So it’s been a little over a year since I started PostSecret APU (facebook.com/postsecretapu) at my school. It was a powerful semester and a lot of people had their eyes opened to what students were really dealing with on our campus.
Last week a new “community” started on Facebook called ‘APU Confessions.’ I believe I have some right to have an opinion on this page as it based loosely on what I created and lots of people are comparing it what I made.However- when looking at this page it is clear to me there is nothing in common between the pages or the creators.
Now, I’m not saying the person running it is a bad person, I am just saying perhaps they did not think it through. Post Secret served as a platform to share secrets of things they were struggling with. Secrets that were hurting them, haunting them, embarrassments….it was created as a safe place where people could see they were not alone and their peers could encourage and support them.
APU Confessions, I find, has no redeeming quality about it. Yes, a lot of people have joined the page but what good is it actually doing anybody? When I asked the moderator what the point of the page was it was not so that people could be free from their secrets or find help…it was simply self expression.
I find it very disappointing that my peers at APU would find a page like this tasteful. That they would write horrible comments on these “confessions” and find it amusing that the behavior being confessed is so vile, rude and sometimes just really awful. It makes my heart really sad that we can take so many steps back and now be creating pages where students are slamming on the school, on their roommates, and being down right disrespectful.
When I see things like this come up all I can do is pray that people see the differences is what is here and what PostSecret APU was. I do not want any comparison or relation to something that is so mean to other people. I only see this page encouraging destruction and I think that says a lot because I spent a lot of time defending the voice of our students. If THIS is what our students choose to do with their voice when they have one then maybe I was wrong.
