By Ivy Rockmore PZ ’27
What is Fizz?
Simply, Fizz is a Twitter-like platform where students can anonymously yet publicly post and respond to one another. In my eyes, Fizz manifests itself as a digital representation of our consortium’s collective consciousness.
Pitzer’s student body, and the 5Cs broadly, have cultural niches that are easy to miss. But Fizz makes them apparent.
By flooding our feeds with rants about classes, romantic and sexual frustrations, party culture, and more, the app presents us with the most true visions of what our community is thinking at any given time.
Where did this platform begin? Where will it lead our culture? And who’s to say Fizz is forever? Let’s explore this mysterious phenomenon a little deeper.
Roots
The app first came into relevance during the 2023-2023 school year, after groups of Claremont students started posting Instagram stories urging followers to download the app. Even though it soon became known that Fizz’s marketing team had actually paid each student $15 for these posts, the company’s ploy had already worked.
While it’s impossible to know how many students are using the app, the highest upvoted post boasts over 1,700 upvotes. That means there’s at least 1,700 students across the 5Cs who have been active on the app.
Notably, Fizz has quickly become freshmen-centric; there is a disconnect in who uses Fizz between class years. In previous years, an app called YikYak, with a similar premise and structure to Fizz, ruled as the primary app for community anonymous posting.
Since Fizz has only propped into relevance in the past year, some upperclassmen reminisce about when YikYak served as the main app for community discussion in Claremont.
“YikYak was just so prevalent for my first month of college,” Dominic Feder Di Toro PZ ‘26 said. “People were on it constantly, asking each other what their scores were. I know people who met on YikYak and dated last year.”
Fizz’s sudden rise to fame and YikYak’s rapid fall begs the question: Will Fizz fall out of its cultural relevance? Who or what will take its place?
Fizz at our very own Pitzer
As a Top 20 Fizzer myself–a user who has garnered enough ‘karma,’ or upvotes to be placed on the leaderboard–I find myself more drawn to Fizz than Twitter (now called X), or even Instagram at times.
Why?
There’s something to be said about having a platform that individuals feel intricately connected to – a community in which only a sole few are able to grasp the nuances of campuses’ cultural happenings.
For example, when Pitzer’s Class of 2027 attended their first-year representative debate and a candidate was revealed to be not on the ballot, hundreds of Fizzes were posted within minutes.
Yes, the posts were humorous. But moreso, they were real: everyone’s state of confusion presented itself in digital fashion across pixels, emojis, and space. One user stated: “Pitzer first-year class rep debate is actually a mess😭.”
Fizz has even served as a health communication platform amid recent upticks in the flu and COVID-19.
When Student Health Services (SHS) held its first day of a flu shot clinic on Sept. 19th, ‘anonymous’ fizzed: “FLU SHOT CLINIC AT SHS THIS AFTERNOON! BE THERE!” and received 529 fizz-ups.
Later that day, dozens of students, with their sleeves rolled up, waited in line for their turn to get a shot. Meanwhile, SHS didn’t send an email to encourage students to get their yearly vaccines until October 3rd.
All of this is to say: students, particularly underclassmen, are perhaps more rapidly internalizing and sharing significant information from Fizz than announcements from administrative offices, emails, or other traditional forms of digital communication.
Fizz Dating
Some students flock to Tinder, Hinge, Grindr, Bumble, or the plethora of other dating apps for a chance at romance (or maybe just a hookup). Recently, dozens have tried their luck on Fizz.
The appeal is unique: each user is completely anonymous, and can even post hookup or relationship requests under the category “🍑#fizz rizz.”
“Anyone want to hook up to just make out & hold each other?” an anonymous user posted in early September, receiving 785 upvotes. “unironically yeah. dm me,” a user replied.
Recently, it has become normalized to blatantly post hookup requests on the app, reminiscent of pre-dating app sites like Craigslist in the 2000s (pictured below).
But not everyone believes in the safety of Fizz hookups or wants to be subjected to public scrutiny if word got out.
“I’ve been texting with this guy anonymously on Fizz and we’ve really been connecting but I’m terrified to meet him in person,” a female Pitzer freshman, who wishes to stay anonymous out of fear of judgment, said. “I ghosted him when we were supposed to meet.”
Cultural Relevance
Fizz also serves as a site of cultural anger and, at times, trauma.
In one scenario, an anonymous user posted a screenshot of a Claremont man who sent her a message on Snapchat aloofly alerting her that he thought he may have impregnated her.
“Maybe f*cking tell me sooner?? It’s been 4 days,” the user wrote.
Others came to her defense.
“Oh my god, this is so f*cked up,” one user replied, receiving over 1,200 fizz-ups.
Another user guided the original poster in her comments (pictured below). Students can also obtain pregnancy tests and Plan B at the Pomona vending machines in Walker Hall.
The rapidness at which a Fizz post can receive a reply serves as a pillar in community support. Fizz, consequently, has become an imagined space where students digitally go to request help, even before seeking assistance from physical structures or institutions.
From my perspective, there is much to say about life at Pitzer and in Claremont. Students are fizzing to the surface with opinions about anything and everything.
This app is now a place for centralized communication and community, an anonymous and therefore more forgiving Student Talk. Only time will tell how, who, and with what vigor Fizz will hold on our community.