By Silma Suba

It’s the newest fad in Education City:

“The blue eyed freshman at TAMUQ is SO cute!”

“Can I tell my math teacher I’m atheist and can’t solve exponential functions due to the fact that I don’t believe in higher powers??”

“My hobbies include trying to close the elevator door before someone else gets in!”

Nope, these aren’t dialogues from Gossip Girl, as similar as they might sound. These are anonymous posts on a public Facebook “EC Confessions” page for all eyes to see.

Students across EC are talking about everything that’s happening in their university lives: broken hearts, fake friends, embarrassing moments, they’re even talking about the pressures they encounter in school.

“Most of the confessions are stupid, they don’t make any sense at all,” said Ahmed Shakeeb, a junior at Texas A&M University in Qatar. “However, it’s fun to read, and there’s a psychological curiosity to figure out who’s writing them!”

These pages function by having an administrator set up a Facebook page with a Google Doc link, where anyone can submit “confessions” anonymously. The identities of the administrators are never revealed and even they don’t know who the confessors are.

Regardless of its popularity, some students feel that the confessions on the page are watered down versions of reality and less dramatic than the comments made on similar pages for campuses abroad.

“I have read confessions on pages that belong to schools and colleges in the States and they are so juicy and gossipy,” said Sara Omar, a junior at GUSFS-Q. “We are a very small community, and no one would dare confess real incidents because it would be easy to find them out.”

Despite the immature humor of most confessions, the confession page has also gained popularity because the anonymity provides them with a safe space to talk. Many students have posted confessions about more personal issues such as depression, eating or sleeping disorders, family or friendship struggles and even about the struggles they face with the acceptance of their sexuality. However, the credibility of these confessions is doubtful.

“I think most of these confessions are fake and a form of attention seeking,” said Omar. “But I also feel that it somehow brings everyone in EC a little closer. It’s fun reading about how the students at Northwestern go through the same stress at school as we do.”

The trend for confession pages among EC students started earlier this year with individual confession pages such as “TAMU-Q Confessions”, and “Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar Confessions”. The trend died down over the summer, and returned on September 6th in the form of a new EC confession page. Within a week, the page had gained about 284 likes and had over 274 confessions posted.

“It’s just a fad. It’s going to be popular for a few months, then die down really soon.” said Nadine Abdullat, a sophomore at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. “People want to create issues and drama around campus because they are just that bored. They need something to do!”