@COLLEGEFESSION: Thousands of followers and ‘real confessions’ from Murray State students

“I tripped acid with my professor and cooked grilled cheese sandwiches for 3 and a half hours.”

This tweet is one example of the tweets that can be found on collegefession.com and @collegefession, supposedly submitted by a Murray State student.

The Twitter account, which has more than 456,000 followers, tweets about alcoholic adventures, sexual exploitations and inappropriate actions; all supposed confessions from college students.

Dana Howard, social media marketing manager for the University, said she is aware of the @collegefession Twitter account and website.

“From the minute there was a Murray State ‘confession’ it started flooding my keyword searches with tweets and RTs so it is very irritating for me,” Howard said in an email.

Howard has reported several accounts in the past that use the Murray State logo in the account. She said some of the accounts she has reported have been taken down, but not all of them.

“In the cases that were removed, it is because I could use our registered trademark to claim infringement of trademark,” Howard said.

Howard said with @collegefession, the account itself is not claiming to be or represent Murray State and is not using any of the University’s registered logos so there is nothing she can do.

“Unfortunately, these accounts are just one example of the type of problems social media marketers deal with when working hard to protect our image and brand,” Howard said. “Many times, we have very few options in having control over what is said about our brand, as it goes with all social media use.

“And in this case, the students drive it, so it is up to them how they want to publicly represent MSU.”

Confessions can be submitted via email or through the collegefession website. All submissions remain anonymous and the collegefession privacy policy states their website and Twitter account are “For entertainment purposes only. We do not store any information that could trace back to your submission.”

Emily Dunbar, senior from Paducah, Ky., said she thinks @collegefession is pretty funny, but that most of the confessions are fake.

“If the tweets aren’t made up, people really are that sick at all schools,” Dunbar said.

Jenn Allis, junior from Fort Thomas, Ky., said she thinks some of the confessions are funny but that so many shed a negative light on the individual’s school.

“People are submitting confessions about wanting to go to school wherever the majority of sex posts are coming from,” Allis said. “Some of the crazier posts sound like they’re being made up and a lot of the posts get ‘recycled’ when someone copies a post and resubmit it with their school’s name on the end of it.”

Allis said she thinks almost all of the @collegefession posts objectify women as conquests and not as people.

“Almost all (women) are referred to as sluts, whores or bitches,” Allis said.

The founder of @collegefession is college student Daniel Carnett, who denied an interview with The News. The privacy policy on the collegefession website states:

“Dear Collegefession readers–Most importantly, we would like to reassure you that your confessions and submissions are NOT traceable back to you through the Collegefession website or Twitter page. All submissions are posted manually through our own servers and do not include information such as IP addresses.”

On Carnett’s personal LinkedIn profile he describes himself as an 18-year-old entrepreneur living in Arizona.

Along with Collegefession, Carnett is also the CEO and founder of EarlyEntrepreneur.com.

@Collegefession has also made its way on to the high school scene.

A parody account called @schoolfession was started a few weeks after @collegefession gained popularity.

 

Story by Meghann Anderson, News Editor