June 19th, 2007, I posted a blog titled, “The Secret Lives of Men & Women: How Post Secret Helps Americans Veil Their Faces & Find Their Voices” about Post Secret and the trend of anonymous confession.
Since then, I have become aware of Christian versions of this, like mysecret.tv (from LifeChurch.tv) and ivescrewedup.com (of Flamingo Road Church). I’m sure there are more out there, but these are among the more popular.
I still have a nagging question. “Have we traded transparency for anonymity?” Maybe it’s too late. Maybe that ship has sailed.
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?
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