Chronic over-sharing. It doesn’t just happen online.

I had the rather odd experience the other day of following a link on someone’s tweet to a blog post about over-sharing, only to find myself mentioned in it. A very Being John Malkovich moment but one I wanted to share (not over-share) nonetheless.

In a blog called The Best Of All Possible Worlds, writer/editor/parent Jayne Kearny (who tweets as Indydreaming) writes….

Bravo Penelope Trunk, your chronic oversharing is helping social media players to consider the way they play the game. At the very least.

A few weeks ago Trunk tweeted about her miscarriage at work. There followed the expected outrage which saw Trunk respond rather eloquently in The Guardian.

In Australia über -blogger Mia Freedman posted her take on the events. She wrote, ‘Yes, abortion and miscarriage are in many ways taboo. They are also, inherently, private. I guess it is every individual’s right to express whatever they want about their private lives and their bodies… Everyone has different lines about what they’re prepared to share. I don’t know many any people who would see Twitter as an appropriate forum to discuss miscarriage or abortion but…maybe this is really is Life 2.0?’

Mia’s own outrage comes from the personal loss she has documented in her recent book. I get it. I used to write a weekly ‘blog’ on Australian parenting website Web Child. I wrote often about the stillbirth of my daughter and the four miscarriages which saw the end of my fertility. When that gig ended I semi-apologised to my editor for my chronic oversharing. He told me it was a good quality for a writer to possess. Penelope Trunk is a writer and oversharing also seems to be part of her modus operandi.

Through my own writing and the intricate social manoeuvers of the internet I have often found myself visiting a community who call themselves ‘babylost mamas’ – women (and their partners) who have lost babies. You might be amazed by what goes on there. People post photos of dead newborns, they detail the horror of their loss, they howl, they rage, they wonder why no-one wants to hear their voice. They are sometimes attacked in the vilest way possible. But as a community they support one another. Many of them have never met in real life but they share the most unimaginable intimacies of loss and grief in a very public forum. The common denominator is the necessity of sharing their loss – no matter how ‘unpalatable’.

But this voice is not only heard in that particular online community. In Japan, Mizuko Jizo is a deity which is considered to be the guardian of stillborn, miscarried and, yes, aborted babies. It sounds macabre but many who participate in the Mizuko Kuyo ceremony gain a therapeutic comfort from the process. There is reverence in the practice but not a silence.

While Trunk may not have been especially reverent in her original tweet she did give a voice to what is sometimes a silent issue. A voice to open the dialogue. A voice to help us work out the ‘rules’ – if there are any – of both our treatment of reproductive losses, in whatever form they come, as well as the ‘rules’ of online sharing.

Her tweet raises the issue of what we share and how and where we share it. It makes me wonder if we need guardians for the tendency to overshare. But as a self-confessed oversharer I would say my only rule is not to hurt others. I guess this is where most of us draw the line. Although the line is – and probably always has been – a tricky one to negotiate.

The recent Media140 conference in Sydney – which I didn’t attend but, thanks to a bunch of the nicest narcissistic oversharers, I feel like I did – also looked at what we share and how and where we share it. Laurel Papworth’s discussion on the Human Narrative grabbed my attention While Papworth’s speech concentrated on old versus new media I liked the fact that she highlighted the collaborative storytelling nature of blogging and other social media including Twitter.

And this brings me full circle. Twitter is emerging as a valuable communication tool – if only we can get over the prejudices about its ‘legitimate’ uses. Just as bloggers were once snickered at behind elitist hands now it’s the Twits who are scrambling to legitimise themselves. I say don’t worry too much kids, oversharers make the human narrative go round. And if you agree that narrative is one of the ways we make sense of the world then all voices need to be at least considered. Imagine an old-school world without the likes of Augusten Burroughs, the oversharer who gave us Running With Scissors. Just for starters.

I found Jayne’s post really interesting (athough I don’t know if I was ‘outraged’ by Penelope Trunk’s tweet…..more….unsettled? Uncomfortable? Whatever I felt, I certainly found it interesting to unpack my reaction via the comments and reponses of others).

There is certainly a seductively instant and almost anonymous aspect to sharing online. But there are over-sharers in all aspects of life. Even life away from the screen (yes, it exists. Apparently.) Like the co-worker who announces that they’re feeling ‘really snotty’ while standing next to you in the tea room. Or the dinner party guest who insists on telling the table that his wife refuses to have sex with him. Or, actually, any celebrity who discloses information about their sex life.

Have you had a bad experience with an over-sharer? Are YOU an over-sharer? Where do you draw the line?

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