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By Jonny Fryer, First Year Philosophy
Bristruths, Briscrush, Brispets. Now confession pages are across the country. Has the rise of anonymous posting pages gone too far?
At its conception, Brispets created some controversy – does Bristol need yet another Facebook page to clog your feed? Would incessant pictures from overly proud owners get irritating? The short answer is no.
Anybody who looks at their phone or computer and sees a smiling dog, cat, goat or any other adorable animal, and goes ‘no thank you!’ is a sociopath.
The Brispets posts bring at worst a little bit of love into the lives of those lucky enough to view it. The only pain Brispets can cause is a bit of self-righteous fury when the faceless moderators refuse to post the bundle of light and joy you send their way -I am still not over it. However, everybody knows that their pet is the best anyway, so the only reason one would feel bad was for the people who did not get to see your perfect pet.
The concern is that Brispets represents the slippery slope of these trivial sites. ‘Brisfood’ and ‘Brisnature’ are pages I have already heard be suggested a few times. We have truly reached the pinnacle of content, and if the heroes that run all the Brispages stop here, then we are faced with glorious years of just the right amount of content to remain enjoyable.
However, there are already worrying signs that an inevitable expansion may occur – more and more universities have confession pages now.
Some people may not be aware, but ‘uni-truths’ as they are now known are responsible now for confession pages at Leeds, Loughborough, Lincoln, Newcastle, Bangor - which has the great name of ‘Bangfess’- and Exeter. Alongside our favourite Bristruths, Briscrush and Brispets pages.
This expansion into a national franchise makes me fear that soon this valuable part of university community could not only churn out meaningless new pages of drivel, but take the opportunity to turn a profit.
Running ads, suggesting nights out and selectively moderating posts are three easy ways that the growing influence this site holds could be used purely to make money.
This is undeniably against our interests, and any loyal follower of the Brispages should be worried about this prospect.
Despite this, I do not think that outcry is deserved, yet.
Regardless of possibility, I find it highly unlikely that a page designed for students to unleash anonymous confessions would do anything to turn its own support base against it – moderating hundreds of angry posts is not something anybody wants to do, especially if they’re not getting paid to do it.
In the same way, Brispages will be cautious of oversaturation, because if we university students are good at anything, it is complaining about people that annoy us.
To anybody that tries to tell you Brispets is bad, there is only one adequate response that I urge you to use: They’re good dogs, Brent
Featured image: Epigram/Ffion Clarke
Is Brispets one page too many? Has your feed become clogged or do you enjoy seeing animals every day? Let us know!
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