Last week, two anonymous Twitter accounts were created by LHS students–one showcasing the caring nature of LHS’s student body, and one doing the exact opposite.
The first of the two Twitter accounts, @LHS Roast Session, was run by an anonymous user(s) and posted rude, offensive comments about students here at LHS. All that one had to do was submit an ill-mannered comment about a student via direct messaging or ask FM, and it would be put up with no trace or link to the submitter. That is, until the person(s) running the account decided to start revealing his/her sources.
Kendall Herbert, a senior at LHS, is one of the many students who had their identity revealed. She tweeted something along the lines of many students showing interest in a senior boy at LHS, and also accused someone of running the LHS Roast Session. “I wasn’t embarrassed or shocked because I knew what I did, and I knew sending it in was risky so I dealt with it like any other person should have. I made a joke out of it! My DM that was exposed was not hurtful or sent in with ill intentions so I was not worried,” said Herbert.
While Herbert found some of the comments on the page to be funny, junior Nina Knuti was completely against the page and the messages that were being posted on it.
“Initially, I was upset. It seemed really off to me that someone or a group of people could post those things about their fellow students. It was also terrible of the people running the account to expose those who submitted the tweets. I was sort of surprised,” expressed Knuti.
Not much is known about the person(s) that ran the LHS Roast Session and the exact reasons for it being taken down, but what is for certain is that it was deleted on Sunday, May 10, after many DMs were exposed. LHS administrators declined to comment on the how the school was handling the issue.
The second Twitter page, LHS Kind Words (@kindwordsLHS), has experienced major growth over the past week, with 586 followers (as of May 19), and hundreds of retweets and favorites by many LHS students; it is spreading kindness to the entire LHS student body.
Just as with LHS Roast Session, Twitter users are able to anonymously send in their thoughts on other students via direct messaging or ask FM, but the difference is this Twitter account only allows and posts positive, nurturing comments about others.
“It feels so nice to be acknowledged on the page. Just knowing that someone thinks such awesome things about you is such a good feeling. It made me feel so happy,” expressed freshman Livvy Tomassetti, a student who was featured on the account.
Another student, sophomore Zach Pearson, is also happy to have been mentioned on the account. “The post was ‘Zach Pearson dresses better than I do’– I was really happy to have heard that because I’ve actually been making an effort to dress well — I’m glad people have noticed! I love the anonymity of it. It’s like a fun mystery, and it’s all just so positive — I guess it just makes anyone happy to be part of such an awesome community,” explained Pearson.
The creator of LHS Kind Words, an anonymous junior girl, wishes to keep her identity hidden, but is not afraid to share her reasoning on creating the account.
“I saw [the roast account] and thought, This kind of sucks. But then it got worse and worse and it started getting really personal and I thought that was really unfair to some people. I started seeing people who went here saying ‘Oh, I’m so disappointed in our school, I don’t want to be associated with that.’ So I thought this would be a way to change it and I had already seen other schools that had accounts that were similar so I thought it would be something good to try. It ended up working out pretty well,” the mystery account manager revealed.
While the LHS Roast Session page brought and left a negative effect within the student body, LHS Kind Words has transformed and is continuing to transform that negativity into positivity.
“My hope is that students not only speak up over Twitter, but in school and in person,” voiced social worker Meagan Silverberg.
Q&A with LHS Kind Words
RJ: Did it take a little while to get going?
KW: It did, cause I didn’t know so I thought I would just follow a lot of people. It ended up working out well. They’re [the tweets on the LHS Roast Session] so negative and there shouldn’t be a place for that because it [the LHS Roast Session] doesn’t have a purpose other than hurting other people. It was something I thought would help people.
RJ: Have you received a lot of positive feedback from LHS students?
KW: I’ve had a lot of people saying stuff like, ‘Thank you so much for doing this, whoever you are.’ It’s kind of funny to me because I don’t do anything except post the things that people say. The people who send in the stuff do all the work, I just post it out there. That’s why I want to stay anonymous, is because I don’t feel that I’m doing that much really.
RJ: Were you expecting all the DMs and whatnot?
KW: I didn’t expect to get so much stuff, I have over 500 tweets in four days, people are probably really annoyed. It’s just hard because things come in so much faster than you can put them out. I was really surprised at how much people do it and see it. I have 300-400 tweets I haven’t done. There are a lot I haven’t gotten to, and there are a lot of people who don’t understand why.
RJ: LHS Kind Words really took off, what does that say about LHS kids?
KW: It’s a really positive comment that a lot of the people that said stuff on the roast page are the minority of everyone, and there really aren’t that many people that say mean things. People want to be positive and have positive things to say. This represents the majority of students who have nice things to say and want to say things about people they know.
RJ: Is the anonymous part of it fun for you?
KW: People do ask who I am, but I just don’t answer those because I don’t find it necessary. It’s interesting to hear what people have to say, and you like to see people doing something for people they know. I don’t think it’s important who it is. I dont think it matters who’s doing it, it just matters that someone is doing it. I don’t think I’m doing anything extraordinary or doing anything super nice, I think I’m trying to make people feel better about themselves. If it just makes one person smile then that’s fine with me
