Friday, March 26, 2010

testimonials.

Blogs such as Texts from Last Night and F*ck My Life have been getting a lot of attention lately in popular culture. Another blog that is extremely popular is Post Secret. Unlike the previous mentioned blogs, Post Secret offers a more emotional appeal to a wider audience. Readers of the blog submit their ‘secrets’ via post cards, combining old and new generation’s forms of communication. The interconnectivity of the mediums, allows for both generations to connect with each other’s comfort zones in media communication.
A viral video hit is the series
“Fifty People: One Question”, in which one question is asked to fifty people in a random location and they answer. Questions such as “If anything could happen by the end of the day, what would you wish to happen?”, “If you could wake up anywhere tomorrow, where would it be?”. Questions that on the surface seem so simple, but when answers start to flow, the emotional appeal is overwhelming. Maybe I am just a sucker for this kind of stuff but I love the power of such simple questions being able to really divulge into the human heart.


Image Source: Post Secret

3 comments:

  1. Nice post, I have actually have never heard of "Post Secrets" before your blog, its actually quite interesting, I just spend a lot of time going through and reading them all. Your right they do this via "post-cards" with added writing and side notes that the creator wants people to know.

    Although I do agree with you when you say it connects generations through a medium of old "post-cards" and a digital realm of blogging, however, the secrets were sometimes offense or just big jokes, and since they are anonymous, I feel this sort of defeats the purpose of share-ability (not to say that the other two don't do this, I know they are all pretty much left by anonymous people). However, it comes back to privacy, why are you sharing something if you don't want anyone to know who you are? Thats just my opinion, however, there is some pretty embarrassing stuff. Your right, these types of sites are getting lots of attention because its a "safe" place for our generation to discuss and write about things that affect us personally and perhaps others. The real language of the posts demonstrate how well the testimonials work for the reader, to help connect the quirks and grammar errors that in turn help it known - this is real life we're reading here.

    ReplyDelete
  2. They stole my first-date questions (joking...sorta). I have engaged in this blog, and think it's wonderful. However, I believe the reason why this is catching so fast is for the reasons of:

    1.) Self-importance: With personal questions as such, individuals may often feel important upon answering them. The fact that other's are taking interest in their "secrets" creates a sense of importance and acknowledgement -- two of life's biggest gratifications.

    2.) Sentimentality sells, and so does nostalgia.

    3.) Transparency: in recent discussions on personal branding, many social media gurus have established that in order to gain social media cred a person needs to be transparent. That is, they should be able to allow others to peep into their lives & share.

    By participating in things like social media and "Post Secrets" individuals are creating a digital footprint & nurturing their digi-aura.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have been looking at Post Secret every Sunday for a while now. Though I have never bought one of the books or thought about sending a postcard in, there is something that keeps drawing me back to read those anonymous confessions.

    I think that there is definitely a catharsis that is addictive when reading people's confessions. A sense of a weight being lifted that can be shared not only by the one sending in the postcard, but by those reading the secret as well. This is particularly true if an online reader shares the same secret that they are reading. This collective sharing of secrets and catharsis as a result is difficult to find online, where there can be a lack of personal interaction, and perhaps speaks to why the site has become so popular.

    ReplyDelete