By Kai Schwartz
“Do the athlete backpacks stay on during sex?” reads the first post at the top of my feed under the “Fizzin’” tab. This is no ordinary social media. This is Fizz: the cursed, campus-based, anonymous social media.
The top liked post on Thursday, October 15th (“sorry for texting you back instantly, my phone was in my hand and I’m mature and actually like you”) has 521 upvotes. Per the F&M website, we have 1,946 students. That means just over 25% of F&M students used Fizz in a single day, and that doesn’t even count Fizz use over all time.
Fizz is developed by the company “Fizz Social Corp.” You can buy Fizz Plus, Fizz Chats, and Fizz Boost. There is also a Fizz Marketplace feature (think Facebook Marketplace). On the Apple App Store, the app is titled “Fizz: Your Authentic Community.” But if my authentic community sucks, I’m not really sure I want to be a part of it.
I had the Fizz app for a stint in my freshman year but later deleted it because it was bad for my mental health. In fact, I don’t use any public-facing social media at all. I stopped using Instagram and Snapchat many years ago. Extreme amounts of second-hand embarrassment make Fizz unbearable for me. The creeping anxiety that people on Fizz could be shading you can cross some wires in your brain. One post sums up my thoughts on this: “being name dropped on fizz is lowkey my worst nightmare.” Well, for some, it’s not just a nightmare, but a reality. It happened to Denise Orrison, who is in charge of the supposedly inoffensive task of asking the student employees to submit their time sheets. It happened to my classmate Logan, a freshman (“Logan, lock in on your homework before you become [class] president”). It happened to Makoa, the often-mocked former president of Young Americans for Freedom. It could happen to you.
Can feelings be quantified in discrete numbers? Social media says yes. You scroll and scroll, searching for the approval of an anonymous, amorphous mass of college students. The mass is faceless, yet it is also the people you know: the people in your classes, the people you see at D-Hall, and the people you pass on the campus paths. In fact, even writing this piece, I got very distracted by scrolling through Fizz. We post again and again, hoping that this one will be a “banger.” “This will go platinum on Fizz” is a common turn of phrase among Diplomats. The dopamine rush and validation of making a universally liked Fizz post really ups your self-esteem: “Nobody could hate me when I have such correct thoughts!”
The administration has made valiant attempts to remove Fizz from campus culture. An August 2024 email from the former VP of Student Affairs, Drew Stelljes, has the foreboding subject line: “Anonymous Posting.” He goes on to write that, “Unfortunately, Fizz is not within the control or authority of the College and, thus, our ability to monitor it is limited. Therefore, we rely on you, our students, to always act as Diplomats and use social media responsibly, recognizing the impact that it has on your fellow classmates.” Bless his heart!
Stelljes himself (before his untimely demise) was well aware of his Fizz popularity; the top post of all time in the F&M Fizz community, with 850 upvotes, is a roughly made video edit of his official portrait peeking out from behind the sun in space. This is a reference to the spring 2024 solar eclipse on campus, during which many professors let their classes out onto Hartman to spectate the event in the sky. Fizz users have also captured a video of Stelljes playing the drums and walking “pensively” on campus.
Political debates feature prominently in Fizz posts. The third-most popular post of all time, with 813 upvotes, is a meme titled “my mugshot after vandalizing the YAF table and throwing a fetus at makoa,” featuring a photo Haley Dunphy from Modern Family posing for her mugshot in a model-like fashion. There are also vague allegations of racism against the college, like “When I’m in a racist competition, and my competition is PSafe.”
Just like real-life politics, there are the occasional wholesome moments as well. “helped two freshmen find shad,” someone writes as the caption for a picture of a wolf tipping his fedora at the viewer, “feeling like an alpha.” Two years ago a poster wrote, to the tune of 744 upvotes: “Officially turned in my last assignment of undergrad. This means I’m the first person in my family to finish college!” Sometimes pictures of the campus squirrels and colorful sunsets come out on top as well. A secondhand message from Bill the “Drunk Bus” driver apologizing for any inefficiency was met with love and support.
Even so, complaining is the perfected art of the college student. A post criticizing the AI-generated mascot designs was well-received with 785 upvotes. However, the organization that has been catching the most heat these days is none other than our campus dining provider, Sodexo. One student writes, “I wish my ex apologized as much as Sodexo does.” To Sodexo’s chagrin, Fizz is full of pictures of things in food that should not be in food: bugs, worms, and plastic wrap. There are also pictures from the infamous Raw Chicken Incident of 2026. I must admit I did not know the scale of the problem with dining, even though, as a senior, I use my meal plan every day. One post even gets so crafty as to combine two niche references in one: “Eating at Dhall feels like living an ingredients household.” Imagine saying that sentence to anybody over the age of 30.
The Spring Arts Debacle of Spring 2025 is also a recurring theme. A meme with 791 upvotes showing a smiling man eating chicken tenders has the caption “me w my big ass borg (short for blackout rage gallon) on Hartman hallucinating sparts (Spring Arts) music bc anything is better than fluorescent, ugly, harsh gym lighting.” Another poster wrote, “it’s SPRING arts aren’t we supposed to be outside??? Enjoying the SPRING weather???”
I suspected in the past, and still do, that Fizz has a gendered component. One student captioned a distorted picture of a woman gasping: “me when i remember men post on here and it’s not all women.” An extremely insightful reply reads, “You js know which post was written by a boy and a women ykwim like the literacy is different.” The commenter doesn’t know it, but they are 50% of the way to becoming a sociology major. Another poster gets roasted after writing, “i dont think you can find a girl at f&m that has less than 7 bodies tbh.” It’s the red pill-blue pill gender debate all over again, just using the college as a microcosm.
Fizz is also the place to go if you want your faith in humanity destroyed. Racism, sexism, fatphobia; you name it, Fizz has it! It’s the college version of Reddit 50/50 or Jelly Belly’s BeanBoozled game. Will this be mildly amusing or soul-crushingly awful? Nobody knows! A post from eight months ago simply reads, “[the] post is gone but the damage is done. that was beyond fucked up and insensitive. I expected better from my peers.” A comment reads, “The promise of anonymity shows a lot of people’s true colors and it’s not always pretty.”
Does anonymous posting really make people more honest? Would they post things they would never say in person? I think yes, and what swayed my opinion was this post: “Hey Drew [Stelljes], I know you’re on here. You fucking suck.” Despite all of the pitfalls of Fizz, I can’t help but find myself giggling (or “kikiing,” as the kids say) at these stupid posts. To what extent is this just “harmless fun?” Can fun ever be harmless? Maybe I should make a Fizz post about it.
