The Secret Lives of Men & Women: How Post Secret Helpes Americans Veil Their Faces & Find Their Voices by Richard Hamilton
Comments (1) It seems for many people anonymous confession is quite liberating and cathartic. Sometime back, I was at my friend Jordan Clark’s house when I discovered, what I thought at the time to be, an interesting coffee table book: Post Secret.
Basically, Post Secret is a community art project started by Frank Warren. People anonymously send original art, which reveals a secret, to Frank and he composes books and runs a blog to display them. Each week, Frank posts dozens of new pieces. So far there are the volumes of Post Secret with a forth scheduled for this October.
The art (a secrets behind them) range from funny to frightening. People have confessed social faux pas and criminal activity alike. While I have not submitted art to the project, I must admit I am enthralled in it. I find myself being consumed with the secrets of others. Anonymous confession seems to be a social phenomenon. People says thing on the web, under a pen name, that they would likely never say even to their closest confidant. Sometime back I stumbled across a site built off the Blue October song, “Hate Me” where people posted [mostly anonymous] apologies to those they have hurt. Of course I couldn’t find it when I sat down to type this post. You do not have to look hard to find a YouTube Video with the face in the shadows.
I guess this all leaves me asking, as a culture have we traded transparency for anonymity?
