Two Years On, Opinion Over Fizz Remains Split

Mathew Biadun | News-Editor

Fizz, the anonymous social media app open only to Eastern students, has become fairly integrated into Eastern life, with students using it daily to announce events, sell and buy items on the Marketplace, share memes, and of course, start drama. But although it may seem like Fizz has been here forever (and for many students, it has), it isn’t that old. It was only in the Fall of 2023 that the app launched at Eastern, spread around by Fizz ambassadors offering free donuts in exchange for downloading the app. That strategy proved successful, and the app has remained at Eastern ever since.

I reported on Fizz’s initial launch for the Campus Lantern, and found student sentiment mixed. A poll taken more than two years ago asked students ‘Do you think Fizz is a good thing or a mistake? Explain why below?’ had 311 respondents. 159 (51%) responded ‘It’s good’, while 152 (49%) responded ‘It’s bad’, showing an intensely polarized reception at the time.

A poll taken last week found a more negative sentiment. The poll asked ‘Is Fizz a net positive or negative for the campus culture/community/experience?’ and had 1408 respondents at the time of writing. 373 (26%) said it was Positive, 607 (44%) said it was Negative, and 428 (30%) said it was Neutral, or clicked just to see Results. 

While the response was more negative, the amount of votes on the poll is significant. Polls on Fizz frequently get around 1,000 Fizzes, while the top posts of each week garner around 1,500 votes. That means that around a quarter to a third of Eastern students, at the very least, use Fizz semi-regularly. Students may say they don’t like Fizz; but that dislike hasn’t discouraged usage.

As to what they actually use Fizz for, that’s more varied. My previous article from 2023 found content both positive and negative, and that variety has continued. 

Controversies remain a daily occurrence on Fizz. Just in the past week, students have taken to Fizz to discuss political activities happening on Campus, to debate the quality of certain fraternities or athletic teams on campus, to argue about the validity of partying or not partying, and many more. 

However, Fizz has also become a place for community. Many students come to Fizz as their source of campus news, or to joke about campus life. As the only place online devoted solely to Eastern students, it’s proven to be an excellent place to discuss professors or classes, or to find used textbooks, or even to organize. Last semester, Fizz served as the staging ground for hosting a ‘Performative Males Contest’, which attracted many.

Many students recently took to Fizz to mourn the tragic passing of Sebatian Harris, an Eastern student who passed away on January 28th.

With Fizz still popularly used, if not popularly perceived, it’s set to remain a part of Eastern’s campus culture. Colleges around the country have taken to using such apps as well, be it Fizz, or similar anonymous-campus apps like UConn’s YikYak. One student on Fizz summarized the app pretty well, saying;

“I think it’s definitely a mix of both! It has its negatives like the political battles or the weird hookup stuff but i also think it provides a sense of community and is amazing for connections and [gathering] advice from people that normally wouldn’t engage”