PostSecret

I knew nothing about this one until I read the earlier review, and had to go take a look. The concept is that anonymous contributors send postcards of their choice, with their deepest personal secret conveyed in some way on one side. A selection of the family-friendly ones make it to the page, and into assorted books, with more limited showings of the more adult contributions.

It's left me with somewhat mixed feelings. An unique idea, and people who read it regularly and buy the books apparently get some reassurance from reading other people's secrets and identifying with them. It's also inviting people to be imaginative and to some extent, creative, and to get a reaction from other, like-minded folks. None of which is a bad thing in itself in a world which seems increasingly devoid of encouragement to be imaginative or creative, and which thrives on the insubstantial and unemotional transactions of Twitter.

We have no way of knowing, though, if all these submissions are true secrets, or not. I could imagine people creating the most outrageous 'secrets' for fun and publicity, even if it is anonymous. But let's not spoil it. And let's not dwell on the reasons why people feel they have no other way to tell others how they feel, in person.

As you can gather, my mixed feelings stem from the sadness that we need to keep so many secrets, and communicate safely only when we can be anonymous. I also think it's a pity that for reasons of family-friendliness, a lot of secrets aren't going to see the light of day on this site, but it's understandable.

Anyway, having gone through the page, my mood was lightened a great deal when I used the link to go across to Amazon, where the book of the site, "PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God" is for sale. Scrolling idly down the page to the discussions in the "related forums" section, I could hardly miss that the first conversation on the list was titled "If you eat your own poop what are the consequences?"

Now there's someone with a secret just begging to be mailed in.