While attending Garfield High School began in the means of education, anonymous Instagram accounts have made the overall experience of a Garfield student even more enticing. When good old-fashioned bullying could no longer suffice, social media was created and opened up a new world of possibilities. While some anonymous GHS Instagram accounts are playful, some are strictly malicious. Either way, these accounts are full time jobs, and someone has to do it, right? Reuben Gross-Keck certainly thinks so, the cofounder of @garfield_compliments along with Jack Long, initially created the account for a school project. Long came up with the idea for an account based in positivity, “I decided to help him, just spreading positivity and love throughout the community of Garfield,” Gross-Keck said. Their account was different, while some accounts had been used as tools to aid in bullying, theirs was used to counteract the issue. While many Garfield accounts struggle to get their startup with a lack of following, the positive message of @garfield_compliments touched the hearts of many students. “They saw a beacon of light in the dark,” Gross-Keck described his account, “during hateful times in Garfield, they saw this beacon of light shine, and they decided, wow, I need to follow this account.” Gross-Keck, seeing his account as the pioneer, claims many have tried to follow in his footsteps, but have ultimately fallen short.
In an effort to understand what it truly takes to run a GHS Instagram account, we went undercover as @ghs.rumors, hoping to grasp the full experience. After creating a username, slowly gaining a following and posting a survey, the account was ready. Immediately DMs rolled in, despite the survey clearly in the bio. The first DM was a simple STD rumor, the oldest trick in the book. The next however, was an inexplicable act of hatred towards all GHS Instagram accounts. Receiving the notification that someone had mentioned the account in their story sparked immediate joy, the account was growing and we were likely getting a special shoutout from a supporter. Imagine our surprise when, upon clicking the story, hate speech was written in regards to the account. What was created in hopes to bond the community and investigate this Instagram phenomenon, was now receiving direct death threats towards “whoever owns this account.” While we knew they could not take us all down, this DMer was not going down without a fight. Five minutes later we were battling this anonymous DMer’s threat to hunt down the account owner and “slime [us] out with [their] vast weaponry.” Alas we persisted, despite the fear now instilled within our hearts, the viewers were counting on us to start posting. The posting came easy, and the submissions kept coming in. While some submissions were backstabbing betrayals, most kept it light hearted. Despite the initial scare and debatably funny submissions, running an account was even better then it was said to be.
