Through out this post I will show pictures of some of my favorite secrets over the years. I also highly recommend you look at the blog to see this week's secrets and visit the PostSecret Community website.
When Frank Warren started this project in 2003, he created an art exhibit in Washington, D.C. with the first 100 postcards he received. Warren fully expected the project to end the day of his exhibit, but he continued to receive creatively decorated postcards on a daily basis. People from all over the world were sending him their personal secrets. He was so moved that he decided he needed to continue sharing them. That’s when he created the blog. He now shares about 20 secrets every Sunday.
To participate in PostSecret, it is unnecessary to share a secret. I wrote an article about PostSecret for my journalism class, and I conducted interviews with students on the Champlain College campus. A devoted PostSecret fan said, “I have never shared a secret, I don’t feel as if I have to because it is so universal. Each person’s secret somehow relates to some person out there, whether they wrote it or not.”
PostSecret is completely anonymous, but it brings an entire community and generation together. It gives the viewers reassurance that they are not alone. Everyone has a secret, and when you go to PostSecret it is a reminder of just how similar we all are. We all have similar wants, needs, and feelings. We all get sad, lonely, and depressed. We all experience love, heartbreak, disappointment, and joy. I think that it is the pure beauty of other people’s courage to share something so personal that makes PostSecret so moving and unique.
In modern society, the media controls many aspects of our lives. It forces people to feel badly about themselves. The media sets trends, such as appearance and it also magnifies societies pressures. The pressure to go to college, get married, have children, and to overall be successful in fulfilling the American dream that society created. PostSecret is a gateway for people to honestly express how they feel. It is a non-judgmental medium that people can turn to when there is no one to talk to.
PostSecret showcases that the media can be used to do something positive for our generation. It is one of the only outlets in the media that truly displays people as true figures, and not the cookie cutouts that society wants us to be. The media has taught our generation to be strong, and that it is unacceptable to show weaknesses. PostSecret is a platform for being able to finally show raw, inner emotions that most people are forced to bottle up.
An equally admirable quality to PostSecret is that Warren has gained an enormous amount of empathy for humans, and specifically our generation. At many of his college tours he uses the event to promote campus health services and the general well being of his viewers. Warren views many postcards that come from depressed artists. His PostSecret community is one vehicle to express emotions, but he has also joined forces with the National Hopeline Network (1.800.SUICIDE) to further help his followers. He widely promotes his wellness resources, because of his gained empathy by creating this art project. Warren pairs up with many wellness resources, but is the largest advertisement free blog in the entire world.
NOW, to connect this media meditation to Electronic Media Writing, I’ll discuss some of the tool sets and how they apply to PostSecret.
Eight Shifts:
Technological Shift- People mail Frank Warren their secrets on postcards, and he scans them onto his computer in order to share them either on Sunday Secrets, or to use them for one of his published books.
Cultural Shift- I think that in a way this is a cultural shift because people are exposing their own secrets. They are taking advantage of the fact that the 21st century media culture has an outlet where they can freely express themselves and others can view this.
Seven Principles:
“Reality” Construction/Trade-offs- Artists are showing exactly what the realities of their lives are. A lot of the time, artists are criticizing societies norms.
Individual Meaning- Like I said before, people can participate in PostSecret without ever mailing in one of their own secrets. It’s moving to just read what other people write, and take it as an individual meaning. Reading all of them, there are definitely ones that others can connect to.
Persuasive Techniques:
Humor- Not all of the postcards are depressing, some of them are very funny.
Plain Folks- People can connect to the postcards because they are from ordinary people who deal with the same types of things as everyone else.
Strength- People can be persuaded to read PostSecret because of the strength of others
Triune Brain:
Limbic- The postcards are image based.
Neocortex- Reading the postcards makes me think about the type of person who might have written the postcard, and where they are now.
This is a fascinating (and EXCELLENT) m.m., Heather.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know much about the PS postcards, until reading about them here.
Very nice use of Web 2.0, too - bravo!
Dr. W