hidden cams, schmidden cams

who needs cameras when you've got
the verbal voyeurism of confideinme.com?

l a m a r c l a r k s o n

Confide in Me is a web forum that allows people all over the world to share their secrets. Users submit their problems, traumas, and miscellaneous concerns, and the site editors pick the best ones to post each day. It's just like an advice column but without the advice. The editors have taken a great thing and pared it down to its essential appeal; the strange details of other people's lives are far more compelling than any answer Dear Abby ever gave.

The editors are aware of the entertainment value of their content, and they distribute it like the commodity it is. Confide in Me is set up just like a news site: you can sign up for the secret of the week, there's a button next to each secret that allows you to email your favorites to your friends, and you can even set up an engine on your web page that displays each day's secrets automatically. And really, it is news. It's a way to access what people (that is, English-speaking, web-connected, nosy people) are thinking around the world on a daily basis. Right now, for example, a Boston man is dumping his girlfriend because she has ugly legs, a Baltimore woman is washing her hair before she bathes because she is afraid her 2-in-1 shampoo will enrich and thicken her body hair, an Arkansas man misses having sex with pretty young hookers like he used to, and an Istanbul woman is angry with her husband for having an online relationship with another woman.

Confide in Me conveniently bypasses all the fluff that normally dilutes the entertainment value of personal web pages. There are no lists of favorite movies or logs of what people have eaten for the past six years, no pictures of "My Dog Petunia" that impede your finding out what someone else is thinking. And you'll only read it if it's interesting since the editors post selectively.

What's strange about Confide in Me, as with the rest of the Internet, is the anonymity with which we can know intimate details of other people's lives. The "Me" of Confide in Me is not a specific, concerned person, but an indeterminate mass of voyeurs who may be sympathetic, ruthless, or just browsing for entertainment. As for the confiders, they exist only as bits of information: their identities fuse with the facts of the secrets they tell since we have no access to the people behind them. Of course, our limited knowledge functions as a buffer for the confiders. They can unburden themselves without affecting their immediate relationships, and we can entertain ourselves with other people's problems. Everybody wins.

Alphamale; male, 23; London, England 28.07.2002

I am 23 years old, male, tall, big, strong, straight and reliable. The other day I cried for the first time in many years, and it was because I was watching a film called The Little Princess. I cried rivers. Would someone like to tell me why?

light; male, 25; Boston MA, USA

When I go shopping for clothes or go out to eat, and I see a girl at the cash register, I rub the money on my crotch in the changing rooms (or in the bathroom at restaurants) before I pay. Don't call me perverted or crazy--it's just a joke I like to play.

amplify; male, 36; Brooklyn NY, USA

Last night, I was a voyeur for the first time in my life. I was waiting for a cab outside an apartment building and the basement window was part way open. I peeked in and saw a girl in her twenties watching TV while she picked her nose. I can't believe I was so unlucky! She wasn't even beautiful.

benign; male, 23; Dayton OH, USA

Two years ago, I donated one of my kidneys to my nephew. I probably saved his life by doing it, so I expected to get some respect from him after that. But he's just a pain in the ass like he always was. Even the rest of my family doesn't seem to care much. Now I am starting to regret that I did it ñ it's hard living with just one kidney, and it's not like I can take it back.