Over the past month University of Saskatchewan students have divulged their thoughts and secrets to anyone online who will read them — and they’ve been doing so free from judgement and ridicule.

Since appearing on Facebook about four weeks ago, a page titled “USask Compliments” has blasted out hundreds of anonymous musings to its now over 1,000 followers, most of whom are people from the U of S.

The “USask Compliments” page asks its followers to send in a message that will then be posted anonymously to the page’s wall by administrators.

According to the page description, it is a place for students and staff to spread “kindness, love and positivity” to the campus community.

Students at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. launched “Queens U Compliments” last September. The creators of the Queen’s page said they felt many students were sad having to return to school after summer, so they “wanted to spread happiness to others somehow.”

The creator of the USask page, who wanted to remain anonymous, said the page was inspired by the Queen’s page.

“Reading those heartwarming compliments made me smile when I was feeling stressed about my final exams,” the creator wrote to the Sheaf. “I read somewhere that ‘smiling’ lessens the tension, and that’s exactly what that page has done.”

Sneha Mishra, a U of S student who follows “USask Compliments,” said that the page is nice to read during a study break.

“It’s a cute idea and a good way to give recognition to people who make our days a little brighter,” Mishra said.

A second page, “USask Confessions,” invites students to send in their “most heart felt [sic], disgusting, hilarious, filthy and embarrassing confessions” to be posted anonymously.

The posts range from life-long secrets and rants about campus issues to proclamations of love and confessions of embarrassing incidents on campus.

The large number of students posting their crushes on the confessions page — one student asked a fellow transit rider to meet for a coffee date — led to “Usask [sic] Secret Admirers.”

The admirers page asks students to send their “deepest, truest, cheesiest or filthiest admiration” for fellow U of S students to page administrators. Like the other pages, these secret admirations will be published anonymously.

The creator of “Usask Secret Admirers,” who also requested to remain anonymous, hopes the page helps students find new relationships.

“Dating is scary stuff and I think the fear of rejection dictates why people don’t ask out other people all the time,” the creator wrote to the Sheaf. “These pages help erase that anxiety, knowing that if you get shut down, no one’s going to know about it.”

Sociology department head Terry Wotherspoon said the anonymity of the pages lessens the need for students to filter what they post or to reflect on the consequences, which is why the pages are so popular.

The pages where students can post anonymously bring “these statements out from diaries or bathroom stalls into an environment in which they might have a chance to observe people’s reactions, often immediately and extensively,” Wotherspoon wrote to the Sheaf.

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Illustration: Stephanie Mah