This is a screenshot of the West Side Compliments Facebook Page. In the first weekend of December, the page went completely viral.

A social media phenomenon has been sweeping the facebook newsfeeds of West Side students. What’s the twist this time? The posts are the digital version of random acts of kindness!

West Side Compliments is an anonymous facebook page that posts compliments sent by students to the  “inbox” about people at our school. In less than a week it has garnered  likes from almost half of the high school population.

Since the creator of the page wishes to be anonymous, she will be referred to as WSC throughout the rest of the article.

The page was created on November 24th, however it did not go viral until December 1st. Discussing the peak of page views, WSC said, “On Sunday morning, I posted that the goal by the end of the day was to get 100 likes. By midnight there were over 250. It was crazy.” The reason for its going viral  is  that people like reading about their friends. It’s like a gossip column, but nice.  The whole concept of a nice social media page began as a social experiment in Queen’s University in Canada. It then spread to campuses across the country.

WSC said, “I knew it happened at colleges and universities, but I never thought it would happen at the high school level.”

Many other schools have reported that students love the page and that it creates a sense of a community. WSC said, “West Side is generally a really nice place, but any place can use more love.”

As talk of the page has spread around school, so has speculation on who is running the site.  WSC currently operates the page on her own, with the help of a few others who helped get the word out.  However, a few friends of WSC are set to become moderators in the next couple of days.

“It’s kind of fun,” WSC answered when asked why she chooses to remain anonymous. “It’s hilarious when people try to guess.”  She added that she feels “like the nice version of Gossip Girl.”

Another reason WSC remains anonymous is because she believes that people feel more comfortable sending in compliments when they don’t know who the middle-man is. WSC does not create the compliments; she only copies and pastes them from her inbox to the page. As soon as a post has been made, she deletes the message so there is no record of who sent what.

As far as feedback goes, the majority of the school population has only positive things to say.

“I think it’s a good idea especially because of the fact that our school is so small,” said Arpitha Gadag ’14. “This way, not only are people getting positive feedback about themselves anonymously, they’re also getting to know that hey, someone does think you’re an awesome person.”

Lev Zemlyanov ’15, however, poses the question, “In general it’s a great idea and it has good intentions, but of course what about the people who don’t get a compliment?”

Needless to say, WSC has been pleased with the response.  She said “The majority of the feedback I’ve gotten has been like really really positive. I didn’t realize how much people would appreciate the page.”