Fizz Captures Attention, Draws Criticism

Julia Gentin ’26 Senior Staff Writer

Approximately a thousand students downloaded Fizz, a college-specific social media platform that allows users to post anonymously, last Thursday, Feb. 23, amid a company-sponsored marketing blitz involving bucket hats and donuts on the app’s launch day.

In its brief existence at Amherst, the app has already sparked controversy, with some raising concerns about the prevalence of offensive content, moderation of the posts by students, and the company’s data privacy practices.

A five-minute scroll on Fizz yields posts about laundry room decorum, “Val crushes,” hopes for a snow day, social politics from

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the weekend’s activities, and a vast amount of media regarding time spent in the Science Center bathrooms.

Fizz, formerly called Buzz, was founded by Stanford dropouts

Teddy Solomon and Ashton Cofer in the summer of 2021 in order to foster campus connection during the pandemic. Its goal, Solomon said in an interview with TechCrunch, is to expand to 1,000 campuses by the end of this year.

Fizz has raised $12 million so far from investors, generating $4.5 million through its most recent funding round in June.

The app allows students to post memes, events, polls, and confessions — all anonymously.

Ona Ortiz-Gudeman ’26 said that when she was mentioned on the app, she “thought it was funny. I automatically assumed it was one of my friends making a joke. If someone I didn’t know were to say that to me in person, I would be pretty uncomfortable, though.”

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Ortiz-Gudeman added that “the veil provided by anonymity enables people to post really harmful things without fear of repercussions.”

The rise of Fizz generated unease within the Association of Amherst Students (AAS) Senate, wrote Ankit Sayed ’24, vice president, in a statement to The Student.

“Our concerns are that Fizz may be a place for inappropriate, disrespectful, and abhorrent comments about students, staff members, and sensitive topics on campus such as sexual violence,” Sayed wrote. “Anonymity turns what has always

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been possible with campus speech into an inevitability.”

The array of anonymous posts fall into three tabs: New, Fizzin’ (what’s trending), and Top (the most upvoted posts of the day, week and all time). Popular posts from users at the college frequently garner over 600 upvotes.

George Cahill ’26, who served as one of many Fizz ambassadors during launch day, said that he has friendly competitions with friends to see who has the most “karma,” or amount of net upvotes in response to their posts.

“Some people’s goals are to keep racking up upvotes, which feeds into potentially more controversial posts,” Cahill said. “Some people might gain more confidence from

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Fizz With Caution: The Editorial Board expresses concern about the rise of Fizz, citing worries about privacy, inconsistent moderation, and nasty content.

This weekend, the college hosted LitFest, the annual literary festival featuring award-winning writers and opportunities for students to share and cultivate their writing. This year’s guest speakers included Pulitzer Prize winners Hilton Als and Tyehimba Jess, MacArthur Fellowship winner Valeria Luiselli, National Book Award finalists Ingrid Rojas Contreras and Megan O’Rourke, and Guggenheim Fellowship winner Victoria Chang.

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LitFest began with a tworound Spoken Word Slam in the Eighmy Powerhouse on Thursday night. The competition was hosted by Daniel Gallant from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City and judged by four staff members. The judges rated students’ performances out of 10 points, which they wrote on a whiteboard and held up after each performance. After the two rounds, students each had a total

Continued on page 3

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