It's tempting to think Quebeckers are the most groovy Catholics of all times, with their high percentage of kids born out of wedlock, their fine vegetarian restaurants and their penchant for ashrams.
Now they've gone and mixed new media with old tradition. The result? They've formally made Twitter what it is for most of us anyway: a confessional booth.
Anglophone Canadians may have noticed the #jeudiconfession hashtag appearing in the trending topics bar from time to time. It's pretty much what it seems: Users append the hashtag to any confession they tweet on Thursdays.
Its origins are far from religious. Some time last year, Montreal-based Web developer Simon Villeneuve caught himself smiling at a Febreze commercial. He tweeted that fact, and stuck the #jeudiconfession hashtag on. It seemed to have struck a nerve – subsequent #jeudiconfessions piled up, ranging from “Every morning, I listen to Billy Joel while getting up,” to “As happy as I was at the birth of my daughter, I had never seen such an ugly baby in my life.”
As long as it has guaranteed anonymity, the Internet has solicited divulgences. Craigslist is filled with weird, anonymous revelations. PostSecret asks people to mail in little works of art on a postcard to accompany their secrets with brilliant, moving results. There are even websites that act as a forum exclusively for anonymous confessions, although these are not for the faint of heart (and I sincerely hope the things I'm reading there are largely sensationalistic lies).
But Twitter confessions are different. This morning my dog walker arrived while I was still asleep. The shoe rack had been gnawed to splinters. There was a blanket in the middle of the living-room floor. I had a questionable book on display. And there was an old corn cob in the dog's bed. The only thing missing was an empty gin bottle half-rolled under the couch.
The whole episode was pretty embarrassing. Most people would try to forget it as soon as possible but, paradoxically, my first impulse was to tweet it.
This wasn't the first time I'd felt the need to go public with some personal shame, and where better than the Internet? When I found myself weeping at everything on Glee one day, with neither alcohol nor hormones to blame, I tweeted it, not without misgivings.
“Happens to the best of us,” someone tweeted back. It was nice to hear: a little absolution. But – bonus – the solace goes both ways. I've read touching things about friends' “bad” taste in movies and music that have warmed me to them. I've read soul-searching revelations about mental health, love lives, family. It's always comforting to discover you're not the first person to have doubts, weaknesses or problems of a specific shape.
There's no question: Twitter confessions are a risk. Last week, one woman who was tweeting anonymously about her career as a telephone sex worker was outed by a vindictive stranger to her own sister – an extreme case, but it's not impossible to imagine something similar happening with a more innocuous confession.
Still, there can be great rewards. Tweeting can make you feel closer to someone, less alone. If someone is put off by your disclosure, you don't have to risk seeing their discomfited facial expression, or hear them say, “Ew, really?” You may notice you've dropped a follower, but you don't have to know who.
Of course, if you're interested in doing penance, there are tools for tracking who unfollows you, and what tweet was the final straw. But why torture yourself? It's like your mom said: You're better off without them. I'm not interested in knowing anyone who hasn't been caught with the proverbial corn cob in their dog's bed.
Follow Lisan Jutras on Twitter @lisanjutras
