This post has absolutely nothing to do with items that are graphic or creative, but I did think in a way it was brilliant and raised lots of questions. It's a website called Hello! You There! The whole point of the project is to allow people to be able to send constructive advice to a person or persons anonymously. Basically you go to the website and enter the Addressee and the advice you would like to send to them, then an actual letter is created and mailed post to the location provided. It doesn't quite stop there - the addressee can then respond on the Hello! You There! website to the addressers letter.
So, is this a social experiment? I personally think it is. The idea of what if you can tell anyone, anything without them knowing it was you is something that would intrigue almost any human. We all have that deep, dark pit inside of us that want to critique someone we know - but fear hurting their feelings and damaging relationships. Is this a solution to that? Who knows. I definitely see where people will use this to get all those little things off their chest, but obviously you can't be too specific or else it wouldn't be anonymous.
So could this go beyond, "You really need to wear deodorant"? Why not send positive comments anonymously? Wouldn't everyone love to hear something great about themselves from an anonymous person? People always love to be credited for praise and hate to be credited for critique. I guess it's human nature, but is it just another step away from the personal aspect of communications. In the new world of emails and texting do we really need to add another way to communicate that's completely impersonal? Isn't it kind of cowardly to critique someone anonymously? Longterm, aren't we just making it so that people can't speak direct and as individuals we can't cope with criticism? Do we really want the next generation to cry and have their feelings hurt every time they are criticized directly? Just like any other tool, I think it has everything to do with how you use it.
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1 comment:
I don't care for this type of anonymous communication at all. If I need to get something like this off of our chest, I write it down in a personal journal and perhaps think about the impetus I have for making the negative comment in the first place. I think anonymous communications such as this feed our anxiety and perhaps increase a tendancy toward paranoia. Just tell me!
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