An exclusive interview with the UoN student behind ‘The Nottsfessional’

With around 100 submissions on average per day and over 5000 likes, The Nottsfessional has taken over your Facebook feed by storm. By allowing the confessions to be anonymous, the page has attracted a wide clientele. Whether you are a student confessing your love for someone you locked eyes with for two seconds on the 34, or a lecturer coming clean about their questionable thoughts- the page attracts a wide variety of confession.

As per their request, the mastermind behind the page has kindly agreed to answer some questions, both juicy and informative to give us an insight on what it takes to run such a successful venture. In order to maintain a level of top secret anonymity, they will be referred to as the ‘Admin’.

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself?

The page was created and run by a final, fourth year student doing the “best degree UoN has to offer”. After further persuasion, the most I was able to get out of our Admin without giving too much away is that they are a Life Sciences student. They describe the Nottsfessional as a “good distraction” from their masters dissertation work and PhD proposals.

Some choose to procrastinate uni work by binging Netflix and sleeping. Others decide to run a highly successful uni confessions page – each to their own.

Q: How did you come up with the idea of ‘The Nottsfessional’?

After seeing the likes of Durfess and BrisTruths growing exponentially, and realising that Notts didn’t have its own confessions page, the Admin decided to make one with their housemates.

“For the name I didn’t want to just go with basic ‘Nottsfess’ like other pages and the confessional booth joke came to me. Also the submissions software uses uni truths which is a platform built specifically for uni confessions pages.”

Q: How does it feel knowing everyone’s secrets and being the mastermind behind the page?

To put it simply, The Admin describes it as being “pretty cool.”

They said, “It’s like being a secret BNOC. But mostly it’s just a bit of fun to pass the time, I enjoy checking the submissions and seeing what’s going on.”

They don’t know much about the people who submit the posts as the submission page is also anonymous to the Admin as well. However, they can see those who accidentally message the Facebook page thinking that it is the submissions page – “it means I have somewhat of an idea of who to avoid on campus and who is decent!”

Q: How do you decide which posts to reject and how do you feel about that? e.g. If something is quite disturbing does that upset/concern you/make you want to take any action?

The page has basic rules which users must follow when making submissions.

“Obviously if people are struggling I don’t want them to feel that they can’t be open about that, but at the same time you have to protect the rest of the students (which is why some posts have trigger warnings on them).

Also I’m not qualified to give any advice on serious issues so a lot of posts detailing struggles with mental health (which have become way more common during the pandemic) have to be deleted. We have a load of links to resources and organisations offering help on the page though and urge people to contact them/their friends/another outlet that is more equipped to deal with these issues if they’re struggling.”

Q: What is the funniest/weirdest confession you have received?

Q: Have you received threats to take posts down?

“Oh yeah SO many times, we’ve had threats to get the police involved, messages from certain club owners … it’s all part of the fun – I usually don’t pay them much attention.”

The Admin has a policy of deleting any posts if someone requests no questions asked, and it is clear in the rules not to report posts/the page – “just message me asking to remove a post. Simple.”

Q: What are your plans for the Nottsfessional after you graduate?

“I saw a few other uni pages made surveys for people interested in taking over the page when the current admins graduate, so I’ll probably do that closer to the time. Or I’ll just keep running the page myself. There’s no jobs so it’s not like I’ll have anything else to do.”