Sharing Secrets or Saving a Life?

http://moonloh.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/share-story-banner-1-630x359.jpg

“Genre of diary comes to the internet with a great deal of cultural baggage… Associated with the intensely personal… the sorts of secrets that should be hidden away under lock and key” (McNeil, 2015).  However, what if we were to take these secrets of ours and share them with like-minded people? People who are going through similar things? Could we help?

‘It’s ok, not to be ok’ is a group which I encounter everyday in my habitual scroll through Facebook. This is a network of people who are either suffering or have suffered with mental illness, or have had it affect their lives in one way or another. The stories shared are incredibly personal but shared because it is a safe space in which others look for guidance. This network empowers individuals by aiming to remove the stigma of mental illness, allowing individuals to share their stories through a social medium where they are not going to be judged, merely embraced by people who are also looking for an outlet in which they will be listened too. 

Hannah Brencher of TED talks about how the simple act of sharing a story with a stranger can turn a whole day around, how we can “harness social media like never before to write and mail strangers when they need it the most.” ‘It’s ok, not to be ok’ thrives of this, it holds power in each and every writer who submits a story. Each writer has the power to engage the audience and help someone get through a day that they never thought they would see the end of. By using our power of story and social media, writers make place of a simple group in which people can embrace each other and look for guidance. Could the "intensely personal" McNeil talks about could be the secret we share that saves a life? 

References 

Brencher, H. (2012) Ted: Hannah Brencher; Love Letters to Strangers. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/hannah_brencher_love_letters_to_strangers/transcript?language=en#t-107701

Haynes, A. (2016). BA1002: Our space: Networks, narratives and the make of a place, week 3 notes [PowerPoint slide]. Retrieved from https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au

Mcneil, L. (2011). Diary 2.0?: A Genre Moves from Page to Screen. Language and New Media: Linguistic, cultural and technological evolutions, 313-325.