Juicy, Hilarious Gossip, or Passive Aggressive Depression?
New School Secrets, an anonymous confessions page created on Facebook in April 2013, has become one of the most unifying entities at our institution, successfully bringing students across the entire university together. I’ll admit, when I first heard about New School Secrets, I was a little too eager to read students’ anonymous gossip, complaints and opinions. I was also enthusiastic to finally get a sense of the university’s culture.
New School Secrets has indeed succeeded in creating an interesting picture of the New School community — a depressing, bitter and vicious kind of picture.
A majority of the secrets posted on the Facebook page are hateful rants towards fashion students and roommates, confessions of regret of attending The New School, cries of loneliness, disclosures of depression, eating disorders and thoughts of suicide and confessions of monetary struggles, often met with malicious, ignorant comments questioning why “poor” people even come to The New School if they’re going to complain all of the time.
A small percentage of the posts are actually hilarious. For example, number 608, “If I’m too lazy to pee in the urinal I’ll just pee in the paintbrush sinks around Parsons,” and number 691, “I fart all the time in the streets of Manhattan because New York is already so loud and so smelly that no one will know.”
Some posts even express appreciation of the university, such as student Joe Parshall’s post, “No secrets, just wanted to publicly mention the fact that the school has helped me grow immensely as a person and as an artist in the last year. I know we don’t always get along as a student body but damn, you all inspire me to better myself.”
It’s just too bad that I had to spend about five minutes scrolling through immense negativity to find those four remotely happy posts.
“Everyone is so depressing,” said BA/BFA student, Kunsu Kim. “I feel like it’s a haven for people to glorify their imagined suffer story.”
A university’s secrets page should serve as fun entertainment, something to make students laugh and help them to see the school community in a unique way; it should be a distraction, but not an emotionally draining distraction.
“It’s healthy in a way, because you’re sharing your story and maybe you can find someone who can relate to you, but you’re still anonymous so its kind of like running backwards,” said Kim.
The act of sharing struggles and hardships to find support from peers is a great way to cope with stressful situations, but the concept of anonymity works against the original intent to connect and relate to others. How can you truly establish any legitimate relationships or connections if no one knows who you are?
Medical Daily published an article in August 2013 about a study conducted by the University of Michigan confirming this. Dr. Ethan Koss, lead author of the study and social psychologist at the university, said, “On the surface, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for fulfilling the basic human need for social connection. But rather than enhance well-being, we found that Facebook use undermines it.”
It’s no secret that a constant viewing of negativity could contribute to lower self-esteem and a decrease in happiness altogether. Having a university confessions page may also be unhealthy because it encourages passive-aggressive behavior instead of promoting healthy social and problem-solving skills. Posting a senseless rant on Facebook about a serious problem often leaves people with a false sense of closure. Venting about a roommate online instead of actually confronting and solving the problem creates a situation that is nearly impossible to navigate.
The New School might not be the most spirited, community-oriented university, but there are still many opportunities for students to come together besides social networking sites, such as basketball games, intramural sports, free exercise classes, community dinners, etcetera. A public forum, or even a simple Lang Cafe event providing students with the opportunity to express similar frustrations, would be more productive.
Gossiping over social networking can be liberating, but it also encourages hateful interactions and bullying, because there are no immediate consequences. On top of this, social networking will never replace the vitality of real life relationships and tangible social interactions. These things are imperative to the happiness and durability of our community.
NiQyira is currently an Arts in Context major at the New School. She joined The Free Press in Fall 2013 and enjoys writing for all four of its sections. NiQyira aims to pursue a career in photo journalism, traveling while using photography and writing to explore other cultures. She would like to write for a magazine like National Geographic one day. NiQyira's hobbies include being the sweatiest girl in the gym, wandering the city with a camera, watching cartoons, writing and eating too much peanut butter.
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