I’ve tried Secret, the mobile app that lets you anonymously post about polyamory.

No, wait, that’s not fair. Secrets lets you posts secrets about anything: how much you hate San Francisco, how real and down-to-earth you still are even though you cashed out big-time in that last Google acquisition, or polyamory (and specifically, how you’re engaging in it right now). In theory, you can post about anything else, too, but let’s be real.

The near-complete anonymity ought to mean you see less attention-getting clickbait, but I was seeing a lot of “Swipe right if you agree with this statement that you’d have to be an inhuman monster to disagree with.” People, there’s no need to recreate Facebook. For that matter, any time I posted something, I obsessively checked the stats to see if anyone had liked it. It’s possible I just can’t handle anything with metrics.

By the way, after thinking of this cartoon, I saw a similar joke at least once on Secret. While we thought of it independently, I’d normally give that author a respectful nod here… but I can’t. (Why not? See the first line, 10th word.)

Which may mean Secret’s greatest utility is as a trawling ground for comedians and cartoonists: “What, you already saw that joke on Secret? That was me, dude.”