Behind the Scenes of Vic’s Confession Pages
Words by Janhavi Gosavi (she/her)
CW: brief mentions of paedophillia and sexual assault
When we were kids, we’d pass notes in class and graffiti dirty secrets on bathroom walls. When puberty hit, anonymous forums like Ask.fm became all the rage. But then university came along and something shifted. Instead of moving in small school circles where everybody knew everybody, we became little fish in big ponds of strangers. The need to connect—to be seen, heard, adored, argued with—became more pressing than ever.
That's where VuW: Meaningful Confessions and @vic_uni_confessions come in.
Whether you had a crush on your tutor, hated your landlord, or knew the ideal bathroom to take a dump in on campus, these were the best places to make a university-wide PSA. These two online confession pages scratch our itch for gossip like no other. The first is a Facebook page that boasts over 8300 likes and the second is an Instagram account that has amassed over 3700 followers. While both pages thrive off of publicising the innermost thoughts of our students, the admins themselves have stayed pretty private… until now.
Meet Frank, Tony*, Rose*, and Tyler*—the admins behind VuW: Meaningful Confessions. They all wanted to use pseudonyms, apart from Frank, who didn’t give a shit.
Frank started Meaningful Confessions in 2018. At the time he was a fresher who had seen confession pages created by Otago and Auckland University students, and noticed a gap in the market at VUW. “I just made it to piss around, I wanted to see if it would blow up or not,” he said. The admins described the page as being “by students for students.” In recent times, it's Tony we have to thank for keeping Meaningful Confessions alive. Tony told me he isn’t the most social person, so running this page is his way of staying involved with the community.
I asked the admins what their strategy was for getting good engagement. For Tony, it comes down to being consistent, ensuring the page adheres to Facebook guidelines, and posting confessions that will spark conversation in the comments section. For Rose, good engagement means being in tune with their intended audience. Reeling students in when they first came to uni meant that the page would be relevant to them for years to come, creating long-term relationships between the page and its followers. Ultimately, though, the Meaningful Confessions admins don’t run on a posting schedule, and Frank describes it as “pretty much a free for all.”
The admins all agreed they had a great relationship with their followers, who feel “very comfortable” with them. Sometimes a little too comfortable. They humorously described many of the students who submit confessions as “weird and horny.” Rose also questions why so many of them are so damn angry: “Someone will submit a complaint about how they heard loud sneezing in the blue zone of the library. Those people need to get a life and touch some grass.”
The wildest confessions they receive are always sexual: guys looking to get laid and students having sex in uni bathrooms. Rose says one of the worst confessions they ever got was about the New World Chaffers incident regarding a pedophillic manager, which even prompted Stuff to get in touch with them. In the past, the page has received backlash for posting submissions about sexual assaults which were detailed enough that the victim could be identified. The admins took those down after receiving complaints, and have gotten better at moderation in recent years.
When asked if they think their page is ethical, the admins said “yes and no.” Tyler explained that while the page had guidelines, they’re still ultimately “looking for juicy stuff.” Frank said while it was a good platform for students to express themselves, “in another way it's just cap about shit, lying about stuff, we still post it cos it's sensational.”
While the admins from Meaningful Confessions were happy to hang out with me on Zoom for an hour, it was a very different story with vic_uni_confessions.
This Instagram page only has one admin, referred to as ‘Welly kid,’ who had no interest in revealing their identity. “The whole point of the account is that people anonymously confess to someone who is also anonymous. It’s a two way thing.” They answered my interview questions via email.
Welly kid is a third-year science student who started vic_uni_confessions on IG in May 2020. They had seen confession pages for individual halls that “massively breached privacy” by naming students, revealing who they had slept with, and posting their room numbers. Welly kid created a page that was carefully moderated, so that confessions could be aired in a way that didn’t incite bullying of specific people. They emphasised that preserving the mental wellbeing of their followers was important to them, which is why they have mental health resources linked in their bio. The admin believes the page has gotten more ethical over time, and said that if their followers wanted something harmful taken down they are “more than prepared to do so.”
Welly kid has garnered thousands of followers in under two years. When asked about their strategy, Welly kid said they followed accounts that were already following VUW halls’ IG accounts, “[b]ut once it had around 100 followers it picked up on its own for the most part.” Tons of students, however, recall being immediately unfollowed after they followed the account back, which one student called “desperate.” Welly kid currently follows a mere three accounts.
I wrapped up my interviews by asking what the pages thought of one another. Meaningful Confessions had a LOT to say about vic_uni_confessions. Tony said it “gave off really preppy Auckland school vibes,” while Rose asserted that Meaningful Confessions was “the true confessions page.” Welly kid initially had no idea Meaningful Confessions even existed, which they admitted was “kind of embarrassing.” After checking out the page, Welly kid described it as more “serious and practical” compared to their own “lighthearted platform.”