The Missed Connections Movement
By: Gabriella Rudy and Sara Atashi
COVID-19 deprived college students of the one thing that makes the quintessential college experience: socialization. When lecture hall desk chairs were traded for living room couches, college-aged kids were forced to make virtual connections. Two USC sophomores capitalized on this trend and created USC Missed Connections, an Instagram page dedicated to creating a safe space for students to share and find their Zoom crushes.
The account was founded by sophomores Calvin Mattson and Will Domke in the fall of 2020, with the first post being published on Sept 30. Mattson and Domke started it as a fun side hobby, even making up their own submissions for the first few days of the account. Presently, they receive about 40-50 submissions each day via an anonymous Google Form in the account’s bio and even more via direct message, which they do not accept.
“We have about seven or eight hundred posts backlogged. We just randomly go through and delete them. So every once in a while, we'll get people messaging us kind of pissed off,” Mattson said. “It's become a lot bigger than I think we expected it was going to be.”
Even with the overwhelming amount of submissions, Mattson and Domke ensure that two Missed Connections posts go out each day so as to not disappoint followers.
“People look forward to seeing if their name is going to be on there,” Mattson said. “A lot of my friends tell me it's habitual for them to read through every single post to see who got on or if they know anyone who's on there.”
The light-hearted nature of the account helped to foster a sense of normalcy and community in unprecedented times.
“An understanding of how badly people want a connection like back during COVID is the biggest piece I took away from this,” Mattson said. “I think people were actually using it as a way to try to stay connected during it. It brought me a new realization of how much people need social interaction.”
Returning to in-person classes and activities did not diminish the popularity of the account; rather, Mattson and Domke saw growth in engagement. They suspect that the ability to talk to someone in class directly still does not appeal to students as much as an anonymous form does. The anonymity extends to the account owners as well, as Mattson and Domke cannot see who sends in each form.
“I think people want to be able to reach out or at least make the comment because they know it will probably make the other person feel good,” Mattson said. “And since they don't have to risk [rejection], there's no reciprocation or anything, they don't have to fear the embarrassment of it.”
Domke and Mattson are enjoying watching the account’s progression and currently have no plans for the page to end.
“As long as people still want to do it, we'll definitely continue it,” Mattson said. “I think it'd be very cool to have it be like a passed down thing.”