Fizz Frenzy
Illustration by Noelle Mitcham
Article by Jayden Forsyth
NEWBERG Ore. – Beneath the everyday chatter of George Fox University (GFU) students lies an infamous hub for online communication. It spreads to new students in secret, purely by word of mouth.
Not everyone on campus has heard of it. Those who have use it to express their true feelings about classmates, politics, life, curriculum and the university itself. With each user kept anonymous, students feel free to speak their mind without fear of consequences. This network, similar to forums like X and Reddit but on a campus-sized scale, is known as Fizz.
Fizz, a social media platform not affiliated with GFU, is a place where students can anonymously post anything they’d like. It is used on college campuses across the country and is exclusive to students.
In order to join GFU’s Fizz “circle,” one must submit their college email and phone number. After this they are granted entrance and anonymity to the rest of the Fizz user base at their college. Users can then create aliases for themselves but most students at GFU prefer to remain anonymous.
A quick scroll through the “Fizzin’” tab will reveal memes, campus crush descriptions, political takes, opinions on professors, groans about campus food, requests for advice, squirrel sightings, roommate complaints and much more. While there are moderators who ensure nothing gets out of hand, students can generally express themselves without restrictions.
Users can upvote or give “karma” to posts that they like, as well as downvote and remove “karma” from posts they dislike. “Karma” is Fizz’s equivalent to likes on other social media platforms.
While it is impossible to know how many GFU students use Fizz, at the time this article was written the most interacted-with post had nearly 800 karma, meaning that there are at least 800 GFU students actively on the app.
Students who create aliases for themselves compete for places on leaderboards, which are ranked based on how much karma a student can gather. The top earners have karma counts within the hundreds of thousands, with many of the highest-ranking users being Fizz veterans.
“They [GFU Fizz users] take way too much advantage of the anonymity feature,” said one such user, who requested not to be named in this article and goes by the alias “beepthemeep.” They sit as the fourth highest karma-earning GFU student of all time with 125,217 upvotes collected after using the app for a year and a half.
“There are a lot of thirst posts,” said beepthemeep. “Whenever politics come up, it can get pretty inflamed. People use the anonymity feature to say some unhinged things—not the kind of stuff anyone would want to say in person. [Fizz] can be a nasty place.”
Beepthemeep, who gained popularity by posting lighthearted memes, recently stepped away from the GFU Fizz community and deleted the app. “[Fizz] was taking up a lot of time and stressing me out,” they said. “I figured I’d live a better life without Fizz. A lot of the fun people aren’t there anymore.”
Fizz, though often cast in a negative light, has its positive moments. Users sometimes share encouraging messages, uplifting Bible verses, give sincere, praise-filled shoutouts to people and applaud members of the community.
Although Fizz has mixed reviews, it remains one of the easiest places for students to express themselves and, for better or for worse, serves as a community outlet for GFU.
