About two weeks ago, if you walked into the elevators at Motel 268, you would have noticed little flyers stuck on the mirror. “Like NYUSH Secrets on Facebook!” For the sophomores, this may have been déjà vu. The introduction of an NYUSH Secrets page, to mirror the famous (or infamous) NYU Secrets page on Facebook. Founded in 2012, the anonymous site NYU Secrets allows people to submit ‘secrets’ and for them to be shared with the NYU community. The purpose of NYU Secrets (as stated on the Facebook page itself) was to “build a community - once and for all”. With 22,000 undergraduates in any given year, NYU New York itself is made up of 20 undergraduate halls, and 98 academic buildings (including libraries, theatres, and more) in addition to off-campus living. New York University apparently did not meet the standard definition of a ‘tight community’ - and NYU Secrets was an attempt to change that. The application of NYU Secrets relied on both anonymity and submissions - two things that go hand in hand with a large community and low population density. However, NYU Shanghai operates a little differently. For a start, all 600 portal students at NYU Shanghai are housed under the same roof. We share four treadmills, three elevators, two microwaves, and one piano. NYU Shanghai students then attend class in the same building. These statements alone set us apart from the dynamics of NYU New York. Last year, with only 300 students, the NYU Shanghai sophomore class attempted to make this NYUSH Secrets page work. Twice. Both times, the page was kept anonymous - the site owner was not able to view authors of submissions - and submissions were coming in. Professor Clay Shirky discussed this idea of “gossip networks” and NYU Shanghai Secrets with his Media and Participation class, stating that NYU Shanghai Secrets could not operate on the same level as NYU Secrets due to the factors of “scale and density”. Simply put, NYU Shanghai is too small a university and has too high a population density for this type of gossip network to succeed. This proved to be true - in a class of 300 people, everybody is bound to know everybody. Anonymity is simply not possible in this environment. The submissions could be linked to an individual’s certain circumstances quite easily. In terms of submissions - most of the submissions painted negative images of individuals. Simply because NYU Shanghai is not on the same scale in terms of size as NYU New York, NYUSH Secrets failed - enormously. With regards to the purpose of NYU Secrets, sophomore Sophia Noël stated that she “believe[s] that we are already a family, a community - we did not and do not need [NYUSH Secrets] to happen.” The steps that NYU Shanghai takes regularly to ensure that we are a tight-knit community removes the need for any of these kinds of websites. Moreover, the submissions mostly steered towards the popular stereotype of the American college student as "party animals". However, this was not applicable to every student here at NYU Shanghai. When arriving as a sophomore, Richard (Lewei) Huang, realized that "while partying is indeed part of the culture here at NYU Shanghai, it is only "part of" and does not represent the whole image of life here at NYUSH." Due to the fact that the submissions were mostly made by international students, this narrowed the readership greatly. Professor Shirky also commented on the way in which gossip is both "amplified and filtered", meaning people only share and receive information they deem to be interesting. In relation to NYUSH Secrets, most of the information shared was just not interesting or relevant to the entire student body. In a small setting such as NYUSH, gossiping can be seen as a way to further distance certain groups of people. As Richard puts it, "I did not share many of the issues and concerns raised by my classmates ... I was simply not interested." However, according to the creator of NYUSH Secrets, the purpose of NYUSH Secrets and NYU Secrets is virtually the same - to create a tighter community. “I love NYU Secrets and wanted to make something similar to it but with a more personal connection. NYU New York is very large compared to us and their secrets may not be able to connect with their readers in the same way that a NYUSH Secrets page could.” The page is intended to “make others laugh” and to create “a place where people could submit secrets about anything just to get it out there”. The creator, however, has also realized that the “page does not seem to be getting too much traction” - potentially because sophomores and freshmen are concerned about the consequences. So what does this mean for the “new” NYUSH Secrets? So far, no “secrets” have been published, but the page still exists. Are we all too scared to submit something, or are we all smart enough to know better? This article was written by Isabella Farr. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: NYU Secrets