We spoke to someone from the team behind UCLA Secrets
Their name is simply ‘Chains’
The UCLA Secrets page is almost as well-known as our memes page for its revealing student confessions of love, lust, and roommate conflicts.
We sat down with an intern known only as “Chains” to ask our most burning questions about what’s behind the elusive page.
UCLA Secrets bringing people together IRL
What is the idea behind UCLA Secrets?
The idea behind UCLA Secrets is to create an environment for students to freely express their thoughts while staying anonymous. Sometimes, it’s hard to be expressive of your opinion in public so that’s why we exist.
How does someone become a mod/admin/intern?
We fill out an application and wait to be accepted as an intern. And as an intern, I am working my way up to become an admin. My responsibilities include posting the secrets, designing cover photos, reaching out to individuals to give them advice, and working with the team to make UCLA Secrets more popular.
The secret form expresses that due to censorship policies, the page had to be taken down for a while. What happened, and what has changed since then?
Whenever someone reports our page, we get in trouble by Facebook. Sometimes, we take our page down to prevent further troubles. And right now, if people have a problem, they should message us directly instead of reporting, or else we can actually lose our page.
About how many submissions do you get a day/week?
We get at least 50 secrets a day.
What is the reasoning behind including demographic information on the form?
We include demographic information on the form to get a better understanding of students. It’s really useful to know their background before we give them advice in case they are having personal struggles. But of course, it is anonymous and we won’t be able to link it to someone’s identity.
Are most submissions posted? What kinds of posts (if any) do you typically restrict?
Most submissions do get posted. We do restrict anything that is considered too controversial or threatening.
What do you think of how students typically respond?
I think the students are great with giving advice since some of them are also experiencing the same thing as the secret submitter. The tagging of friends do foster a fun environment and makes things funnier than it should be.
Have you successfully set any couples up from the page?
A few.
What is the best secret you’ve received?
“I am a guy. I like sex. Would lady like sex? I shower everyday.”
And lastly, what’s your UCLA secret?
I play with chains.
Submit your UCLA secret here.