Moving into their first semester in college, Braedon Troy (CAS ’27) kept hearing about an app called Fizz — especially since a close friend quickly reached the top 20 most-liked posters. 

“My roommate got it,” Troy told The Hoya. “And then another friend of mine who is in the top 20 also downloaded it and started talking about it. I’m like, okay, I feel like I’m missing out.” 

Put simply, Fizz is an anonymous posting app only accessible to students on specific college campuses. Students can use it as a forum to talk about whatever they want, whether it be bombing their macroeconomics exam or arguing who is winning the rap beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. 

Troy, who has been a fan of college basketball for as long as they can remember, said that the content other Georgetown University students were posting immediately hooked them on the app. Around the start of basketball season in Oct., they had an idea: what if they started updating Fizz users on all things Hoya hoops? That’s when they decided to set their handle as “cooley’s army” and post updated basketball scores, standings, recruits and transfers. Today, Troy is ranked seventh all-time on the Georgetown Fizz leaderboard.

For a chance to make the coveted leaderboard, users need their posts to get upvotes, each of which earns them an additional karma point. Every upvote boosts your karma score, allowing you to then see where you rank on the karma leaderboard. If you are bold enough, you can also set a handle for yourself to post under. Consistent usernames and the public top-20 leaderboard have created familiarity with those users – and a few new campus microcelebrities. 

This newfound fame was on full display between March and April this year, when one user created a “Fizz Madness” bracket, a March Madness-style tournament pitting prominent users in a popularity contest against each other via polls posted on the app. Some of these polls saw over a thousand students chiming in to share who their favorite Fizz users were. 

The most upvoted posts on the app have about 2,000 upvotes — equivalent to one-fourth of Georgetown’s undergraduate student body. Despite the top 20 users’ fame on the app, since Fizz is an anonymous app, most students don’t know who these campus celebrities are in real life.

“I think about that all the time,” says Teddy Gerkin (CAS ’26), a top-20 user with the screen name “mr. wisemiller.” “It’s a pretty awesome feeling for me – I’ve always felt like I’ve had a good sense of humor, and I guess to be validated by a quarter of campus is pretty cool.”

Outside of the celebrity of the top 20, the app has a variety of other inside jokes. Take the popular top-20 Fizz user, “Chill Blinton,” for example — “Chill Blinton” takes on the persona of former president Bill Clinton (SFS ’68), making niche references to the Clinton presidency. Ranging from his impeachment to his highly-publicized affair with Monica Lewinsky.

Gerkin said the app is also a prime opportunity for students to lift up others in the Georgetown community — particularly Youssef, a food service worker at Epicurean & Company and Royal Jacket Deli. 

“I’m a frequenter at Epi’s and Royal Jacket, where you know Youssef works a lot,” Gerkin said. “I have only had good experiences with him, and I think the fact that it gets recognized – I’m looking at a post right now that has 2,000 upvotes – I think the fact that that gets recognized by the rest of the student body is amazing.” 

Outside of the top 20 user jokes, uplifting people in the community and Jack the Bulldog memes, how does Fizz affect campus culture and discourse? Robbie Safran (SFS ‘27) is not convinced the app moves the needle much on campus issues. “Personally I think there is a very clear separation – between my real-life social circles and what happens on fizz,” says Safran. “I don’t think Fizz – influences Georgetown culture, I think Georgetown culture influences Fizz – I think it’s sort of a one-way relationship.” Troy also shared the same sentiment, stating  “ I don’t think it has that many real-life effects. – I don’t think that it has a major effect on campus culture.” 

Fizz is a microcosm of the Georgetown community, with its own inside jokes, celebrities and culture – a place that can give community members a sense of belonging in an otherwise isolating and divided world. As silly as Fizz is, it brings the Georgetown student body together and provides us all with a good laugh, a sense of togetherness and school spirit.