To the Editor:
First off, we want to extend a big thanks to The Post for the awesome feature last week. Ohio University has consistently been one of our most active and interesting feeds, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to know that Unseen is generating discussion in an official capacity like the student paper.
Will Gibbs’ piece about Unseen as a platform that “showcases Bobcats’ bad behavior” perfectly captured most people’s first reactions to the app. Unseen is startling, and the images of nudity, drinking and drugs can initially be blinding. It might be difficult to make sense of an anonymous app like Unseen given that social media as it stands is so closely tied to your identity. This generation is so used to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, against which Unseen looks completely different. There are no follow counts, and no one really cares who was where with whom — the focus shifts from who is posting, to the content of the post itself. When you remove the identity piece from social media, users aren’t wrapped up in their own images. All that’s left is human connection.
This is ultimately what Unseen is about. The ability to connect with your community anonymously is brand new to social media, and for that reason, there’s still a strong element of novelty for users. Getting feedback on how your butt looks or bragging about how much weed you smoke is not something people could do publicly before, at least not on this scale. But if you look closely at Ohio University’s feed, you’ll see there’s a deeper level to the content than sex and partying. There’s also a spectacularly silly level where humor can flourish. There’s a lot happening at OU, and not all of it is fit for a status update. But that doesn’t mean that students aren't eager to share experiences that might not be Facebook-friendly.
Michael Schramm is the co-founder and CEO of Unseen.
