A friend of mine at Oxford recently showed me their college’s anonymous gossip magazine. Known as ‘The Egg’, it featured poetry, art, and a painstakingly detailed map of one college member’s situationships. Initially, I was struck by the evident dedication taken to the magazine’s production – a far cry from AI-generated ‘Colleges as…’ posts. But something else also stuck out to me. Tonally, the magazine was light-hearted, witty, and most of all, fun to read, full of wordplay that wouldn’t be out of place in a Gossip Girl voiceover. There are few things that Oxford does better than us, but anonymous gossip seems to be one of them.

One of Cambridge’s endless quirks is the prevalence of anonymous confession pages. It’s typical for most universities to have one primary confession page with a few subsections, such as pages dedicated to different subjects or demographics. However, Cambridge’s collegiate structure and abundance of societies facilitate the development of a seemingly endless network. There’s Camfess, naturally, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We’ve also got Rowbridge, Crushbridge, Queerbridge, More Law Facul-Tea, Law Facuntea (who knows what’s going on in the law faculty), Petfess, Churchfess, Dowfess, The Pelikind Reborn… and many more. It’s not only striking just how many of these pages exist, but also that every single one is consistently active. Everyone in Cambridge seems to have something to say – just not out loud.

“Why should you listen to the person you’re debating against if you don’t know who they are?”

When scrolling through any of these pages, the primary impression is one of discord. Rarely does one come across any actual confessions on Camfess – although you might find some stolen ones, which are nonetheless very entertaining (Grindur, thank you for giving us that infamous mini egg story). Rather, you’re far more likely to encounter conversations about the Reform party, another post contributing to the endless discourse around immigration, or yet another attempt at defining the term ‘middle class’. These conversations are by no means unimportant. As young people in Britain, and the rest of Europe, inch towards the far-right, politically-charged posts such as these are more relevant than ever. However, an anonymous Facebook page just isn’t the right place to carry out these debates.

It’s true that anonymity comes with a freedom of expression that allows many to articulate themselves better on such polarising issues. It’s also true that anonymity is accompanied by lower expectations for both ourselves and others. Why should you listen to the person you’re debating against if you don’t know who they are? Why should you care about how you articulate yourself if no one knows who you are? Many political Camfesses would benefit from a dialogue beyond the virtual, but when debates like these begin to snowball online, it’s easy for them to become stuck there.

“Everyone in Cambridge seems to have something to say – just not out loud”

College confession pages tend to differ in that political complaints make way for the personal. It’s definitely fair to say that the college experience mimics that of a boarding school, particularly for colleges who offer on-site accommodation for the duration of students’ courses. As in a boarding school, therefore, tensions will naturally arise – after eight intense weeks in the same space, it’s a given. But with the constant availability of an anonymous confessions page, people are disincentivised from processing these tensions in a normal, mature way. It’s easier, after all, to call out a college member anonymously than to actually speak to them.

The danger with this is that fleeting moments of frustration, which would best be solved by a conversation with a friend, become immortalised. If we rely on these pages to avoid direct conflict, we’ll never learn to manage it properly. Although it’s true that college-wide confession pages can encourage a sense of camaraderie, it’s all too easy for them to progress into something more vicious.

Maybe it’s time to take a leaf out of Oxford’s book, and make gossip fun again. The accessibility of these pages within Cambridge allows us to throw every thought at the wall until something sticks. However, we’d all benefit from thinking a little more about what belongs where. Not every one of our dislikes or polarising opinions needs to be shared with the university population, and we need to start interrogating why we feel the need to use these pages so frequently. Is there something freeing in airing your dirty laundry in front of so many people without the fear of repercussions? Or have we just become so used to confining emotions and opinions to these spaces that we’ve forgotten how to process them normally? Part of the appeal of these pages is that they aren’t very strictly regulated, but I think everyone would benefit from imposing slightly more stringent regulations on themselves before they post.