The act of revealing a secret is like the act of ranting; letting out one’s excitement, pain, trauma, or any emotion or story that the individual cannot wait but to make it be heard or to simply release for the self. Once the individual accomplishes so, there is a strange relief that is, what my colleague and Tamara D. Afifi (in her chapter “Keeping and Revealing Secrets” in which she mentions PostSecret!) call it, “cathartic“, a release of emotions that conclusively make the individual feel better by clearing the mind. No wonder why we love to rant to our friends whenever we feel overwhelmed or bottled up. But why would anyone anonymously on a public weblog?
In my last Arts Studies lecture, a group of my colleagues did a presentation on the weblog PostSecret. What this blog performs to do is to invite individuals to anonymously reveal their secrets by writing it on a home-made postcard and mailing it to their head office so to show it on the newsfeed for the public to see. But in what ways does the blog seem so exciting or inviting to join or to participate in the community? And why do people spend time to scroll through these postcards and interact in the forums?
A dimension where one can express freely about their dark secrets and cannot be judged would be a utopian world. The critical fact that PostSecret posts secrets of an anonymous identity means the secret could be anyone’s, and therefore no one would ever know whose it really belongs to. Seeing that, people find it an ideal chance to perform a show-and-tell of their darkest mysteries with a mask on. PostSecret is especially popular for this because the site invites one to do so in a unique, artistic way.
Posted under “Sunday Secrets” October 26th, 2013
People may scroll through the weblog daily, finding that they can relate to a secret posted by one person, and this indirectly gives a “cathartic” feeling for them because someone has helped them express and even leave out there in the public realm. Conversations start in the forums which initiate a social community, where individuals can elaborate on secrets and relate to one another. It is a welcoming community of acceptance, understanding, freedom, and trust. This online tool and community is exactly what Miller and Shepherd describe of online blogs, that they bridge the gap between the public and private sphere; private being kept only to the self, and public being open to everyone to witness.
Though I emphasized that this tool of the weblog helps connect a group into a common community, remember that individuals may still post secrets for the sake of their selves, and not necessarily for a quest of sympathy. It is a fact that not all postcards get posted on the homepage. Frank Warren created a revolutionary, unique idea of asking us to do the physical work of writing out our emotions on a self-made canvas, then sending out the card away as if leaving your body peacefully.
I think you captured the emotions experienced while using/reading PostSecret quite well. I recently found an article about a “murder confession” that was posted on PostSecret (link down below), and it raises the issue of our role as consumers on sites like PostSecret. In my opinion, I think that users of PostSecret, treat the posts like entertainment, to some extent. Going back to the “murder confession”, there was a a great deal of online sleuthing that followed, and even the police authorities got involved. Though I agree that PostSecret serves as a great site for the purposes you described, I think we also need to be critical about the things we consume online. Was the murder confession real or not? It’s hard to determine if the things that are posted on PostSecret are authentic, but I think that if there are confessions of crimes/offences committed, the posts need to be taken more seriously, and not just as entertainment.
http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2013/09/postsecret-murder-confession-incites-online-sleuthing-frenzy.html