Two weeks ago, a Northwestern student posed a question on the social media app Fizz: “what’s a class northwestern needs?”
The response was “Intro to Josh Patel.”
Weinberg sophomore Josh Patel first gained attention on Fizz when a childhood photo of him from a YouTube channel surfaced on the app. Like Patel, several other students have gained a certain level of recognition on campus because of the app.
Fizz allows students to post anonymously and has become a place where inside jokes spread quickly across campus. On the app, a single photo or post can turn a student into a recognizable name overnight, creating a kind of “Fizz fame” on campus.
Josh Patel and the childhood photo that made him Fizz famous
As a child, Patel was featured on a children’s YouTube channel where he tried different types of foods. A Fizz user took a screenshot from the video and posted it to the app.
“I was on the channel as a kid. Somehow people found it and exposed me for it,” Patel said.
The photo spread quickly after being posted on Fizz, receiving hundreds of upvotes and even becoming a reaction image across the app. Patel said the sudden attention was overwhelming, though he also found it amusing.
Months later, the photo continued to circulate in different forms. One Fizz user edited conservative commentator Charlie Kirk’s face onto Patel’s childhood photo, receiving hundreds of upvotes.
In January, NU’s Date Drop account, a student-developed matchmaking site, posted the photo to advertise their service. The photo was posted with the caption, “Josh Patel says sign up for Date Drop.”
Patel said he doesn’t even follow the Date Drop account, but he still saw it.
“The account using me as an advertisement was honestly pretty funny, especially with how much attention it got,” Patel said. “Their followers increased substantially after they posted me.”
Patel’s appearance on Fizz has continued to follow him around campus. He said he often meets people who already recognize him from the app, with many knowing his name before he even introduces himself.
“Everyone refers to me by my full name,” he said. “It’s always Josh Patel, never just Josh.”
The ‘Goose Whisperer’ Zach Wolk
Weinberg junior Zach Wolk has an alter ego on campus and on Fizz: the Goose Guy, more commonly as the Goose Whisperer.
Wolk’s unusual hobby of goose whispering began during his freshman year in 2024. After seeing a YouTube video of a man who had imprinted on a group of geese to gain their trust, Wolk said he was inspired to try it himself.
He set out to build relationships with the geese of NU’s campus, first researching what food was safe for them and ordering dehydrated cracked corn.
When he first brought the corn to campus, the geese were not very welcoming.
“I went out and tried throwing the geese the corn and they all scattered. They wouldn’t let me within like 20 feet of them,” Wolk said. “I kept doing that every day, and little by little they would try the corn, realize it tastes good and let me approach.”
What began as a cautious experiment quickly turned into a daily routine. Wolk returned to the Lakefill day after day, slowly earning the geese’s trust.
Within a few weeks, he started to see progress.
“After around two weeks, they ate from my hand. Once that happened, I was able to approach the same geese,” Wolk said. “I would know who they are because they would recognize me.”
Around that time, a Fizz user took a picture of Wolk feeding the geese, which quickly went viral.
Before long, people started recognizing him from the posts.
“People would ask me if I was the Goose Guy,” Wolk said. “It was a nice little bit of fame. I have no complaints about it.”
Wolk’s popularity on Fizz resurges each year when the geese return for the spring. He said most reactions have been overwhelmingly positive, with very few negative encounters.
But once, he said he was approached by a few women who told him that feeding the geese was illegal. Shortly afterward, a campus security officer drove by. Wolk said the officer appeared amused by the scene and did not intervene.
“It seemed like they were trying to get me in trouble,” Wolk said. “It doesn’t matter, it’s not impacting anyone.”
Last spring, Wolk continued feeding the geese, many of which he said recognized him from the previous year. He plans to do the same this spring.
Simon Kaminer’s Fizz attention in many forms
McCormick sophomore Simon Kaminer began appearing on Fizz during his freshman year. He said the posts can vary in content, but overall, they haven’t brought him any negative attention.
Like Patel, Kaminer said people often recognize him from Fizz when meeting him in person.
“If I had a penny for every time I met someone and they knew me from Fizz, I wouldn’t be rich, but I would have probably seven cents,” Kaminer said.
Kaminer said some of the posts about him come from friends, but they typically let him know when they are behind them. Other posts, he added, come from people who might know his name but don’t know him personally.
Beyond being posted about, Kaminer was also a contributor to the app during his freshman year. He said his most popular post was uploaded while he was flying out of O’Hare International Airport.
“I took a picture of Northwestern from the plane and I said, ‘Look I can see all of you,’” Kaminer said. “It got like 3,000 upvotes.”
In December 2025, another Fizz user posted an edited video featuring a picture of Kaminer with Fizz icons in the background, captioned, “For my fizz king.” This post received about 2,100 upvotes.
Another user re-Fizzed it, writing, “I am Simon and I approve this message.”
“I think that it’s funny that someone took time out of their day to make an actual edit of me to post on Fizz,” Kaminer said. “It’s probably someone I know, but regardless I think it’s pretty funny.”
Kaminer said the attention he has received on Fizz has not negatively affected his life. Instead, he views it as mostly humorous.
Nonso Onwaeze’s shift from frustration to acceptance
However, for Medill sophomore Nonso Onwaeze, Fizz posts about him weren’t exactly welcome at first.
“I definitely hated it at the start,” Onwaeze said. “I would wake up every morning, and it would be like ‘Nonso this,’ ‘Nonso that.’”
When people first started posting about him on Fizz, Onwaeze said he regularly reported the posts and had them removed. The posts continued, though, becoming recurring on the app. Like Wolk and Patel, other students began to recognize Onwaeze from the posts.
Over time, Onwaeze said he stopped trying to have the posts deleted and instead began to accept them as unavoidable.
“Sometimes I don’t mind getting posted,” he said. “Sometimes there’s aura to it.”
However, Fizz users haven’t just posted about Onwaeze himself, but they’ve also shared his homework assignments.
For one of his classes, students were required to post discussion responses to a professor’s prompt. After submitting his response, Onwaeze received a text from a friend with a screenshot of his post circulating on Fizz.
“I only know a few people in the class, and I really don’t think they have the time to go Fizz about me,” he said. “It was very surprising, but it also just shows that random people are the ones posting about me.”
He said the experience reinforced that most of the posts come from people who don’t know him personally.
Despite his initial frustration, Onwaeze has grown used to the attention.
“I kind of enjoy it,” he said. “Keep them coming.”
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