‘Britain has an underincarceration problem.’ Is this The Isis’ latest thought-provoking Guillotine, designed to scandalise ? Or just another anonymous submission to Overheard at Oxford, reflecting the casual provocations that flow through student consciousness? The fact that it’s genuinely difficult to tell reveals how narrow the gap has become between Oxford’s established critical publications and its most influential student platform.

 

 

The difference between the two isn’t only in the metrics—even when we adopt Overheard’s scandalous quote format, trading mystery for moral conviction, we can only manage 80 likes. The difference isn’t either in the editorial control : behind Overheard’s two-question Google Form and deliberately low-effort blue-and-white grid lies something far from the libertarian free-for-all it appears to be. Like The Isis, the account launched just two years ago is curated, filtered, and carefully editorialised. The crucial differences, however, might lie in the explicit transparency about doing so, and in what version of Oxford each platform ultimately presents.

 

 

Behind the account is a PPE finalist who prefers to stay anonymous. He says he’ll be in Oxford next year ‘in some capacity, working.’ When I ask why he stays anonymous, he answers: ‘It’s meant to be a platform anyone can interact with, anyone can submit to. It’s not my personal meme account.’ The anonymity, then, isn’t about secrecy. It’s about keeping the focus on the content, preserving the illusion that the quotes appear on their own, dropped into the feed by the Oxford collective unconscious.

 

 

The creation of the account was in fact prompted by a post on Oxfess asking why the admin of Overheard at Oxbridge had gone silent. On Oxfess, he admits to having ‘mixed opinions’: depending on the different admins and ‘their approaches,’ ‘some stuff often gets posted that’s not very… nice.’ By contrast, he tells us, his own platform allows him to have more control. He wants to make sure that nothing gets published that’s offensive, ‘or otherwise strange.’

 

 

While the gesture of caution appears reasonable, the filtering process raises questions about what gets lost—or strategically preserved—in translation. What does this curation actually look like in practice? I ask whether he’s ever made up a post himself. ‘No. The closest would be when someone submits something very unclear—I’ll reword it to make their meaning more understandable. I also sometimes tone things down if they could be construed as offensive, while still keeping the joke.’ But if the original was borderline, is the edited version better, or just better disguised?

 

 

When I ask him for an example, he tells me he recently edited a submission about the Cecil Rhodes statue, because ‘the original phrasing was very celebratory of it still being up, which is obviously a sensitive issue.’ The final post read: ‘I sing “I’m Still Standing” every time I pass Oriel’s Cecil Rhodes statue.’ In editing out the celebration, what else disappeared? The rawness of student opinion? The uncomfortable reality that some Oxford students do hold these views? The edited version creates deliberate ambiguity—it could be read as mockery, defiance, or simple observation. But this flexibility, while safer for viral consumption, arguably misrepresents the original sentiment. The admin has effectively transformed a clear political statement into something more palatable, removing the very specificity that might have sparked meaningful debate.

According to him, this version ‘reflects more that someone had a reaction to it, without promoting a particular viewpoint.’ He also edited some of the quotes submitted during the last papal conclave, because, he explains, ‘some of the jokes about the Pope were a bit much.’ We’re a long way from the stoning scene in Life of Brian: ‘I don’t want anything to be identifiable or feel like bullying.’

 

 

While it’s reassuring to know that a certain ethics—flexible, but attentive—underpins the account (he’s deleted every post flagged in a DM, however rare that is), it also invites a closer look at Overheard at Oxford’s appeal, and what it reflects about us as students.

 

 

One of its most viral posts was ‘I use LinkedIn as a dating app.’ He tells me he didn’t find it funny himself, but posted it after a friend insisted it was ‘hilarious.’ It ended up being reshared widely, mostly, he notes, by people who don’t follow the page. ‘I think it became a stereotype of what people imagine Oxford students to be—over-the-top, arrogant, ridiculous.’ That’s the image ‘people seem to find funny,’ he adds, still half-surprised by the staying power of the caricature.

 

 

The admin’s own surprise at the post’s success raises questions about authenticity and curation. When editorial decisions are influenced by friends’ opinions rather than personal judgment, and when content travels far beyond its intended audience, how much does the selection process shape what version of Oxford identity gets projected to the wider world? His acknowledgment that the post ‘became a stereotype’ suggests an awareness that his platform doesn’t just reflect Oxford culture, but actively constructs external perceptions of it.

