By Ana Jones

On January 12, while sitting on my couch at home, avoiding thoughts about the looming spring semester, I logged onto Facebook. After scrolling through my news feed and seeing countless sparkly New Years pictures, something caught my eye. There was a notice that several of my friends had recently become friends with “Bucknell Compliments.” I’d heard of schools or towns making Twitter accounts to “spread the love,” but I wasn’t sure how they worked. I’d never seen a Facebook compliments page and I’d definitely never seen one for this University.

Curious as I was, I didn’t add Bucknell Compliments as my friend just yet. Several days later, I had almost 30 mutual friends with the page, so I caved in and added them. Once my request was accepted, I spent almost 30 minutes reading the compliments and was amazed at the love our community has for one another.

I was still a little confused on how the page worked, so I asked Shiri Levine ’16.

“You add them as a friend or they add you, then you inbox them compliments about people on campus. Then, they post the compliments and everyone sees them. It’s a really cool idea,” Levine said.

“All the students here are incredibly nice and this page is a perfect way to show that,” Meghan Garanich ’16 said.

Kate Albertini ’14 also has positive thoughts about the page. On January 12, she posted on the page’s wall: “This is a wonderfully fantastic idea and makes me grinningly proud to be a Bucknellian” and received 15 likes for her sentiments.

The compliments range from silly ones like, “Jennifer Brady [’16] is the best person ever and deserves like 60000000 cookies ;)” and “Michaella Bloom [’16] is a sexy mama,” to more serious ones like “Jackie Eppinger [’15] is a strong, confident, and beautiful person: inside and out” and “Lizzie Kirshenbaum [’14] is one of the best and most caring friends someone could ever have. Anyone would be lucky to be able to know her.”

The page targets mostly first-year students, but there are several compliments posted about other class years too. The page is completely anonymous, but since it mainly focuses on first-years, many students suspect that it’s run by one.

Although the page seems like a great idea now, the question is whether the page has staying power. Internet sites tend to be popular for a few months and then disappear. Will the same thing happen to Bucknell Compliments?

“It will probably fade eventually, but since it’s such a positive page, I think it will be around for a while,” Eileen Cook ’16 said.

The site may not be around forever, but for now, it’s the perfect way to make someone’s day. Everyone should log onto Facebook, add Bucknell Compliments and send in a few compliments. As the site says, “spread the Bucknell love!”