Secrets and Humanity

https://www.ted.com/talks/frank_warren_half_a_million_secrets

              The speaker in this TED talk, Frank Warren, created a community mail art project called PostSecret. People from different areas of the world with many different experiences send Mr.Warren their secrets on the backs of postcards.  Once he receives the secrets, he publishes them in books or online for the public to see.  In the TED talk, Mr.Warren shares some of these secrets with the audience.   The secrets that Mr.Warren shares range from a comical confession, "I give decaf to customers who are rude to me," to a more serious confession,"Inside this envelope is the ripped up remains of a suicide note I didn't use. I feel like the happiest person on Earth (now.)" Mr.Warren argues that these secrets connect us with our humanity.  He argues that these stories reveal who we are as humans and what we have overcome.  Mr.Warren also emphasizes how these secrets have the potential to connect people with one another.  He offers the example of a postcard with a picture and the message "I found your camera at Lollapalooza this summer. I finally got the pictures developed and I'd love to give them to you." The person who found the camera was connected with the person who lost their camera.  Unfortuately that picture was never claimed, but it inspired another man, Matty, to form his own organization IFoundYourCamera.  Through IFoundYourCamera, many people have reconnected with lost photos that strangers have kindly returned to them.
               Mr.Warren persuades people to believe his arguments by using ethos, logos, and pathos throughout his presentation.  He uses ethos by emphasizing the success of PostSecret. He includes a photo in his presentation of his wife stacking a large "brick" of secrets onto an even larger "pyramid" of secrets.  This photo shows the numerous amount of postcards that people have sent into Mr.Warren.  By highlighting the success of PostSecret, Mr.Warren is also highlighting his success.  We should put stock into what he is saying because he obviously has had a large amount of experience analyzing the secrets that people have sent him.
               Not much logos is used in this presentation.  He doesn't use any logical facts to support his argument.  He does openly admit a personal bias in the TED talk.  He says that he believes that he created PostSecret because, at the time, he was dealing with secrets of his own at the time.  With the help of the kind strangers who were writing to him, he was able to get past these dark secrets.  This bias shows us that his personal interactions with PostSecret impacted him in a significant and positive way.  The positive view of PostSecret that Mr.Warren has may make him believe that all of the experiences people have with PostSecret are positive and life changing.
               Mr.Warren uses a very large amount of pathos. He is definitely playing towards people's emotions.  He tells funny stories to make the audience laugh and touching stories to make them a little teary eyed.  He goes into in-depth descriptions of two stories, in particular.  The first is a funny and lighthearted story of a man who proposed to his fiance through the website.  The story had a happy ending and made the audience laugh.  This positive emotion helped convince people that PostSecret had a large and positive impact on that particular human experience.  The second story is of a woman who posted "When people I love leave voicemails on my phone I always save them in case they die tomorrow and I have no other way of hearing their voice ever again." A voicemail recording was then sent in which included a grandmother, who we assume is now deceased, singing happy birthday to her grandchild. He went on to add that many similar voicemail recordings were sent in as a response to this postcard. He was obviously using pathos here to emotionally touch the audience.  This use of pathos was used to further Mr.Warren's argument because it supported his argument that PostSecret and experiences can connect people to one another.Pathos, in this case, is extremely effective.
               When I first chose this TED talk, I didn't think that I would be connected to it in any way.  I really just chose it because it was short in length and had a high amount of views. When I first started watching the TED talk I didn't really fully understand the significance of PostSecret.  Then I heard the story of the grandma's voice recorded on the voicemail.  When I was 8 years old, my grandfather passed away from lung cancer.  It hit me really hard because we were really close and he was the first grandparent that I had lost.  Shortly after his death, my mom discovered a voicemail on our home phone of my papa and I talking.  It was one of those situations where you can't get to the phone in time and the answering machine picks up but then you pick up the phone to answer and start talking with the answering machine still recording kind of thing.  Anyway, the conversation wasn't anything special.  It was mostly him prompting conversation and myself responding, as a shy little kid who hated talking on the phone, "Yeah".  My mom saved the message though, and to this day it still means so much to me because it gives me an opportunity to hear his voice and hear him say that he loves me.  When I heard the voicemail story in the TED talk, I felt a strong connection with the person who sent that postcard into Mr.Warren, even though I don't know them.  This personal connection I felt also made me realize just how real the stories on postcards truly are for the people who send them into PostSecret.  These experiences, our reactions to these experiences, and the emotions that result from the experiences are what make us human and make humanity such a special thing.