 

 

When I ask whether he thinks the account reflects anything substantial about Oxford culture, he says that he doesn’t want to ‘make sweeping conclusions.’ He does think, though, that there’s a tendency among students here to believe they’re very different from students elsewhere, even if that’s not necessarily the case. Based on the submissions he reads every day, he insists that ‘Oxford is full of eccentric people with unique ways of seeing the world—and they express that in very interesting ways.’

 

 

He doesn’t think the posts reflect the actual oxonian reality. ‘From my experience, even in the spaces where you’d expect arrogance, like student politics, it’s rare. A lot of the posts are once-in-a-blue-moon moments. They confirm stereotypes, but they’re not representative. And that’s probably a good thing.’ Yet this creates a curious paradox: if the admin recognises that viral posts confirm unrepresentative stereotypes, what responsibility does he bear for amplifying precisely those moments that distort rather than illuminate Oxford life? The quotes—unashamedly posh, borderline absurd—continue to be posted almost daily, creating a clear gap between how Oxford presents itself in these fragments and how it really is.

 

 

Then again, maybe representation was never the point. Like all imagined communities, to borrow Benedict Anderson’s phrase, Oxford as it appears on Overheard isn’t a mirror but a folkloric shared fiction. The quotes don’t merely describe Oxford but perform it.

 

 

Once you’re curating the performance, you inevitably end up colouring the story, even if the original aim was just to make people laugh. Although the main difference with Oxfess is the more thorough filtering submissions undergo, he does claim to take some inspiration from it, because it made him ‘realise that pages like this have the capacity not only to produce content–memes or whatever–but also spread information’. Overheard’s admin says it’s ‘not to the level of a proper news source like Cherwell or The Oxford Student,’ it enables him to promote causes, and ‘do more than just entertain.’

 

 

Overheard at Oxford has shared fundraisers, but has also taken clear stances on more overtly political issues related to student life. He says he’s compared the account to traditional media before, ‘like a mini-Rupert Murdoch situation.’ He openly supports his preferred candidates in Oxford Union and Student Union elections. ‘Sometimes they’re friends, sometimes I just think it’s an important cause.’

 

 

For example, the Student Union trustee elections recently saw very low turnout. He didn’t know the candidates personally, but felt they deserved more attention. Similarly, in the recent ‘Oxford Union situation’— referring to theindicative no confidence motion passed against the Oxford Union president, Anita Okunde, which revealed internal tensions marked by accusations of authoritarian leadership, political retaliation, and misogynistic intimidation—he ‘had information that wasn’t widely known,’ and believes sharing it helped shift public opinion. ‘I’m not ashamed,’ he says, ‘that the platform can be used to support causes I think matter.’

 

 

He tells me objectivity was never the aim. That’s simply not what the account is for. And yet, he has in the past covered topics that come close to small-scale investigation. During the Varsity Summer Trip scandal—a controversial student-run initiative promising a luxury holiday in Malta for Oxbridge students—he was one of the first to relay information about the various alleged scams behind the project, which had failed to meet basic legal and financial requirements. He is aware of the agenda-setting power this gives him, a sort of whistle-blower for dodgy summer plans. His account, he says, can allow things to get seen while they are still under the radar. The Cherwell actually contacted him to help with their reporting on the story.

 

 

At the same time, he knows most people don’t follow Overheard for student politics or story highlights, and the line can be blurry. ‘I think in the future, as the account grows and new freshers arrive, I’ll need to make that clearer—make sure it’s obvious when something is an opinion, just to avoid confusion.’

 

 

At the same time, he’s increasingly aware that influence carries weight—and value. ‘The previous owner sold the account for a lot of money. It’s a data sort of thing.’ He’s had offers for promotions—’not great’ ones so far, aside from a paid post about the Oxford rugby streaming. ‘I’m not really prepared to advertise crypto,’ he says, before adding laughingly: ‘But you never know. One or two years from now, if I’m offered a huge amount of money, I could sell it.’

 

 

Looking ahead, he seems enthusiastic about bringing in new admins next term, setting out a clearer and more visible strategy for the account’s direction, and most likely, continuing to make us laugh in that familiar Oxford way, somewhere between self-deprecating wit and self-congratulation.

 

 

But as the account grows and professionalises, a question lingers: what ethical obligations come with anonymously shaping how thousands perceive a community? For now, Overheard hovers between private hobby, marketable asset and public influence—a position that may soon demand clearer answers about who decides what version of Oxford the world gets to see.∎

 

Words by Prune Fargetton.