Forgive me Father for I have sinned. I’ve stopped going to confession. Well, I haven’t stopped, but I don’t go to a priest anymore. See, there’s this website now, Father. It’s called grouphug.us. It’s just, I don’t know, a lot less awkward than honestly confessing my sins to an 80-year-old man sworn to a life of poverty and chastity.
While waiting for my turn to confess as a kid, I’d mentally run through my latest sins and decide which could be divulged and which should be left unspoken. Worried about what the priest would think of me, I forgot that in the long run, it doesn’t matter what he thinks; it matters what He thinks. (I’d also waste time in line timing those who went into the confessional before me, knowing that those who took the longest must be the parish’s bad apples).
When I finally sat down in the stuffy confessional, I’d ramble off my rehearsed list and omit the really naughty things that were really gnawing at me. I’d pick a list of sins that was just evil enough to be believable, but innocent enough to avoid condemnation.
Father Christopher Steck, an Assistant Professor of Theology at Georgetown, says my strategizing is actually common. Many confessors, he says, have a penchant for cushioning the Big Sin between the lesser of a few evils. It’s called the “Third Sin Phenomenon,” and the hope, of course, is that if your list is long enough, and if you don’t dwell on the Big one, the priest might not think your deepest, darkest secret is so deep or so dark.
Now, some people are foregoing human interaction altogether, turning to the Internet for their confessional needs. Why go through the awkwardness of speaking to someone trained to console when you could log onto www.grouphug.us and type your sins away?
“The idea,” the website reads, “is for anyone to anonymously confess to anything. It actually feels kind of good to know that someone will read it.”
In an age in which we visit online dating services instead of bar hopping and spend hours instant messaging friends instead of hanging out, it’s no surprise that grouphug.us has logged 63,298 confessions since graphic designer Gabriel Jeffery launched it almost six months ago. The site is completely anonymous, so all you have to do is purge the dark side of your soul, hit enter and forget about it.
Naturally, this isn’t a site for the weak-of-heart. With the divine element taken out of the equation, most people let loose, describing their darkest deeds.
Since The Voice is a family orientated alternative newsmagazine, most of the confessions can’t be printed here. Some can pass the censors: “I have a 1.93 GPA because I’m lazy,” one confessed. Another just wanted to say that, “I am 19-years-old, and I still play with LEGO’s and G.I. Joes.” Still, for every one clean confession logged, at least 10 unclean confessions show up.
And so, while it might not be pleasant to look at (though I’m sure many do find it pleasant, realizing that there are people out there who are more lazy, more wicked and more perverted than themselves), it seems a useful tool for those afraid of the confessional booth. We’re all driven to reveal our secrets, but how and to whom varies.
Steck argues that typing about your sins to anonymous strangers isn’t enough. Humans need to talk about their misdeeds, and they need to be lifted up and confirmed by another person. “The presence of the priest confirms that we’re confessing before a loving and forgiving God,” he said.
But Grouphug.us works because people know they are talking to a greater presence; not God, but millions of other people. As the site’s motto reads, “The only people who really know me are about a million strangers.”
So forgive me Father, for I have to admit that sometimes an audience of a million other sinners sounds better than a pious priest.
More confessions from grouphug.us:
-“I’m in love with my best friend’s girlfriend, and she is in love with me. We’re afraid to tell him.”
-“I cheated my entire way through undergraduate and graduate school. Now I’m a professor, and I get off on catching plagiarizers.”
-“I’m such a loser, I have a crush on the ONLY boy in my class of four students. I can’t tell him though because I think my best friend likes him too! Also? He hates me! It’s just all bullshit.”
-“One time when I was a little boy my aunt’s friend called me a fatty and didn’t apologize. So me and my cousin pissed in her tea. No one knows until this day. That was 12 years ago.”
-“The only reason I’m a fairly decent human being is because I’m a small, weak coward who is terrified of getting caught doing or saying something inappropriate. “
Rob Anderson is a junior in the College and an associate editor of The Georgetown Voice. He enjoys feedback on his articles, but not in the form of bricks through his window, so maybe you can send him an e-mail.
