By Natasha Bonfield, News Correspondent
As a teenager, Lorelai was not popular. She desperately wanted a boyfriend. She was curious about sex. To cope with the anxiety and confusion, she wrote her most private thoughts and desires in her diary.
Lorelai, now in her 30s, reads the diary aloud to hundreds each year.
She does not read it as punishment, but to make people laugh. Lorelai is just one of thousands who come forward in cities across the US to read the most embarrassing stories of their youth, all under one banner: Mortified Live.
Mortified Live began with Dave Nadelberg, who found that reading an embarrassing high school love letter aloud was surprisingly funny. He and Neil Katcher, co-producer, quickly realized the entertainment value in sharing the most embarrassing stories of their teenage years.
After convincing a few others to read their old diaries aloud to an audience, Mortified was born.
After the first Mortified Live show in Los Angeles in 2002, the movement spread across the US and beyond, now with a chapter in Sweden. Across the country people are digging up old diaries and reliving their most awkward years in front of an audience. And now, these performances are recorded in the new documentary Mortified Nation, available on Amazon and iTunes.
But why open yourself up? Beyond being a “painful but very fun” process, Nadelberg describes it as therapeutic. He believes that by listening to other people’s stories, anyone can relate.
“When you’re hitting [the audience] with laughter, there’s something where it’s just like ‘hey, relate to this person,’ whether it’s issues of sexual identity or racial identity or anything,” Nadelberg said.
This shared understanding is what allows people to comfortably read excerpts from their diaries ranging from an unrequited first love to feelings of isolation. No matter what the subject matter, there is an atmosphere of support from the audience, Nadelberg said. They laugh with Amber, a participant who recounts winning Customer of the Month at a local Mexican restaurant because of her unfailing crush on a waitress. The audience falls silent as she reads an entry about her mother’s abuse.
In the case of Laurent, a California participant, Mortified helped him recreate a childhood dream. As a teenager, Laurent wrote song lyrics for his imaginary rock band Live Evil. He
imagined himself as a rock god whose songs like “Blow Me” and “Devil Tattoo” captured the angst-ridden mind of his teenage self. At a Mortified event in San Francisco, he appeared with a guitar and started singing the words written by his 13-year-old self. The deafening cheering from the audience showed how inspiring a Mortified event can be.
Beyond helping adults look back and laugh at their awkward years, Mortified is also helping teenagers dealing with similar problems today. Katcher describes how after reading a collection of embarrassing poems from his youth to a group of teenagers, he found that the experience is helpful for a younger audience as well.
“As a kid, there are always those few secrets that you don’t think you can share,” he said. “I think those secrets make kids feel more alone.”
By realizing that adults once had the same confusion and anxiety, teenagers can see they are not as strange as they feared.
Mortified is always looking for new material. To apply, participants are asked to find their most embarrassing diaries, poems or artwork and meet with the producers to find the best selections. Mortified Boston has events every few months, and those interested can apply to perform at getmortified.com.
