Last year, a new Twitter page arose that took the campus by storm with the tag @svsucrushes2.
Since then, SVSUCrushes has grown to have around 3,400 followers, and still growing, as well as having posted over 7,000 tweets. But for the most part, those who run the page have remained anonymous, not allowing themselves any sort of claim to fame and instead sitting in the background, watching students and keeping their secret to themselves. However, in an exclusive interview, the anonymous people who run SVSUCrushes have divulged some information about what it is like being the mysterious force behind the popular page. These people have requested they remain anonymous, though, in the following Q&A.
So what made you decided to create SVSUCrushes?
I saw my friends on MSUCrushes and I really liked the idea, so I had a lot of free time and I could definitely do it. I thought it would be fun for everybody because I have a lot of crushes personally, so that’s why I decided to make it.
When you first started, did you believe Crushes would be this successful?
No, it’s a lot of work actually. With classes and actual work, you don’t realize that people will request posts sometimes when you are in class, and there will be 70 crushes. Sometimes we will even get mad at each other if we aren’t posting enough.
What is the best part about running the page?
The best thing about running it is when we have crush success stories when someone becomes connected with their crush through us and they can tell us about it. It’s really cool to know that they probably wouldn’t have had the courage to speak out when someone is like ‘Favorite this if you wrote this tweet’ and someone actually does do it and they go on a date or something.
What is the funniest part about running this page?
Vague posts. Yeah, the other day – this is a memorable one, actually – someone just put Chris P. They didn’t even put an exclamation point or a heart or anything, it was just Chris P. Sometimes you’ll see a post like, ‘The girl who wore the yoga pants who held the door open for me,’ and seventeen girls will retweet it thinking it was them. Then people are like, ‘Be more specific!’ because they really want it to be them.
How do you react when you see people feeling down for not being on SVSUCrushes?
Sometimes when they write it to us, we always respond and say, ‘You’ll get on there, we have a crush on you!’ cause we do. Some people may just not know your name, and some people post more than others. Different groups of people post different things. It’s nothing personal towards anyone. We are all beautiful people in our own way. And you might not see it, too. Someone may post, ‘Oh, that person that wore this and this,’ and you may have missed that one and it might have been you.”
Do all of the requested posts you get come from ask.fm?
No, we get direct messages from people, so we do know who some people’s crushes are first hand, but that’s confidential. We have never told, and we never will. We keep it between us.
What are some rules that you have between each other while running this page?
We don’t post about each other. We don’t want any one of us to get excited and then it be us. We don’t post about ourselves either. Don’t talk about Crushes in public settings. Also, if we are posting at the same time, one starts at the bottom of the requests and one starts at the top. If I have work, I will text someone and say ‘Can you post?’ because we need to get them out there and get it done.
Concerning the previous threat that was in the police briefs last semester, how did that impact the page?
We took a break directly after because we weren’t sure how to handle the situation, so we weren’t going to post anything until we know where this is going and how this can be dealt with. We shut down, and then these new pages came up and we realized that people want Crushes so bad, so we had to come back. We know for sure that we know how to handle Crushes in a responsible way and we wouldn’t want someone else to handle it in an irresponsible way.
How much are the posts edited that are sent to you?
We don’t edit a lot, but a bit is edited and filtered because if something is mean we are not going to post it if it is negative towards someone. Or if it has positive notes like ‘Oh, I really like you,’ but it says break up with your boyfriend in some mean way, we’ll take out the mean part. We also are forced to edit if the post is over 140 characters because of Twitter’s character limit.
What keeps you running Crushes and keeping it from becoming tedious work?
Just seeing and looking for people we know and looking for repeats and fun little stories about someone we saw keeps us going. It definitely helps that there is more than one of us because it helps that not all of the work is on one person. It’s entertaining for us too, just like when you read it. When people send in feel-good posts to us, just thanking us for running the page and that they look forward to it during the day because it keeps them awake through class helps, too.
Why do you want to stay anonymous?
We want to stay anonymous because if people were to know who we are, it would take the mystery out of it. If people didn’t get a crush they wanted, we would get some of the personal blame. If we’re not posting fast enough, we don’t want people coming up to us asking all of the time ‘Can you post this?’ or ‘Will you post this?’ And for the fear that people knowing who we are will get nervous to post. Even though they don’t know us, having a name to it may make people shy away.
How hard is it to keep your secret?
It’s really hard. We’ve come close a few times to getting caught. We have it connected on our phones as well, and it gets really scary sometimes. We’ve posted on our own accounts on accident confusing it, and you have to delete it right away because it gets scary.
Do you plan on ever revealing your identity?
We are going to when we graduate.
What is going to happen to Crushes when you graduate?
We have thought about this a lot. We want to pass it down to the right person, someone who can be as secretive as us. Responsible and trustworthy and observant, and someone who can maintain the page. Someone who really cares about their peers at SVSU, a fun person.
So what are some future plans or goals that you have with this page?
We’re looking to work with Student Association to set up SVSUCrushes Speed Dating. We’re hoping to do that as soon as possible, but we’re not sure when but we’re hoping it’s something that many students participate in because it will be a lot of fun.
Is there anything else you want to say to your followers?
We flipping love them. You guys are awesome. It’s been so much fun, we laugh so much because of it. We smile because it’s really fun running this page, and obviously we wouldn’t have it if no one posted. Just know that we are watching all 3,387 (now even more) of you.
