Fizz: A Look into a Lawless Land
Tapping my finger to the purple bee on my screen, I’ve got no way of knowing where the app will take me. Odds are I’ll see a rant about someone’s roommate or another greek life poll, with the occasional sexist post. The basic premise of the app Fizz is that any student can post anything, with other users having the option to upvote or downvote a post. The app gets interesting, however, with the added element of full anonymity. While there are some community guidelines in place, the general understanding is that they’re annoying and can be skirted around.
At first glance, the app is kinda cool. When I downloaded it as a new freshman, I felt relieved to finally have found a campus culture. A unified conversation, where anyone can talk to anyone else, gives a sense of community. I especially liked how there were no barriers for entry. Anyone from any social group or demographic can join in conversation with anyone else, which is hard to find at that scale elsewhere on campus. However, this begs the question – who’s actually on this app? And moreso, who’s posting? It could be your friend, your classroom enemy, or someone you’ve only passed outside the EMU; you could be their audience, their conversation partner, or even their subject.
When you dive into the specifics of the app, it becomes a bit more convoluted. The shield of anonymity allows more fatphobia and general sexism to roam free than I’ve seen in a long time. Due to that, there’s also plenty of arguments. I’m sure each person arguing is very satisfied with themselves after they post, which makes reading them even more unbearable.
Another facet of the app is the panopticon of it all – people’s real names and photos are often posted anonymously. The panopticon is a social control theory built on a prison design from the 18th century in which cells sat in a circle surrounding a security tower, so that prisoners had no way of telling when they were being watched. The theory behind the design is that people will behave well all the time if there is the chance they are being watched; the mere threat of surveillance is enough. In Fizz terms, this means people are always on guard for when they could be made fun of.
This is broader than just Fizz. We’ve embarked on a cultural shift towards this in everyday life as well, especially as taking pictures of strangers has been normalized. With this, no one is totally free from the threat that they could be blasted on the internet without their knowing. The performance of normality has become constant, for fear that if you diverge you could be ostracized at any moment.
However odd the prisoner side of the panopticon is, it stretches to the guards as well. As the enforcer of rules – no matter how much of a subjective cultural norm they are – the guard’s anonymity allows their power to grow unchecked. Especially in large numbers, this role can occur in a mob mentality, giving people posting on Fizz the power to enforce any norm they want, on anyone, doing anything.
People can see the consequences of playing both roles right in front of them, and they can see how much better it is to play a guard. The system then continues to be perpetuated, and can snowball into extreme conformity due to the fear of stepping out of line.
All this in mind, there comes to be a large discourse surrounding the morality of Fizz. The app illustrates an age-old question of human nature; what do people do when there’s no consequences?
Is it okay to indulge this platform that’s notoriously filled with conflict and harm? On one hand, it’s a somewhat low level and harmless outlet for this more sinister part of humanity. On the other, the lines between online morals and real world ones are being more blurred, meaning there could be more danger in online norms than we realize. Should the same rules apply?
I’ve found that the arguments made by the voices scrutinizing users of the app often underlie morally righteous attitudes. Some could argue this is a classic example of supposedly “better educated people” exercising their moral superiority over a group of people just trying to have fun.
The question of whether Fizz is good or bad still remains,, but for now, the solution may be less of a broad “we should” and more of an individual stance. To boycott, to only view, to post, or to only “upvote” can be a decision you make each day. Sometimes the app is a funny way to decompress after class, but sometimes it just makes me feel hopeless that the same people posting these offensive things walk around my campus. Maybe that’s a good reality check though. Ultimately, recognizing when it’s just rage bating, or you’re not feeling it is key, just as it is to allow yourself to laugh at something stupid in your spare time without feeling like you’re failing a moral test.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/books/review/the-panopticon-by-jenni-fagan.html