Many artists performed, each defying my expectation of what it means to be a poet, musician, magazine editor or author. The last presenter, Davey Rothbart, of Found Magazine got me thinking. This young man, has created a career from the collection of garbage. Why do we care about people's garbage anyway? Found is a magazine compiled by notes and little artifacts "found" by people in relatively random locations.
It seems that people care a great deal about other people's trash, secrets and past. As he was reading various love notes, threatening letters, and advertisements, I was overcome by a desire to read more, I admittedly did not like minding my own business. But, I was obviously not the only one. Found attracts thousands of readers with each publication.
Found is not the only publication of people's secrets or personal notes. There is an entire chain of websites devoted to sharing one's secrets, confessions and special anecdotes with the world. These websites would not be growing everyday if they did not attract such a large audience. I visit Six Billion Secrets, Gives Me Hope, and their sister sites such as Love Gives Me Hope, Taste of Awesome and more on a pretty regular basis. Humans seem to share an insatiable desire for gossip, stories and tales of other peoples lives. This is almost sad to me because it seems that the only reason for the success of these publicized secrets is that we love to be distracted by other peoples misfortunes or luck so we can avoid the reality of our own lives.
Carolyn,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Lit Fest shout out! So glad you had a good time.
Do you also know about Post Secrets? You might also check out the outrageously talented Jonathan Harris. He has an awesome TED talk on storytelling -- and he's that rarest of breeds that combines technology and humanity.
Carolyn,
ReplyDeleteI've never thought about how it is unfortunate that we distract ourselves from our own lives by becoming involved with others. These websites are so addicting and often you look and realize you are on page 23, when you thought you would only be on maybe page 3. TV and movies do the exact same thing. We love to obsess over the lives of beloved characters and become absorbed in them. This way, we don't think about our own lives, we just become apart of their lives for an hour every week.
Carolyn,
ReplyDeleteI will have to check out those websites! Like you and Dani said, we as humans harbor an interest in other people. I cannot think of a clearer example of this than reality TV. Being a regualar Jersey Shore follower (I know, I know), all I can tell you is that I like it, but I could not give you a reason why. Considering that entire shows and magazines are dedicated to other people's lives, I know that I am not alone. Thanks for driving this (very true) idea home!