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Drenched in sweat, UHS juniors and seniors find themselves drifting into consciousness at odd hours of the night, plagued by dreams of their Honda Civics finding their way onto UHS Parking. Since the account’s first post on September 3, 2021, the account administrators, who have chosen to remain anonymous, have posted 25 different examples of “horrendous parking on campus,” with a few instances of repeat offenders.

Though the account blurs out license plates and doesn’t tag the owner’s of the vehicles that are showcased on the account, there are no measures from the administrators taken against the comment section, which often directly tags or calls these unsuspecting students out.

The UHS Parking account is known for its notorious captions. The administrators work tirelessly, drafting and editing each caption – almost replicating the journalistic process. 

“It’s a team effort to come up with the captions. We discuss them, and my mom follows this account, so we try to keep it on the appropriate end of things,” said one of the diligent anonymous administrators. 

“I think it’s interesting to see how new drivers are motivated to learn to be better at parking,” senior Ryan Fahimi said.

Therein lies the question, however. Should brand new drivers be expected to have phenomenal parking right off the bat? Is it a reasonable expectation to have of students who may have just gotten their license just days before being posted?

Senior Kiera Nguyen was featured on the account only three days after getting her license. 

“Honestly, I just found it shocking. I mean, to be fair, my parking wasn’t the best, but it was literally right after I got my license,” Nguyen said.

With a greater shift to finding one’s community online, constant self-surveillance on the internet has begun to be accepted as the standard at an alarming rate. What used to be a silent gaffe can now be broadcast to millions of people on the internet, where it’s available for the greater online world to see. Is UHS Parking holding our UHS drivers accountable, or simply providing an additional element of stress into the lives of upperclassmen?

“I don’t really think it’s that deep,” senior Deven Gupta said.

Though it may not appear to be “that deep,” UHS Parking follows a greater trend of how, as a culture, we so easily submit to self-surveillance. This constant stream of information about how we live our daily lives is terrifying when we give it more thought. Few things we do in our daily lives are left to truly be private, or at least enclosed within a smaller circle. Now, anything can be spread across the globe with the click of a button, and things that once used to be personal areas of concern are now distant memories, with the hungry eyes of the internet awaiting a new stream of content.

Some students have taken to parking off-campus or joining friends or younger siblings in carpool rides to school, in fear of slip-ups that end up on the feared Instagram account. As witty as the captions are, there is no doubt that there is a cloud of fear floating above the senior lot.

The fascinating thing about this form of persistent surveillance is that it has become fully self-inflicted, with students going as far as to have taken over the admins’ relentless hunt for terrible parking. 

“What can I say, people like parking,” an account administrator said. “Thankfully it’s gotten to the point that I don’t need to take pictures of cars anymore, our loyal followers send in more than enough submissions. Every now and then I’ll whip out my phone for old times sake.” 

There is no doubt about the comedic aspect of UHS Parking, which most students cite as their reasoning for consuming its content. There feels to be, however, an almost palpable sense of hunger for other people’s mistakes and shame, when their parking missteps are broadcasted to the account’s 718 followers. 

UHS Parking is simply a recent example of the recent trend of online self-surveillance that is prevalent on a grander scale on the internet. As undoubtedly humorous as the account is, it’s jarring to think that one’s split-second parking mistake can be permanently immortalized on the internet.