Users Worry Fizz App Enables Misogynistic Content

On October 22, campus forum app Fizz opened up usership to Reed students. The platform allows students to post anonymously to a Reddit-like feed, with “Top,” “Fizzing,” and “New” sections at the top of the page, allowing users to pick whether they’d like to see posts with the most ‘fizzups,’ (or, upvotes), ones that are gaining fizzups, or are newest. The platform allows users to tag their posts as well, with categories such as “confession,” “psa,” and “dm me.” The app’s DM feature allows users to anonymously message one another from a post. The platform also states that it is unaffiliated with Reed when a user joins. Before the Reed Fizz forum launched, an Instagram account by the name of @fizzreed stated that it would “launch at Reed” if the account had 500 followers by October 20. However, the app launched after gaining only around 240 Instagram followers.

Due to the anonymous nature of the app, Fizz was compared to the MCs by some users, with a user writing “Honestly with the MCs in purgatory this might be what we need,” which gained over 300 fizzups on the platform. However, other users were less enthusiastic, with one writing, “i fear we are going to learn VERY quickly from this app why exactly we had an mc editor.” Another post asked what happened to the MCs and the future of anonymous forums at Reed, “Will the MC’s ever come back? Is this all we have now? I heard they’re gonna [sic] forever cuz someone sued the school over them- can anyone confirm?” Other non-MC posts were relatively innocuous, such as “liberal arts 360 before saying anything,” “reed is cool bc i have friends who are virgins & friends who have done cocaine,” and “as bilger always says: ‘i love bad bitches that’s my fucking problem.’” 

However, users on the platform noted that there were an overwhelming amount of misogynistic posts on the platform. One user wrote, “i’m realizing from reading these that y’all hate women… and i knew that already but damn.” Misogynistic posts included one that said, “reed girls will comment on the ugliest mf posts and be like ‘omg so beautiful ily model icon sex symbol ahhhh,’” referring to women complimenting other women on Instagram. Another post featured a video of a man dancing with the caption “Pov you smash a girl with blue hair and she pays for her own meal cuz she’s pro gender equality.” One post compared “reed girls” to identical cups of Starbucks coffee, implying that women at Reed lack individuality. 

Other posts, while not necessarily misogynistic, were concerning. One included a “confession” post that wrote, “I have wacked off in class on multiple occasions.” Another post included a user confessing to cheating at a party via a notes app screenshot, captioned with “PLZZ if any girls have been in a similar cheating situation and have advice, I need ya’ll [sic] rn.” Users reposted it with comments such as “bro forgot cucks exist smh” and “Ok can we like share this with every guy until he see’s [sic] this and looks thru his gf [sic] phone. HE NEEDS TO KNOW.” 

The origins of posts on the platform were called into question by students. In a comment on the Fizz instagram, user @tan_the_biochem_witch commented “are these real or AI generated” under a carousel displaying screenshots of posts on the platform. Similarly, on Fizz, a user wrote, “Some of these posts are clearly not actually made by Reed students and Fizz thinks we won’t be able to tell.” Users noticed that some posts didn’t seem to line up with Reed culture, such as a post about Reed athletes expecting oral sex in exchange for holding the door open for another student. Due to the lack of varsity sports at Reed, the post appeared as being pre-created content posted on Reed’s Fizz, creating the appearance of usership in an effort to entice students to join the app. Additionally, “rage-bait” style confessions posts may have been created to generate word-of-mouth advertising for the platform by creating reason for students to send screenshots or links from the app to their friends. 

A non-anonymous post written by an account called “WHHS Fizz” posted and quickly deleted a post reading “Dating at Reed is a gamble of furry bf or cheating gf….” The WHHS Fizz account page has three posts, one including a screenshot from a notes app stating that “It’s me. WHHS Fizz. The anonymous voice of WHHS.” The abbreviation “WHHS” may refer to a high school, which supports the idea that some of these posts are not written by Reed students. As of October 30, the WHHS account is now deleted. Since nearly all posts are anonymous, it’s not possible to tell if a Reed student wrote any given post. Whether or not the content reflects the views of Reed students, the content is still on the platform under implied Reed postership, and is therefore associated with the Reed student body. 

Other colleges had similar experiences with the Fizz app. As discovered by an article from March 4, 2023, at The Emory Wheel by Madi Olivier, the app was used to post misogynistic comments about Title IX during Emory University’s student body elections. According to the article, a student posted “Stfu nobody cares about [Title IX] or [sexual assault] like you’re annoying asf” and “It’s not a real problem. College females in the US are the most [privileged] people on earth. Enough.” On February 7, 2024 in The Occidental News, the college newspaper of Occidental College, student Will White noted the racist content he saw on the platform and expressed that apps like Fizz are detrimental to students. White wrote, “While it may seem like a break from the paranoia, the anonymity Fizz provides only serves to fuel a sense of alienation, and therefore fuel demand for more anonymity, leading to more alienation. Maybe I was wrong before. These apps don’t just erode — they are antithetical to the existence of community entirely.” 

As of October 30, the top posts on the platform have taken a less misogynistic direction. One student wrote, “bring back the Elliot [sic] Hallway shitter,” which had 349 fizzups, and another wrote, “When I drink yerb I can feel all my dna being duplicated and my cells replicating and consuming my old, sick cells to freshen my whole body” which also had 349 fizzups. As the app continues to either gain usership, or eventually lose the attention of students, how students use the app and its culture will surely develop as more time passes. For now, it seems there is a mix of positive and negative posts with the more recent post at the time of writing being someone thanking someone for a compliment, and another with a poll about which major is “most annoying deplorable disgusting rancid good for nothing,” of which philosophy currently takes the lead at 50 votes.