By Jenna Fiaretti, staff writer
A new student-only social media app has recently taken the campus by storm. Fizz, developed by Fizz Social Corp, is a free app available to iOS users.
This app markets specifically to college students and operates on a campus-by-campus basis. It even features an email verification system to ensure all of its users are active students. While Daemen is new to Fizz, the app itself is far from it.
It was created in 2020 by two Stanford students to bridge the loneliness epidemic, and it has only grown from there. There are Fizz communities for universities such as UB, Cornell, RIT, Yale, and Princeton alike. The app continuously finds new college communities through an interest-gauging system.
An Instagram account is created for the school to build a community. Then, they set a follower count and a deadline. The Fizz app had a follower campaign for Daemen earlier this year in order to build anticipation among students.
“It was supposed to be 500 by that weekend,” Lydia Hepler, a sophomore animation student formerly interested in the campaign, said. “They didn’t reach it, hit 150 instead, and decided to release the app anyway.” Now, the Daemen Fizz Instagram account has over 500 followers and 750 verified users.
Fizz is incredibly similar to Reddit in the way it operates, having an upvote and downvote system for every post and comment. Like Reddit, Fizz provides users with karma when others engage with their posts and special digital awards for interacting with the app. Posts are sorted into Top, the most viewed feed; Fizzin’, the recommended feed; and recently, the most current feed. Unlike Reddit, however, Fizz offers something very special: complete anonymity. Every user is given a default profile and ‘anonymous’ as a name, so it’s nearly impossible to tell who posted what.
Multiple sources have said that anonymity is Fizz’s best feature. “The app itself is fun to use; I love the anonymous feature,” An anonymous student said. Another source reports, “It’s a good way to connect with others and ask questions without fear of judgement or retaliation.” This positive experience isn’t exclusive to them, either. Most Daemen students who use Fizz use it to connect with others. It’s not an uncommon experience for people to use social media to feel less alone, especially since that’s why the app was created in the first place.
This, however, does not mean Fizz is without drawbacks: “You can definitely tell some people don’t think before they post,” An anonymous student said. “I’ve seen some weird content.”
While this may lead the shyest people to eventually open up, students state that it has encouraged gross, aggressive, or otherwise uncomfortable behavior. To combat this, other Fizz users have stepped up. An anonymous student mentioned that they use the app to “stand up to people who are hateful,” taking the initiative to push for a kinder community.
In all, most students love the Fizz app. It has built a definite sense of connection and community at Daemen, and hopefully will continue to bring people together in the future.