“We All Have Secrets”: Crowdsourced Confession, Therapeutic Culture, and Narrative Agency

• In Event: 20420 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 8: Narratives

Abstract

This paper examines how the social phenomenon of crowdsourced confession transforms the meaning and practice of sharing secrets. Drawing on the concept of therapeutic culture and Lauren Berlant's theory of intimate publics, I conduct a narrative analysis of a popular podcast and storytelling project called Hey Stranger. In this project, participants share secrets over voicemail via anonymous phone call and these crowdsourced confessions are then woven together into an episodic format to be shared over a variety of new media platforms. Upon analyzing 41 of the different secrets circulating within the project for emotion codes, I argue that crowdsourced confession transforms the meaning and practice of sharing secrets by (a) granting access to an intimate public, and (b) providing a sense of narrative agency and control in the face of narrative wreckage. Crucially, the secrets submitted to Hey Stranger indicate that embedded in the public, there is a deep attachment to normative therapeutic concepts despite people’s failure to achieve them. This cruel optimism is woven throughout the secrets featured, engaging people in cycles of belonging and longing– of suffering and resilience. Although crowdsourced confession has the ability to capture a wide variety of secrets and stories, one thing is clear, confession has taken on a new practice and meaning in the contemporary media moment paving a path for sociologists of emotion.

Author

• Sara Delaney Rocks, University of South Florida