Maybe you have a story like this: you're walking down the hall. Perhaps you're on your way to a class or to the bus stop. While walking you happen to stride by a conversation that's been going on for a bit. You happen to overhear something, often out of context, that just makes you go "wait what?" But time gets the best of you, and you're unable to gain that context. This is what leads to interesting stories, and this is what led to the Overheard at UMD Facebook page. The group supports “listening to other people's conversations around campus”, Overheard at UMD has found quite a unique audience. Sitting at over 4,700 members, Overheard has become quite a sensation. Overheard at UMD is a Facebook page where students can post and share the random comments they hear around campus. The page was created by Brian Miller and Jake DiSanto during their freshman year.
"It didn't take off right away and we kinda joked about it," Miller, a senior here at UMD, said.
Miller says that the idea came from a story he was telling his friends. He overheard someone in the hallway saying something ridiculous. At first Brian and Jake put the comment on Facebook as a sort of joke. Neither of them expected it to take off as much as it did, especially Jake.
"I didn't think anyone would even like it," DiSanto said.
It was not until the page hit the 1,000 members mark and they overheard people talking about the page around campus that they realized how big it had become. Brian estimates it was about a year and a half since the page's original inception when it hit the big time.
When asked what their favorite thing about Overheard is, neither DiSanto nor Miller can really say. Miller says that it was probably "the whole thing in general". He explains that they have made so many memories with the page over the years that he can’t pick just one thing. For DiSanto it is roughly the same story.
"Probably just the random videos and pictures people post that just happen," DiSanto said.
Both of them talk highly of the memories they have made, and how they hope the page continues after they graduate.
So where does Overheard go from here? Miller says he would like to see the page passed on to new owners after he and Jake graduate, preferably to freshmen who can monitor the page throughout their college careers.
Miller plans on making a post on the page explaining the plan to pass it along and hopes to see interest for the page's future.
BY Dylan Nordberg
Norbd100@d.umn.edu