue on our day while people are still being treated unfairly?
“Reporting the account should be the first step,” Millikin sophomore Cassidy Culjat said. “If the account was taken down, that would definitely smother any future harassment that might happen. I might consider filing an appeal with the app itself. They have a link under the ‘Community Moderation’ tab on their website where you can do so. This app is definitely not a negative presence on campus, and I think we should be doing whatever we can to get that Instagram account removed.”
She is correct; this is a platform that stands for cyberbullying and harassment, and we shouldn’t stand for it. As a collective, we decide when to take action. We should report harmful content, support those targeted, and support more strict policies.
We must fight cyberbullying and harassment, and our fight continues to ensure a safe campus environment for everyone.
