The Second Person Perspective
You start to read, but something is off. It’s not quite right. The words are grammatically correct and there are no semantic errors. You continue to read. The feeling does not go away. You’re confused, beguiled. What is it? What are you reading? Your eyes widen as the reason dawns on you. You’re reading something in the second person point of view.
I’ve seen it occasionally. Rarely, really. It’s only ever happened once in grade school and another time in an undergrad creative writing class, but it’s happened: I read a story in 2nd person POV. More commonly I’ve seen it in recipe, how-to, and choose-your-own-adventure books where it makes sense, but those cases aren’t what I’ll be talking about. I’m here to talk about second person in storytelling. What is 2nd person POV? Is it ever necessary or useful? Why does it exist? I can’t exactly give an answer for that last question, but as I understand it second person is a narrative approach that addresses and/or integrates the reader into the story. In comparison to 1st, which tells a story from an involved narrator’s perspective, and 3rd, which tells a story from an outsider’s perspective, 2nd person is unusual.
Personally, I think it’s more trouble than it’s worth to use. It can be refreshing to see a different writing style, but novelty only goes so far. And sure, working the reader into the story can be uniquely engaging. A major problem is when the writing tells readers what they do and think and it’s wrong. The writer can avoid this by hedging his or her bets in such a way that the writing involves hypotheticals, multiple options, playing “both sides,” or generalities in order to succeed in including a thought or action of a reader. For instance, instead of giving the singular, certain option by telling the reader, “You’re confused,” I could instead write two options that are more tentative: “You’re confused, or maybe you aren’t.” However, such a style of writing would become tiring and distracting if the narrator consistently tried to cover all bases and was hardly if ever decisive. This is one reason I’m disinclined to think second person works, but this isn’t to say it can’t ever work.
Another reason I don’t think second person works (most of the time) is it’s meta. Every time the writing addresses readers, or every time the writer uses the word “you,” readers are reminded of themselves in relation to the writing. That constant awareness of relating oneself to the writing adds another obstacle preventing readers from becoming engrossed in a story. Again, this obstacle can be bypassed if the reader can identify or agree with the writing (ideally quickly). Yet, that’s rare and hard to do. Imagine an ever-present Deadpool commentating a story, and you’d have an idea of something similar interrupting your immersion. That previous sentence there is another example of how second person might also work and I think it exemplifies how second person can work if done sparingly. Looking back on this entire blog post, it’d be almost infuriating if it was entirely done in second person. Heck, I used to get irritated even at little ads that presumed to tell me something about myself like, “You wouldn’t steal a car.” I’d have contrary thoughts like, “How do you know I wouldn’t?” and then think up random if not ridiculous scenarios I would steal a car. Speaking of ads, McDonald’s was wise to make their slogan, “I’m lovin’ it,” rather than, “You’re lovin’ it.”
I guess this concludes my opinionated rambling about second person. I think it’s not great, but there are exceptions. Some exceptions that come to mind are Bo Burnham’s song Welcome to the Internet and Rob Cantor’s I-don’t-even-know-what-it-is “Shia LaBeouf” Live.
