Friday Face Off...

This is a new column that I planned on debuting a while ago. The goal was to take similar things and compare and review them head-to-head, every Friday.

The original "Face Off" was going to be between The The Angry Whopper that I reviewed a month ago -VS- The Spicy Baconater, but they discontinued the Baconator so, so much for that.



This weeks "Friday Face Off" is between two sites that allow people to anonymously broadcast some extremely personal business for either your enjoyment, or to depress the hell out of you, or some sort of self therapy: FuckMyLife.com and Post Secret

First up is FMyLife.com



It's a funny site where people post quick (usually 1 or two sentences) little stories about some crappy or unfortunate thing that happened to them that day. You can even vote in two categories to note if "I agree, your life is f**ked up" or "you deserved that one".

The quotes are mainly stuff like:

"Today, I went to my first strip club for my friends birthday. I
also found out what my girlfriend does for a living. FML"

"Today, I
emailed my boyfriend from work. Out of habit, I absent-mindedly entered my
department into the "From" field. My boyfriend didn't notice when he replied.
Now my entire department knows I want to 'drop to my knees and suck him when I
get home.' And he plans to 'finish on my face.' FML"

"Today, I came back
from college and visited my parents house. There was a new family portrait hung
over the mantel of my parents and 2 sisters. My mom had always wanted one but
always postponed it. It was dated the day after I left for college. FML"

"Today, I decided to try and call into a local radio station to try and
win concert tickets for one of my favorite bands. I called in and was actually
the winning number. When asked my name I answered quickly, but all I heard was
"Hello? Hello?" Then they hung up. My cell phone was on mute. FML"

Even though the majority of the quotes are funny, I speculate that some of them are made up. Still, reading people's short, embarrassing, awkward, and funny misfortunes is a decent time killer. There's categories that include "money", "sex" and miscellaneous, and there's about 13 blurbs on every page.

On the other hand there's PostSecret.com, another sort of "anonymous-confession" blog and a
precursor to FML that's been around long enough to have a successful line of books available in books stores everywhere.

Unlike FML, Post Secret isn't meant to be funny. The award winning blog was created in 2005 and was meant to be an artistic experiment where people would submit a secret on a self
designed post card.

There are a few secrets that are pretty laid back like "I love cookie dough", but the many of the "Secrets" can be deep, and dark and even sort of disturbing at times, here's a few:





The fact that the confessions are presented on artfully done postcard adds an aesthetic that FML lacks. I figured that the actual cards as well as the passion behind some of the secrets would be the deciding factor in determining a "winner" if I were able to actually decide on a "winner".

At the end of the day, both sites provide users with a way to sneak a look at someone else's life and a platform to vent, and while Post Secret provides stimulating visuals, FML has a search feature that allows you to read way more funny blurbs at a time whereas Post Secret is only updated every Sunday with 10 new confessions.

If you have the time, you'll have more fun on FML, however, the few things available on Post Secret are usually very effective though.

It's a personal choice of quality over quantity as well as mood (you want comedy or drama?) and after a day of flip flopping, I'm calling the inaugural "Friday Face Off" a tie.

So go check it out both sites if you ever need to be reminded that your life maybe doesn't suck so much or if you like laughing at people.