Anonymous Confession Board

In the fall of 2006, Caroline Schlager ’09 (who recently transferred to Brandeis) started an entry on the Wesleyan Livejournal soliciting students for their anonymous confessions, after discovering Oberlin’s own version of the ACB. A new procrastination tool was born and all-nighters in PAC soon became punctuated with checking in on the rapid-fire “OMG! I WANT TO BONE MIKE LITWACK!”s and various forms of drunken slander, conservative backlash and torrid descriptions of masturbation. Soon the board hit its max of 5,000 posts and spilled over into it’s second and third incarnations.

Depending on the time of the year, new posts can appear at either an achingly slow pace or at a rate of several “confessions” a minute. For example, whenever Wesleyan is on break the ACB sometimes goes entire days without updates, but the sheer laziness of Wes students becomes clear when it’s crunch time. For example, during reading week and finals of last semester, hordes turned to the ACB to procrastinate, commiserating (“fuckin’ daylight…,” starts one post. The responses? “fuck this,” “shit stain universe,” and “10 hours and 8 pages to go…”) and sharing tips on how to make their papers longer (“Go to font, character spacing, selected expanded and take it to 0.2 or 0.3,” suggests one poster; “I like Georgia, personally. It’s more aesthetically pleasing than Times, and ever-so-slightly larger,” adds another.) May 13th, a poster on the 15th page of the ACB asked, “Secret Goal: ACB gets to 20 pages by May 20th. Can we do it, procrastination army?”

It took only until May 17th.

Posts have been few and far between this summer, but one can predict the new school year will breathe new life into the board, delivering a perpetually-updated dose of schadenfreude and humiliation.

Personally, I would like to see an anonymous compliments and candy recommendations board instead.

Some Wesleyan Opinions on the ACB:

Abby Hinchcliff ’08: “Unfortunately, ACB is one of the more pernicious incarnations of the Wesleyan social scene, which often does not love anything quite so much as gossip, glorifications, and gross generalizations.”

David Abravanel ’08: “I wasn’t such a fan because of all the personal attack. I tried to stay out. I only posted a few times, in defense of Brian Brotman, and it wasn’t anonymously. I’m not opposed to the idea of an ACB. Personally, it’s not my cup of tea, but I wouldn’t hate someone for wanting it. I was disappointed, however, in that, from what little of it I saw, it seemed like a forum for people to post opinions they didn’t really have the courage to back up.”

Matt Johnson ’07: “It’s pretty silly.”

You can find the most recent incarnation of the ACB right over here.