I've been thinking about the term overshare lately, what it means in a confessional time. Post Secret, a website run by Frank Warren, caters to the impulse of relative strangers to share secrets with one another, postcards that range from the banal and innocent (ie, secrets about urinating in the shower) to the truly horror-inducing (rape, death, loss, spiritual emptiness). The website doesn't have the traditional comment section to discourage the rubbernecking tendency of some who tend toward a clinical level of sensitivity, but has a community which can "chat" about these confessions. I've noticed a lot of people run the gamut of infatuation with both the website and Frank who seems like a really ordinary, nice guy who can hold many projections (Frank as evil Svengali making money for secrets, Frank as Savior who has come to unite and heal), emotions that tend to go from This has saved my life to utter despair over quality, tone, and the ability of confession to save anyone.
The truth has a tendency to feel like a bracing drink on a blistering day --heady and refreshing. Of course, there's the inevitable hangover that comes with this new high, the horrible What have I done? I have never sent a secret because frankly I can't think of one. I suppose it falls in the category of embarrassing stories -- everything is a secret and yet nothing really is. I don't mind the overshare in real life -- I know the consequences of telling someone something and weight them before speaking. Not always the case, not by a long shot. There's something that comes with age that doesn't suck! What about you guys? Tend to regret hearing or saying something? Ever been on the receiving end of someone telling you something and then regretting their confession? Overshare with me!
20 comments:
It's probably healthy. Too early in the great social experiment to know for sure. But it does seem to help most people to unburden.
I've been burned a time or too by trusting people with my confessions or "overshares" that I shouldn't have so now I am always cautious about what I tell people and only have a select few I tell everything to. You I'm glad to say are one of those trusted few :)
-Sheila Marie
**TWO**
-Sheila Marie
(my bad)
;oP
I say you have to give everything, the shit and the gold. If we are not giving everything of ourselves then we must find out why we are holding back.
As always, it is good to come here and I will send you what I said I would send you soon.
signed with love,
procrastinator
i really don't mind being a scavenger!--Gandhi
I turned out to be an Alky!--The Man Who Fell to Earth
I'm not gay!--D. Bowie
Not that there's anything wrong with that!--G. Costanza
I shouldn't have had sex with those guys in the cemetery!--K. Black
She was a guilty pleasure piece of mine!--Jack N.
I'm anonymous and I'm not an alcoholic!--Starting Over
I will never vocalize grief...anger though I have no problem with letting go. I don't care what standard of conduct people hold themselves to but on that website it would be so much easier if them who wrote in actually believed in the standard they are expressing regret for not adhering to. Know yourself and be that.
Interesting to read them every week. If some people are helped by sharing like that, then that's all well and good I guess.
There was some research done on sharing over the internet and it was found that it is a temporary fix. Getting something off of one's chest is no substitute for seeking a long term resolution of a problem. Figure too, that 80% of what we communicate is non-verbal. Oversharing?....that is something else.
Having said that, we all tend to fool ourselves and receiving input from others may give us insight into how we are seen outwardly.
Just my $1.50 from the wisdom of Evolutionary Psychology.
Michelle, I'd rather spend two bucks for therapy on this blog ... at least I know a little bit about you ...
Fascinated by the site. I save my oversharing for fiction, and inappropriate essays. Really, some secrets just shouldn't be told. xoxo
Nice!
The beauty of anonymity is it allows one to disconnect themselves from what is being written about. That is where the healing process truly takes off, in the ability to let go. And if people get all uptight about it, then they need to be reminded that what they see on the internet should not be taken as gospel lest they expose themselves as the gullible beings that they are.
Darling, it could be said that I overshare at least once a week! Xo
On reflection, the horror of anonymity likewise lies in the fact that one can disconnect themselves from what is being written.
Freedom to live and the freedom to hang one's self are all at the fingertips it would seem.
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