There is not a Sunday morning that goes by where I don’t check out the latest offerings from PostSecret, a project started after its creator, Frank Warren, had a dream while visiting Paris in 2003.
The idea behind the site is that people send in their secrets anonymously, on 4×6 postcards that they have created themselves. Senders are told to “Reveal anything – as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.”
The beauty of Frank’s project is that sometimes the secrets shared are secrets that could be yours, or they are secrets that will relate directly to you at the moment you are reading them.
Sometimes the secrets are hurtful, shocking, funny, gross … or simply heart-breaking.
These secrets always serve as a reminder, to me anyway, that as different as we all are, we aren’t alone. The things I do that I think are weird (like eating the tails off of fried shrimp when it’s done “just right”) don’t seem as weird when I see some of the other shared secrets. The things in my past that I can’t fix don’t seem so different from the regrets of others.
More than anything, I think that the site provides little doses of shared humanity; through them, the reader — even if for just a moment — feels connected to the other readers who are likely also remembering something that happened or thinking of someone the secret reminded them of.
PostSecret has become such a cultural phenomenon that it was featured in the 2005 video “Dirty Little Secret”, by the All American Rejects.
And now Frank has given a TED talk …
My TED talk showing the most jaw-dropping secrets was just released on the web. I share the funniest and most inspiring stories from the life of PostSecret in 10-minutes. You may find the voice at the end hard to forget. Thanks for all your secrets over the years and for telling your friends.
-Frank
PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard to:
PostSecret
13345 Copper Ridge Road
Germantown, MD 20874,
USA
Do you also enjoy reading PostSecret? Have you ever sent in a secret? Are you one of the 533 million people who have visited the PostSecret site? If so, why? =)