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Tell no-one
Secret cinemas, secret restaurants, secret supperclubs, secret guerrilla cake sales, underground knitting networks….the language of secrecy pervades British culture at the moment. Even chains like Starbucks have their own secret menus known only to the few.
The question is: why the emergence of this craze at a time when the predominant cultural ideology is openness and sharing?
The easy answer is that it’s a backlash. We’re sick of having privacy invaded and ‘specialness’ undermined by everything being visible all the time. So the cult of secrecy comes in as an antidote to all this over-exposure.
Even so, the paradox remains. If you look on the Secret Cinema website, you’ll see its strapline is ‘Tell no-one’ . But the navigation menu then invites us to sign up on Twitter and Facebook, and read the latest press coverage. So someone’s clearly telling someone.
The paradox intensifies when we note that it’s usually sharing on social networks that makes these secret clubs possible. Often you can only find out about them on Twitter or Facebook.
This suggests that social networks create symbolic value by hiding information in plain view, as well as by offering opportunities to share. The quantity of data they offer has become so vast that only those who are truly ‘in the know’ can reach what really counts. The fashion for secrecy reflects the fact that there's now a new elite – those who can find their way to the information with the highest symbolic value. He or she who knows, wins.
4 May 2012 at 10:51 am
Yael says:
Spot on!
And really it seems to me that all of the language used in conjuring these secrets is basic enough for all to attain a grasp of. Like in a school playground: ‘Do you “like” me?’, ‘invite’, ‘decline’, ‘join’ etc. It’s compulsive! We all viscerally comprehend the concept of belonging or not belonging, knowing and being left out of knowing. ‘I have a secret’= ‘I have a power over you’. In a group, bonds are made stronger by the shared responsibility of a secret. It’s power. Like a community garden, but with mischief! (Oh, I guess there are Secret Gardens too…) In total from what I can see, secrets are clever little items. They encapsulate both what is and what isn’t. They can stay rooted in the currency of the emotional and communicative climate, whilst at the same time offer escape routes for those feeling stifled. And then there is the element of ‘trust’. How has that changed with everyone being asked to both hold the secret and spill the beans on the secret to advertise it? A paradox, that is for sure!
Thanks for highlighting this phenomenon.