Perhaps, as you’ve gone to whisper a secret to someone, a third party has jokingly said, “Secrets, secrets are no fun, unless they’re shared with everyone.”
In today’s modern world of technology, a man by the name of Frank Warren has made it possible for you to tell your secrets to everyone, while still keeping them anonymous.
If you visit postsecret.blogspot.com, you will enter into Frank Warren’s world of anonymously sent post cards.
Every Sunday, Warren posts 20 or more post cards, to the site that are eye-catching and usually captivating, but always shocking.
A postcard made from a clipping of a dill pickle reads: “I tell them all they’re the biggest.”
If you Google the words “post secret,” and search what is brought up in images, you can find a plethora of these postcards that have been sent in.
A moving post card reads: “I often miss the little girl…whose dreams had no barriers…who believed in a world where everything is possible with a heart that was full and unbroken.”
PostSecret was opened on Jan. 1, 2005. This year alone, Warren has traveled to several conventions for PostSecret.
Since starting the site, Warren has written and published eight books in which people’s postcard secrets are the main feature.
A few of these books include: Postsecret, My Secret, The Secret Lives of Men and Women, and A Lifetime of Secrets.
From the book My Secret, a postcard reads: “I’m extra nice to blacks to show them that I am nothing like my forefathers.”
In The Secret Lives of Men and Women, a postcard reads: “My boobs are two different sizes. I’ll bet $20.00 yours are too.”
Thousands of postcards sent to Warren now form traveling exhibits, exhibits have been erected, housing thousands of postcards that have been mailed to Warren.
These exhibits are actually part of a PostSecret tour that travels and is set up by International Arts and Artists, Washington D.C.
As is noted on Amazon.com, after a year of his blog being active, Warren’s blog has grown to be one of the top five most popular in the world (starting back in 2005).
Eating up other people’s infidelities, sins, and drama, people realize their lives might not be so bad, which has led Warren to international acclaim.
As Warren wrote in his first book, “Sometimes, when we believe we are keeping a secret, that secret is actually keeping us.”
A little farther along in his book, Warren admits, “After reading one particular PostSecret, I was reminded of a childhood humiliation—something that happened to me more than thirty years ago…From a memory that felt fresh, I chose my words carefully and expressed my secret on a postcard. I shared it with my wife and daughter. The next day, I went to the post office, and physically let it go into a mailbox. I walked away feeling lighter.”
Since its humble beginnings in 2005 PostSecret. has led to similar sites, including out this idea of secrets with anonymity.
Such sites include Texts from Last Night and FMyLife.
A user on FMyLife.com posted: “Today, my daughter used the kid’s potty chair on her own for the first time. Bad: The bucket was not in it so poo hit the floor. Good: she tried to clean it…Bad: with her socks. Good: she decided to clean the socks. Bad: she used the wall. Good: she finally called dad. FML”
On Texts from Last Night, you can post ridiculous and/or drunken texts you have received (http://www.textsfromlastnight.com). As one user posted, “He told me my vagina needed a tic-tac.”
So what is it about these sites that have made them so trendy?
Alan Holding, site manager for FMyLife said, “[Sites like these] show that it’s born from a real need to share.
Anonymity enables us to do so without running the risk of being ‘found out’, even though the theory is that people write diaries with the subconscious desire to have them read by other people…It’s always been said that a problem shared is a problem halved, so I hope that in sharing these stories, people are unburdened in a way. I guess there’s some sort of cathartic, almost therapeutic value to the website[s].”
Since PostSecret began and people have found out about it, many have taken to leaving anonymous secrets, in any clever spot they can think of.
Other places include: building walls (that’s illegal so it’s not advised), bathroom stalls and restaurant napkins (the person responsible for cleaning your table could use a little drama in his or her world of monotony).
Michelle Forbes, a native of Tampa confessed she “sorta” leaves behind anonymous secrets of her own, in public. “It’s not really that [they’re] even secrets but I got the idea from PostSecret. I mostly write it on bathroom stalls but I’ll put things like, ‘Does he make you feel beautiful?’ or on the mirror of the bathroom, ‘You’re beautiful. Yes! You!’”
Ian Sisk, a student at the University of Central Florida, was turned onto PostSecret when, as he says, “I saw one of Frank’s books in a bookstore and picked it up out of curiosity. I’ve been looking forward to every Sunday ever since.”
Sisk has sent in three PostSecrets, one of which was actually posted on the site. Sisk kindly refused to express what the postcard said this seems a little out of order, tho—aren’t we discussing other ways folks are leaving anon secrets, not attesting to the popularity of post secret, which you establish above?
How far can PostSecret, Texts From Last Night and FMyLife go before they’ve seen their day?
As Alan Holding put it, “Most of the people working on the website have other parallel occupations, so it’s more a labor of love than a main source of income. We enjoy what we do and we hope that the people visiting the site enjoy it as much as we do!”