A man who wades through 200 secret confessions every day and shares the best with his 650,000 followers has explained how - and why - Fesshole came to be a thing. Rob Manuel is the man behind the Twitter phenomenon which keeps people laughing and gasping in equal measure, reports The Mirror.
Ron has been sent 150,000 anonymous confessions, and shares the ones he thinks his audience will like the most - so long as they are not creepy and he doesn't think they are made up. Confessions like: "I'm a bus driver. If I'm having a bad day at work, I'll look in the mirror while driving, and mutter to myself 'you're all ****s aren't you?' and then tap the brakes twice so they all nod."
Another Fess reads: "I always used to hold my husbands penis and sing in to it like a microphone to make him laugh. He passed away a month ago and I can't share this memory with anyone."
And another: "Completely ruined one morning after a heavy session I somehow managed to make a bacon sandwich and cup of tea. I put brown sauce in my tea instead of on my butty. I didn't have the mental ability to make another one so drank it. It tasted lovely and I've done it every since."
Rob, who works in marketing, says the Fesshole concept captivated an audience quickly with the confessions now shared and liked by thousands of Twitter-users.
Rob spent the last 20 years building interactive web projects, including message board b3ta.com. He started Fesshole with an open invitation from his personal account three years ago asking if people would like to anonymously confess their sins.
Once he received 100 submissions, he revealed them on the new 'Fesshole' account.
Rob said: "Lockdown happened and the account grew really well. Everyone was bored and one of the things about the pandemic and lockdown was many of us just weren't creating any stories at that moment - we were sitting at home and I felt it was almost nostalgia for when we had great stories."
One of the early confessions he remembers being a hit, with 36,000 likes, was: "My husband's dying wish was to make people think he led a double life. We had three blacked-out Landrovers follow the corsage and had actors in suits and trench coats as the funeral conductors. He was a bank manager for TSB. To this day, we haven't told anyone the truth".
Rob says the confessions he refused to share include anything obviously made up, such as things like people claiming they committed 10 murders back in the '70s, or ones by men "doing sex things".
"I work with my own gut feeling," he said. "The stuff I don't publish is because I think it would be wrong to put it in front of a large audience.
"There's a lot of men who would be submitting stuff around sniffing underwear - A) it's somewhere along the line of non-consensual sexual behaviour and B) I think it would be encouraging them if I start putting that stuff up."
Rob had a feeling Fesshole would go down well with Twitter-users (Image: @fesshole/Twitter)
"I'm just looking for anything funny or interesting; that makes you laugh or gasp," Rob said.
"The core of it is observational comedy. Observational comedy with the added richness of going, 'is this is real?' And we're sort of recognising we are to some degree, imperfect".
The father-of-three has made a compilation of the best tweets of Fesshole into a debut book - The Very Best of Fesshole, which was published at the end of October.
The book is themed around the 10 commandments (hence why Rob is dressed as a vicar), with Rob arguing there are life lessons hidden within the admissions from strangers.
He joked: "Finally the second Bible has been published.
"I think very much like the Bible, it's full of stories that you can learn lessons from. I'm not telling you what the lesson is. I'm saying you need to read it and find your own meaning and important lessons of humanity."
He added: "There's a lot of advice in there on how to screw people over in your office".
Fesshole has also gone on tour with an interactive audience. Attendees can submit confessions and own up to them in front of everyone, while they'll also discuss topics that the room has been surveyed on prior to the event.
He believes it's worked because it's a simple idea that does what it says on the tin. "It sticks to the brief," Rob said.
You can find The Very Best of Fesshole: Britain confesses anonymously on Amazon here. You can also buy tickets to Fesshole Live in London here and for his Leicester show next year here.
