CAMPUS
THE SIDECHAT SENSATION TUFTS’ MARKETPLACE OF INANE IDEAS By Ellie Vaughan Williams
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idechat is Tufts’ newest social media fixation: any individual with a Tufts email can sign up and start posting anonymously, posting anything, be it memes about Dewick chicken, jokes suggesting Tufts parties increase one’s rice purity score, or admissions of loneliness. The new anonymous platform, similar in form and function to ask.fm and Yik Yak, has started to outshine these long-standing pages. Before Sidechat, most students took to Instagram and Facebook to mock Tufts-specific experiences: Rejected from Brown? Worried about having intense bowel movements whilst studying at Tisch? Terrified of the Dewick vegan cutlet? As college-aged students collectively face issues over who they are, how they behave, and how they impact others, Sidechat offers a cathartic way to express these concerns on a localized level. Posts about highly specific yet common experiences like choosing a testing center scan-
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ner or trying to use Markit make students feel less alone. Sophomore Pablo Duran said, “I think when I’m reading Sidechat [posts]… it’s like oh my god, I’m not the only one here.” Sidechat doesn’t necessarily change the way students interact with each other in person, but it develops a sense of interconnectedness on campus. Sophomore Caitlin Walsh said, “I think [Sidechat] builds community in a theoretical sense… It’s not going to increase my sense of community in who I interact with… but it will make me feel closer to the general student population of Tufts University. I feel like I’m more in touch, and I have more in common with [Tufts students] than I expected.” Sidechat offers an untraditional, as well as a sometimes absurd and explicit, means of community building. Sophomore Maddy Porter said her favorite thing about Sidechat was that she could post her “absolutely unhinged
thoughts without having [her] name attached to them—not that they are damaging to anyone or mean thoughts, they’re just kind of deranged, and the optics of putting them on [her] Instagram story wouldn’t be good.” While Sidechat may be primarily comedic in function, there is also an almost out of place tenderness in some of the posts. Some students post about feeling alone, unworthy, or adrift, and the majority of responses are messages of kindness and support. Many Sidechat posts and interactions validate one another’s experiences by affirming that college is difficult, that Tufts is difficult, but that there are ways through it, even if it’s through small acts of kindness, like showing up for anonymous strangers in a reply post on Sidechat. Memes and crude posts, however, have offered their own form of community support for Tufts students on and off Sidechat. Tufts affirmations (@tuftsaffirmations) posts bright and simple, 2010s era memes about the Tufts experience. Tufts affirmations’ popularity is similar to Sidechat in that its engagement surged within a matter of days, and the account quickly gained the attention of Tufts undergraduates. However, to many of the students interviewed, @tuftsaffirmations is no longer in the same ballpark as Sidechat. According to sophomore Thea Trosclair, there’s a unique appeal to Sidechat. “When Sidechat came out, I was like wow… this is [such] a community thing. Everyone is posting and everyone is responding, it’s not just liking memes.” Posts receiving large upvotes and downvotes tend to be jokes about the most up-to-date events at Tufts. Following President Anthony Monaco’s announcement of resignation, Sidechats posts com-
