Professor Lee Quinby – Macaulay Honors College – Spring 2010

Obsession for Confession

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Obsession for Confession

Obsession for Confession

We discussed confessions in class today — at churches, in therapy, and even on Facebook. PostSecret is another form of confession: People send in their secrets on postcards to a specified address, and the founder of PostSecret, Frank Warren, posts select ones online. He has also published several books of postcards secrets.I think the website speaks to the voyeuristic aspects of confessionals, but it also allows people to connect (on the Internet, that is) over shared secrets, or even the idea of having secrets that can’t be shared with loved ones.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 10:17 pm and is filed under D. G., Foucault: History of Sexuality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to “Obsession for Confession”

  1. lquinby Says:
    February 10th, 2010 at 11:07 am

    Hi Dassa, this was totally new to me. It was interesting to experience myself wondering if there would be something revelatory or shocking but I found that most of the “secrets” aren’t worthy of the status! What do the rest of you think about this?

  2. jasleec Says:
    February 12th, 2010 at 8:26 pm

    Personally, I was never really interested in Post Secret as I have been in websites like Overheard in NY and Drunk Texts From Last Night. Aside from being really, incredibly amusing, those two sites seem much more candid and genuine to me because the content being put out there by the speakers, but by a second or third party. I feel like with sites like Post Secret where you know the secret you’re telling may be shared, there is still a degree of self-censorship.

  3. Sharon Watson Says:
    February 14th, 2010 at 9:29 pm

    Those are all great points. When I was considering cyber places of confessions, the first thing that came to mind were dating sites. If ever there were a place to bare your soul to absolute strangers, it would be sites like eHarmony, Match, and OK Cupid. You have to fill out quizzes, write short (but clever) essays about yourself, and post an image that showcases who (you wish to be seen as) you are. You give everything away right there on the page. This is what is considered 21st century dating – intimate and impersonal, detached and widely accessible. You leave your digital footprints in cyber-space, and open up your self for criticisms and judgments by absolute strangers with the idea that somehow you will find love that way.

    Americans fight against arranged marriages for what reason again?