Ritual Artifact: Letters You Shouldn’t Send

Application built with Illustrator, Procreate, and Figma

Opportunity

People often write and send letters out of anger and pain that ultimately do not make themselves or the recipient feel any better. What if people could write letters, send them in through an app via an uploaded image or even writing in the app itself, and send it off to be burned along with other peoples’ letters sent that month?

Solution

An application that allows the user to upload or write a letter, expressing all of the pain and anger they are feeling towards someone. The user will have the option to have their letter be read, or not, and to share their letter publicly (with all personal information redacted), or not. At the end of each month, I will gather the received letters and burn them in a ritual fire, which will be filmed and posted on the app.

User Testing

Generative

These opinions/critiques of my initial ideas are from a very narrow group of people: my classmates in my Crafting Experiences Seminar. After writing out and drawing connections between these thoughts (fast-paced affinity mapping), these are the main ideas that surfaced:

• Concept is strong — people are intrigued by an app that allows the user to release emotions through letters that will not reach the addressee

• Although much of the catharsis from burning letters lies in the act of doing it yourself, there is still some value to be found from sending a letter to a stranger for them to burn for you — “The simple act of pressing send is what feels good, whether or not anyone receives the message.”

• Security is a must — privacy, data protection, and a method of guaranteeing your words will not be read unless requested

• Optional publicly visible letters — “…the app is such a creative way to incorporate technology and develop a sense of community through these letters, but I wonder if it would be interesting to include an option where people can make their letters visible to other users?”

• Cultural sensitivity — I had originally planned to use sage and other cleansing materials during the letter burning rituals. While I am partially Indigenous, it is important to avoid cultural appropriation for sacred materials.

Background

Remember PostSecret?

“People talking without speaking — people hearing without listening”

(Please read in an old crone’s voice): Generation Z probably doesn’t remember, but back in my day we had a thing called PostSecret. It was this phenomenon where anyone could send in their deepest, darkest secret, anonymously and with no return address, to the PostSecret address and have it shared with the world, or even published.

I wish my family used PostSecret. Instead, they insist upon writing long-winded, hurtful letters to each other. Yesterday, my uncle sent a four page, enumerated (he’s an attorney), scathing letter to my mother about my abuela’s will or something or other completely irrelevant and needless (for context, my grandma died eight years ago). Then he sent copies to his other two sisters. My mother was crushed. Her sisters were infuriated. Nobody wins. Yet, my mom has also been known to send these kinds of letters. It’s apparently a family tradition. At times, I’ve been on the receiving end of these letters and, let me just say, not once have they invoked empathy and understanding on my part. Nope. In fact, all that letter does is create resentment, distrust and a dire need for another glass of wine.

I’ve never understood this family pastime. In my experience, letters are best written, then crumpled up and thrown away. Long, emotional texts are best written out, deleted, re-written, deleted, re-written, then finally sent. Or not. Why bother? A lengthy letter is a one-sided conversation. It’s like a blog or a manifesto — it’s a conversation that nobody really wanted to have with you so you feel the need to have it with yourself then force it onto others.

If something’s truly eating away at me; if I just can’t stand it; if I’m burning up inside with a twisted stomach full of rage and a clenched pelvic floor that will surely lead to a UTI, I’ll write a damn letter. Then I fucking burn it.

“And in the naked light I saw ten thousand people, maybe more”

Burning is therapeutic and primal. Like water or bubbles, flames are endlessly fascinating and magical. Some of the best moments are shared around a campfire. Some of the oldest traditions surround burning.

Burning Man, for example, stems from Las Fallas, a Spanish festival in Valencia that I had the privilege of attending when I lived in Spain. Las Fallas is an ancient celebration of the beginning of spring, signifying the time of year that artisans no longer needed to work by candlelight, but could instead burn down their candle-holder (their falla) and work by daylight. This tradition developed into a huge festival for which artists spend the entire year building modern fallas, structures that can be over 20 meters (65 feet) in height and cost thousands of euros and often depict fantastical or socially/politically relevant imagery. Each neighborhood creates a falla and then holds a week-long festival filled with parades, fireworks, children and old people alike throwing fire crackers at each other, drinking, food, music — and nobody sleeps for an entire week. Like, you actually are awoken at 6am by a parade of drums, and you don’t go to sleep until at least 3am. And, at the end of this chaotic, joy-filled week, they burn all of the fallas down (with firefighters standing by to make sure the city doesn’t catch fire). Las Fallas is often called el fin del mundo, the end of the world.

“Silence like a cancer grows”

But it’s not really the end of the world — just the marking of a change of seasons. A renewal. A cleanse. I haven’t been to Burning Man, but Las Fallas was the one of the most spiritual experiences of my life. The kind of thing they talked incessantly about in Catholic Church. To put so much into creating only to burn it down…to me that’s a beautiful, divine ritual.

“And the people bowed and prayed to the neon god they made.”

I suggest that we combine the human need to pour out emotions in written word and the primal satisfaction of burning things.

I want to build an app that allows the user to write all the things they want to say to someone, need to say, must say, then hit “send” and bam! Their unwanted monologue goes to a printer, is stacked into a pile, and is burned with all the rest of the unsent letters. At the end of the month, I will create a bundle of the printed letters, tie in some sage or some other cleansing addition to make it extra witchy, and film myself burning the bundle. That video will be posted on the app, uniting users in a ritual that cleanses those feelings and words they needed to say but could not or should not.

“Hear my words that they might teach you, take my arms that I might reach you”

There are a lot of potential issues with this idea. Why wouldn’t people just burn their own letters? Would people trust a random, anonymous person with their private thoughts and emotions? What is the environmental impact of printing and burning a bunch of paper?

Clearly, this idea needs some more workshopping, but I do believe that people carry around so much that’s left unsaid and, when they do finally share those feelings, the pent-up rage and underlying sadness/shame/fear create a torrent of hurtful words that leave everyone feeling shittier. I want to provide a method of communication in which that initial version of what someone wants to say can be released and then destroyed.

User Testing

Evaluative

Again, for only having a a few days to build and test this idea out, I was happy with the generally well-received responses I received. I posted my prototype on Instagram and invited people to navigate the prototype and, if they wanted to, go ahead and send me a letter. I instantly received about ten messages from people who were excited by the idea and wanted to learn more.

Key Takeaways

• Privacy and security — many people were uncomfortable sending a truly vulnerable, emotion-packed letter to someone who may potentially read it. People were also concerned about personal information or their intended recipient discovering their letters.

• Ease of submitting a letter — because this prototype was built in Figma, I could only ask user testers to email or text me images of their letters

• Concept & sense of community — people were moved and responded positively to a method of sharing letters and watching them be burned later on, with other people's letters. Overwhelmingly, testers had a positive emotional response to both the catharsis of writing and sending a letter, as well as the sense of community in seeing other people’s letters.

“But my words, like silent raindrops fell”

In my revised prototype, I’ve included more options for users to write and share (or not share) their letters. People can either upload their letters or write them directly on the app. They can then choose whether or not they’d like me to read them before burning them, and whether or not they’d like their letter to be published and archived for others to see. On the landing page, I’ve included a note to the user, inviting them to write whatever they’d like and describing the process.