Like most Facebook addicts, at least the “honest” ones, I am member of Facebook because I can “stalk” people. Instead of rifling through neighbor’s trashcans and mail, I simply click on their photos, view their relationship statues, and see what events they’re attending to know all about their daily lives. To say the least, Facebook makes stalking easy and creates major obstacles for domestic violence advocates. I know at this point many of you are expecting me to launch into a tirade about protecting domestic violence victims on Facebook. However, this is not that post, perhaps next week. This post is about the addiction and the debauchery of Facebook’s Honesty Box. I know many of you reading this post are good wholesome salt of the earth tell me to my face people who are completely impervious to this application on Facebook. So, perhaps I should tell you about it. The Honesty Box is an application people can add to their profile pages. It allows people to post and respond to various questions with total anonymity. For instance, someone could write, “What do you honestly think of me?” on their honesty box and people within their friend network can respond with nice comments or not so nice comments under the guise of A-N-O-N-Y-M-I-T-Y.

I must say, I thoroughly enjoy writing in people’s honesty boxes. It is this delicious if not downright scrumptious idea of total anonymity meaning I can say anything I want to without retribution or consequences. And yes, I have written things in people Honesty Boxes that I would not dare utter publicly for fear of losing them as friends or for fear of appearing evil—ha, ha, ha (my sinister witch’s cackle).  But, I will say my honesty box sin of choice is to write things to people I have crushes on. It is so exciting and almost orgasmic the feeling you receive from being able to say anything to your crush. I won’t detail the conversations and things I’ve written because they’re private, but I will say I have an uncanny knack of making my crushes wonder who I am and when can they make my acquaintance.

But of course the Honesty Box is not all fun and games. I have been hurt by some of the things people have written about me. In particular, there was this guy who wrote in my honesty box, “I have been waiting a long time to fuck your strong black feminist ass to let you know who’s stronger.” And of course, the guy signed his message with his initials and I immediately knew who it was. So, I called him out on his profile page and blocked him from my profile. And of course, this episode should have soured my delight in writing in people’s honesty box, but it didn’t. Later that day, I still sent a message to an old Spelman sister about how conceited and Barbie like she was and how she needs to grow the hell up. Yeah, I enjoy the Honesty Box borderline addicted to it. At this very moment, I know what some of you are thinking, “You’re so passive aggressive just say it to their face.” And my response to you is this, “Do you always tell people what you think, probably not, if you’re honest.” Perhaps, its passive aggressiveness or perhaps it’s the thrill of doing something risky that’s so alluring. Who knows.

But, recently the thought has occurred to me what would happen if Facebook decides to make all Honesty Box’s comments public knowledge? Can you imagine the cyber anarchy that would ensue if Facebook decided to deactivate their privacy’s settings letting people know who said what and when? I guess I would be a visible target of many people’s anger and surprise. Given this likelihood one would assume I would shy away from posting comments in people’s honesty box, but hey I am full time grad student and I need a risky, but safe outlet to release my grad school frustrations, why not the Honesty Box. So, are there any other Honesty Box’s addicts out there in cyber space? Don’t worry about being exposed on this website, just make sure you use a good moniker and never sign a comment with your initials. Now, let me get back to writing my honest box message for today.