(The Verge) – I have a long list of things I hate to love. The Twitter account Monmouth Confessions may have just topped it. Basically, the idea of the account is to anonymously embarrass and throw unsuspecting Monmouth students under the bus. The followers came pouring in. The account is up to 1,300 followers, in just two weeks.
The account and its contributors (Monmouth Students) keep its anonymity by linking the account to an ask.fm/MonmouthConfess site. Here, you can basically say whatever you would like to say about anybody at Monmouth, all while maintaining your identity. The people who run the account, though, are somewhat forgiving; they offer to take down any tweet if you direct message them. And they’ve had to in the past. Some material on the account is crude, vulgar, and very personal; most tweets contain the isolating of specific individuals.
I cannot think of a more cowardice move by the people who take part in the “fun”. Some confessions are pretty harmless and funny, for example, “Every time I walk passed the Student Center windows, I check myself in the reflection…hope people on the other side don’t notice.” Although most do not contain the type of material that should have a blue “M” as the picture and hold the word “Monmouth” in the account’s title. For an extremely subtle example, “my two roommates are THE most slutty, fake, annoyingly drunken human beings I’ve ever met they make me want to rip all my hair out.” I think the account has caught that notion of trying to avoid being associated with Monmouth University. Initially the cover photo of the account was the MAC, which was removed and was not replaced with anything Monmouth related. They also included the disclaimer that they are, “not in anyway affiliated with Monmouth University.” They then follow that statement by listing a location of West Long Branch, New Jersey on the line underneath.
My interest and curiosity of Monmouth and its gossip would love for me to say that this is all in good fun. But it is not. This is cyber bullying to the furthest extent, many people our age commit suicide over this, and many people have been put in jail because of this type of bullying. The Tyler Clementi case of Rutgers is the most notable one, the freshman jumped off the George Washington Bridge and the two antagonizers were indicted for their roles in the incident. In addition, the worst part about this account is that these bullies decide not to reveal their identity when singling people out by first and last name for all of Twitter to see. Reputations and futures can easily be destroyed by this kind of stupidity. What is it going to take to get this problem rectified and shut down? Monmouth has to make the decision to be proactive rather than wait and have to be reactive in this situation.
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