“Group Huh?” was my response when asked to write about grouphug.us. I was one of the handful of the internet-enabled unacquainted with the filthy high that is the web’s largest confession site. The site’s founder, Gabriel Jeffrey, describes it aptly as “entertainment, catharsis, voyeurism, disgusting, funny, beautiful, sad, and kinky. Also other adjectives and nouns.”

At four years old, the site boils down to a human train wreck nearly half a million bodies deep, piled one atop the next so you don’t know if the smell is coming from one corpse or the next. Quickly, anyone excavating their way through the excrement will find that everyone’s shit stinks, and the only real denominator is how fecal-smeared the cadavers may be.

Group Hug’s confessions rummage through the deepest ranges of the human psyche. Some are heartrending, like this: “the day after new years i attempted suicide. sometimes I feel bad about calling for help.” Some display the geekish awesomeness of “I fantasize about my guild leader,” or are just disgusting, “i can't remember the last time i brushed my teeth.” Some are more enigmatic: “she can effin open it.” Whatever the case, Group Hug has something for everyone, and, as remarkably, something from everyone- if you read long enough, you’ll find confessions that feel like your own.

The site is approaching the half-million confessions mark- Impressive especially given that each confession is vetted by the Group Hug moderators, and more than enough to swing a U.S. Presidential election. But the site promises that “the new group hug is coming soon.” Jeffrey is uncharacteristically shy about this upgrade, saying that while it’s taking longer than he would have liked, when it launches it will “rock so hard- it’ll be epic.” 

In 2004, the site spawned the successful 'Stoned, Naked, and Looking in My Neighbor’s Window'. This book contains 200 confessions Jeffrey chose, “and organized into sections. Each section starts with a personal confession that's absolutely true. When it came out, my dad told me that my grandmother had ordered it online. I told him to call her immediately and tell her to throw it out when it arrived. She did.”

The site also spun off into Audiocrush, a podcast that started as an excuse to play phoned-in confessions and drink good scotch with friends, but eventually grew its own audience and its own identity. Sadly, Audiocrush as we know it is over, and while the 28 shows (plus the edited-down chunks of the near death-by-liquor experiment that was the third episode) are online, the archives lack some of the energy and immediacy of a show that’s still current and updating. Jeffrey does, however, state that there has been “chatter” about a new show, but nothing confirmed.

Group Hug also nearly sired a dating site, which, given the audience/participants of the site, would certainly have ended up in an inbred three-eyed baby or two. Although Jeffrey states he is happy the dating site was aborted (see what I did there?), it’s hard not to wonder what aspects of that will be added into the secretive upgrade he promises will be “a lot more social.”

And for those of you titillated, considering your first foray into the deep-seated deprivations of other, be forewarned- the site is addictive. If the internet were the tube Ted Stevens believes it to be, tube traffic would be at a constant stand-still as passersby stopped to watch the car accident that is the lives of the Group Hug confessors. 

But Group Hug isn’t simply Jerry Springer without the kickboxing transsexuals; it’s a raw, dripping pound of flesh torn from the womb of humanity- and it moves you. Sometimes to laughter, sometimes to tears, occasionally to pity; at times you know people got what they deserved, or even got off light. But if you’re counting up your demons, this is a good place to go to see that however many you may have, there’s someone, somewhere, with more. Many, many damn more. Sometimes, just knowing that helps; and therein lies the real value of a Group Hug.