Everyone has a secret

David Wuerth/ The Arbiter

Sure, it can be thrilling to see a celebrity bombshell dropped on the cover of a supermarket tabloid. But more intriguing still, may be the anonymous postcards revealing the secrets of strangers published in the seven PostSecret books and each Sunday on PostSecret.com, a blog that has had more than 500 million visitors.

A simple stage was set at the Morrison Center on Thursday for the PostSecret Live event where creator Frank Warren disclosed to 924 audience members the most “secret secrets” he’s received since he began the PostSecret project in 2004.

Thursday’s event began with the All American Rejects’ music video, “Dirty Little Secret,” projected on the screen. The video was in heavy rotation in 2005 and used real postcards that Warren received in the first year of the PostSecret project. The music video includes secrets like, “When I eat, I feel like a failure,” “I had gay sex at church camp” and “I know it really stinks but I like the smell my own poop.”

A dozen people in the Morrison Center audience raised their hands to admit they have sent Warren a secret. Almost everyone raised their hand when Warren asked who had visited his blog. And the crowd gave a hearty round of applause for the one and only postal worker in the audience.

Warren began PostSecret as a community art project by soliciting the secrets of strangers. He invited people to send a hommade postcard with their secret to his home in Maryland. The only requirements were that it was true and had never been shared with anyone else. Since then, Warren has received over a half million secrets. He’s been called the “most trusted stranger in America.”

Warren said his goal for these live events is to try to create a nonjudgmental environment where people feel comfortable telling a secret they’ve never told before.

“For me the most interesting part is listening to audience member secrets,” Warren said.

It would seem he succeeded in putting the crowd at ease. Larissa Baumgartner was one of almost 20 people who approached the microphone to share a secret. After the event she spoke about the secrets she’s read on the blog that inspired her to share her own.

“Each one that speaks to me I save on my hard drive,” Baumgartner said. “I think they’ve totaled over 1,000 at this point.”

“I like the ones where people are like, ‘I loved this person but I never told them and I wish I would have,’ ” Stephanie Clark, junior history secondary education major, said.

The messages on the postcards are sometimes funny and sometimes very dark—many reveal the writers despair, loneliness or suicidal thoughts—but often the secrets are inspiring and urge readers to change their lives.

“I look past peoples’ appearances now and think: what is their secret?” Alyssa Duncan, sophomore criminal justice major, said. “It’s given me a new outlook.”

The good, the bad, the gross, the criminal—Warren has seen it all.

“Anytime you open yourself up for all kinds of secrets, you better have an open mind. I get secrets everyday that surprise me, but I’m not too shocked anymore,” Warren said.

In 2011, a Post Secret app was released for iOS but after less than four months, Warren had to make the difficult decision to shut it down due to malicious posts. At the time, Warren explained to the app users and his blog followers that, though the pornographic, gruesome and sometimes threatening messages only accounted for one percent of the total content, with over 2 million secrets shared in those three short months, the negativity was still too overwhelming.

“The app isn’t over,” Warren assured The Arbiter.

He is currently working on a new app that would make it possible to keyword search archived secrets.

Despite the struggle with the app, the PostSecret project continues to evolve. In addition to the books and the blog, PostSecretCommunity.com offers a chat room and allows users to submit video secrets.

Warren also provides wellness resources and information about the National Hopeline Network for suicide prevention—a cause he is passionate about.

“Free your secret; become who you are,” Warren said at the close of his presentation Thursday.

And he takes his own advice. Warren admits he does “a little Hitchcock thing” and publishes one of his own secrets in every book.

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Posted by Lindsey Hileman on Feb 21 2012. Filed under Culture, Culture Main Feature, Main Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.