A few research notes

It may be right in the middle of an abnormally beautiful weekend, but I'm working on my new trailer. I'm thinking of calling my project something like The PostSecret Effect: Intimacy With Strangers in Online Anonymous Communities.

The term "intimacy with strangers" comes from Frank Warren himself. In sifting through recent news on his myspace blog, I found an interview with Authors on Air from Monday evening. As PostSecret is an anonymous community, Frank is its only face. He seems to take that very seriously; he talks about secret-senders as if they are family members.

This is interesting. Warren is a celebrity: he is a sought-after speaker and best-selling author. Yet the nature of his fame includes him in the intimacy that is experienced by PostSecret community members. They feel connected to him (as most people might with their favorite actor), but he also feels connected to them. This has to be a rare case.

Anyway, in the interview linked above, Frank references several other sites that form the same kind of "intimacy with strangers", like FoundMagazine.com.

I know some of my classmates are looking at the history of all of this, like the Industrial Revolution and how it increased the level of anonymity in everyday society, so I might need to collaborate with them. But let me jump the gun and take this one step further: did that increasing anonymity cause our culture to lack a way to provide such a basic human need as emotional connection?

I think it did. And things like PostSecret and Found Magazine are just ways that we are grasping at reconnection to one another.

So maybe the historical parts of this project will tell how we got to be so disconnected, which will definitely show some mind-blowing stuff. I'm liking how PostSecret turns that around and will show how we're reconnecting with what we have now. The need to reconnect is a key point though.

I hope that I'm able to thoroughly address all of these things over the semester.

*Check back for the new trailer: it will be up by midnight Sunday!*
-Katie

The Specifics of Secrets: A Project Proposal

Since the beginning of the Anonymity Project, I have been searching for a positive side to our subject of research. I found it in Frank Warren's PostSecret project. I will do a case study of possibly the most beautiful and transcendent anonymous community to emerge online. For those of you unfamiliar with PostSecret, it is a website/art project to which anyone can anonymously mail in their deepest, darkest secret on a homemade postcard. Though I have been familiar with the site, I only realized the correlations to the Anonymity Project after reading the posted articles from my classmates. That research allowed me to think more deeply about what is really happening in the PostSecret community.

What are people willing to disclose about themselves behind the cloak of anonymity?

Could this be an element of the Crisis of Significance--in that people might need recognition for their posted secrets, as well as for the secret itself to be made known?

Data for this research will fortunately be very easy to find: archives of weekly secrets are linked, message boards document personal reactions, and Warren's personal blog, YouTube channels, and four books are readily available. Interviews with PostSecret community members and possibly Warren himself are feasible. Sister sites exist in French, German, Spanish, and Korean, so a cross-cultural element is also possible.

The implications of this research could reveal astounding trends in online interactions. Personal connections run deep in the PostSecret community; many even claim that the site has saved their lives in making them feel less alone. Others say that it has restored their faith in humanity. In an online world where anonymity has produced hate, discourse, and things like Anonymous, it will be necessary to keep within our sight something that seems to have transcended the anomie, disconnection, and insignificance that threaten our increasingly technological existence.

Keep checking back for research updates!
-Katie

Trailer Is Up!

Hey everyone!

I decided to focus my individual research on the religious/spiritual/transcendent aspects of anonymity.

I picked up on the bravery that comes from abandoning one's identity, mostly in the "blind hatred" that is evident in popular blog and YouTube comments. But in a collective setting, meaning a group of people with roughly the same goal, it goes beyond strength in numbers. There are elements of omniscience and omnipresence that I find really interesting.

So check out the short preview of my project, and let me know what you think!



-Katie

#1 Aw, Here We Go!

Welcome to my little corner of the Anonymity Project.
What will this be about?

When I find out... I'll let you know.

-Katie