Students are using NottsFess to complain about their housemates, and it’s really bad

With recent surges of coronavirus cases in Nottingham, tensions are rising and signs of panic are starting to show amongst students. To deal with this additional stress, many students are taking to the Facebook page The Nottsfessional to passive-aggressively post about their housemates, rather than hashing it out themselves.

It can be scary and worrying to see other students, especially your friends and acquaintances, seemingly acting as though all is well and 2020 never happened, especially if they are putting themselves and others at risk.

You may be in a situation where you’re going to have to confront your housemates and have some frank and difficult conversations with them. However, I cannot stress strongly enough that passive-aggressively posting about them on Nottsfessional is not the way to go about it.

Over the last few weeks, there have been countless posts on the notorious Facebook page giving out specific details about specific situations. Students have been deferring responsibility and trying to avoid confrontation by attracting the notoriously bloodthirsty Facebook mob, rather than facing their housemates themselves.

These high tensions do have an explanation, due to the early closure of uni last year, many first years were forced to find houses for the second year much too quickly. It’s clear that too many of them ended up living with that first group of friends we all make and promptly never speak to again after the second term rather than shacking up with the right people.

Some of the extremes people are jumping to, however, are just way out of proportion. As we know from the notorious 40-thousand-pound fine incident, the government are cracking down hard and mercilessly on Corona-violators. Whether you think that’s appropriate or not is irrelevant, but what is clear, is that the realm of mercy resides with us, the students.

Rather than reporting on one another left right and centre like state collaborators in 1960s Moscow, we should be talking to one another. We should be communicating to stop situations escalating before it gets to those stages, and saving each other from needless hefty state punishments in the first place.

Like it or not these are the people you’re living with and if you’re isolating, these are the people you’re stuck with. I can’t think of any faster way to make your living situation socially unbearable than blindsiding your housemates with an awkward Nottsfessional post or worse, a police report.  If you really are dreading the confrontation, however, The Tab has you covered with a helpful guide to navigating those tricky quarrels with your housemates.

Stay safe everyone and always remember: Snitches get stitches.