Weeks after @collegefessions exploded on Twitter, Murray State students started following a more localized confessions page, @murrayfessions.

With more than 400 followers, the account has only been active for two weeks. The first tweet from the account encouraged students to send in their own confessions and said, “we want to know all your secrets.”

While the account has less than 30 tweets, many students have still followed the account.

Dana Howard, social media manager for the University, said the account popped up in her search queries about seven minutes after the account was started.

“Fortunately, branding-wise it is not representing Murray State but it is easy to see it is being filled with Murray State student confessions,” Howard said. “It continues to show up in my searches so I am monitoring it; mostly so I know if specific organizations or people are used in any tweets.”

Since the Twitter account does not use the Murray State logo, slogan or anything that ties it to the University, Howard can’t get it taken down.

“Unfortunately, these accounts are types of problems social media marketers deal with when working hard to protect image and brand,” Howard said.

Now, more than a hundred colleges have parody Twitter accounts encouraging students to submit stories. High school students have also jumped on the bandwagon.

Aimee Graves, graduate student from Murray, said the @murrayfessions account is ridiculous.

“It’s horrible publicity for the school and most seems made up, to be honest,” Graves said. “I agree with many of the points Dana Howard made about CollegeFessions.”

Graves said she thinks accounts like @collegefessions and @murrayfessions shed a terrible light on Murray State and the City of Murray.

The founder of @murrayfession asked to remain anonymous but said her and a friend started the account one day while they were bored.

“We weren’t starting it to shed a bad light on the school, just to entertain people and let others share their funny stories,” a founder of @murayfession said. “I don’t actually have any long term plans with it, just seeing where it goes. I assume the hype will die down soon enough unless some Project X crazy party comes about.”

She said she knew the @collegefessions account was successful and thought it would be “pretty cool” for Murray State students to share their own stories without having to go through one popular account that gets so many submissions every day.

“So far it’s been semi-successful,” the founder said. “We haven’t had as many posts as I thought we would, but I guess people are afraid that their identity might come out if they sent anything. I keep every post fully confidential.”

Dalton Hazelett, senior from Eureka, Mo., said he thinks the accounts are pretty funny.

“I don’t take the accounts seriously,” Hazelett said. “It’s something funny to look at when I’m bored. If the tweets are true, then some of these people have some crazy stories; if they are made up confessions, then I don’t really care, they are still pretty hilarious.”

Story by Meghann Anderson, News Editor