This week, anonymity was one of the points that Baym brought up in Chapter 2. Although some people may feel like being digitally mediated allows for people to create an entirely new identity, others feel that it gives a chance for users to be liberated from the roles that society places them in such as their gender, religion, sexual orientation, and so on. There is a site called PostSecret that I have known about ever since I was in elementary school, and it’s a site that I have visited every now and again. In a nutshell, people from all over the globe who want to submit something to their website simply has to mail in a postcard with an image on one reflecting their “secret”. What I like about this site is that for most of the secrets posted on the website, you cannot tell what background the sender comes from. You don’t know what country they live in; you don’t know how old they are; you don’t know their name; you don’t know much other than one of the thoughts that they’re thinking.
On the Internet, I believe that someone is always listening. With that being said, PostSecret is, and has built up to be, a great community for users to vent or confess things on their minds without many external factors getting in the way of their message getting across. If you want to look at examples, here is the link: http://postsecret.com
Digital Intimacies 