Blog Critique

Blog or weblog is a regularly updated personal website created in form of diary (Pointblog, 2005:6). It varies from traditional dairies for the hybrid of texts, videos, pictures and music. The special style of blogger-to-user interaction brings blog into a worldwide popular stage where anybody can connect to. This critique is gonna look at the blog, Post Secret to see how a popular blog works and influences our life.

Post Secret is a following blog of its ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. The anonymous-based format does attract large numbers of participants in this project while the secret content make this blog more welcomed. 95,966,418 people have ever visited this blog.

Different from other popular blogs, Post Secret mainly deals with pictures, post cards exactly than texts and sound effects. So viewers’ attention will naturally pay onto the postcards telling mysterious stuff of others. Black color sets off the white characters and the colorful pictures but making the ‘secret’ theme pop out. What’s more, language used in Post Secret is definitely easily understood as most of them are originals words from anonymous contributors who wanna freely express themselves out.

What makes a popular blog?

• Exclusive sources
• Sexy-celebrity
• Honest-petite Anglais
• Original voice

Yes, Post Secret is popular thanks to its exclusive sources which cannot be accessed to in normal life. Everyone has his private life where secrets can fine their home. However, here, at the Post Secret the people are willing to publicize their secrets and make their deep voices heard. The uniqueness of blog content gives priority to be popular. Actually, I was a bit shocked when firstly seeing this blog because i wondered how daring these people were to speak their secrets out. Although they are done anonymously, it was highly possible for postcard makers’ friends or relatives to recognize. On the other hand, the way Post Secret operates does play an important role in our life or society.

This blog, working as a public space for people to display their secrets helps us discover some ‘dark’ or ‘hidden’ information in people’s mind. Like the postcards I read on Father’s Day, most of them were written by children to thank their dads or tell dads how much they love them. To see these posters is touching? Or thoughtful? I was thinking how fathers would react when they saw these postcards. Were they surprised or regretful about their blames or complaints on children? Maybe or maybe not. At least, children release themselves out of the ‘unspoken’ love. They say their real feelings out.

Post Secret, a blog basically necessary to everybody’s life. We are living under various kinds of pressure: love, study, friendship, career and etc. We need place to set our mind free. Secrets cannot survive only being kept inside; they need fresh air as well. Don’t push yourselves so hard; find some pathways to announce your ideas. It might be worthy or interesting to be re-read after several years of posting. You can get who you were and what you thought from what you had written.

BLOG is a magic tool enabling people to see who they are and how they are living.