PostSecret

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project in which people mail their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.

History

PostSecret began as an art installation for Artomatic 2004 in Washington, D.C.

The simple concept of the project was that completely anonymous people decorate a postcard and portray a secret that they had never previously revealed. No restrictions were (or are) made on the content of the secret; only that it must be completely truthful and must never have been spoken before. Entries range from admissions of sexual misconduct and criminal activity to confessions of secret desires, embarrassing habits, hopes and dreams.

Since Frank Warren created the website on January 1, 2005, PostSecret has collected and displayed upwards of 2,500 original pieces of art from people across the United States and around the world.

The site, which started as an experimental Blogspot and is updated every Sunday with approximately 20 new pieces, has a relatively constant style, giving all “artists” who participate some guidelines on how their secrets should be represented.

From June 24 to July 3, 2007, the “Comments” section of the site was enabled. While a comments feature is frequently present on blogs, it had been previously absent from the PostSecret site. Many visitors viewed the presence of a comments section as out of character for the site, which was previously distinguished as a non-judgmental space for participants to reveal personal secrets. Many visitors felt that the new section contradicted the purpose of the site, as evidenced in numerous comments criticizing a postcard in which the author claims to have fed bleach to his/her cat.

In October 2007, the PostSecret Community was launched (www.postsecretcommunity.com). Since its inception, more than 10,000 people have registered for the online discussion forum. Questions have been raised about how the forum affects the anonymity of the PostSecret project, but for those involved on the Community board, there seems to be a positive response of people who haven’t sent in a postcard or haven’t seen their secret on the site sharing their secrets with other PostSecret fans.

According to Youth Trends’ February 2008 “Top Ten List Report” PostSecret was the 10th most popular site amongst female students in the USA, with 7% of those polled naming the site as their favorite. [1]

Breaks from updates

The PostSecret blog, as it appeared on the morning of September 16, 2007.

For the second time that day, Blogger took down the PostSecret site (see above). The site was not updated on the Sunday of July 1, 2007 while the address and instructions for visitors to send in their secrets was removed. Also notable was the deletion of a long-visible post — which contained contact information for Hopeline, a suicide hotline the site previously supported, and the story and picture of “Casie”, a young woman who fought depression and found help through the site.

On Sunday, July 8, 2007, PostSecret was updated as normal, with the address and instructions for users wanting to mail in their secrets, as well as the Hopeline and “Casie” posts, all reinstated. Also included on the page for one week was a rare message from Frank explaining the recent events, confirming the comments section would stay unavailable and stating that he had needed a break from the project for a week, but that he hoped to go another 130 weeks before he took another.

However, Sunday, August 12, 2007 constituted a break of sorts. In lieu of posting standard secrets, Frank posted the link to a video he had uploaded to YouTube [2] entitled “New PostSecret Mini-Movie”, expressing his feelings about the project and promising that the next week would bring more secrets [3]

Blogger problems

Shortly after noon EST Sept. 16 2007, Frank’s explanation of the outages. On Sunday, September 16, 2007, the traditional PostSecret blog was gone. In its place was a new blogger site belonging to someone named “Nicole”. It was suddenly and mistakenly shut down as Blogger thought the PostSecret blog was a ‘spam blog’. This error was fixed and Frank’s site was put back up with the secrets from September 9th. A few hours later, just minutes before noon EST, the website was pulled down again, this time displaying a Blogger error message. Shortly after noon EST, with the site having been restored, Frank posted an explanation (see right). Not long thereafter, that day’s secrets were posted as normal.

Comment Controversy

On February 24, 2008, Frank posted multiple e-mail comments from viewers that attacked various secrets posted that week—notably: one from a parent insulting a teacher, one from a call operator insulting a relative of a soldier, and one from a would-be mother insulting a woman desperate not to get pregnant. This revitalized previous discussions on whether or not commenting should be allowed at all on the secrets, as while the drama of disagreement makes the site more interesting, it can sometimes lead to others passing judgment on the posters without granting them the opportunity to defend themselves. However, no action was taken, and the blog continued as normal the next week.

Previous PostSecrets

The website does not provide any way to go through archives and view old posts.

For a time, by downloading the RSS feed, one could go back through all the secrets and messages that had ever been posted, but this is no longer the case.

Public attention

The project has received some national news coverage, being featured weekly in Washington, D.C.’s City Paper as well as in the All-American Rejects 2005 music video Dirty Little Secret. Artwork from the site was blown up to poster size and used as the background for the shoot.

In the sixth annual Weblog Awards, the PostSecret website received five Bloggies in 2006: Best American Weblog, Best Topical Weblog, Best Community Weblog, Best New Weblog, and Weblog of the Year.

In the seventh annual Weblog Awards, the PostSecret website received Weblog of the Year for 2007.

Books

Selected postcards, including some not on the website, were published in PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives (ISBN 0-06-089919-0). It was published by Harper Collins/Regan Books and released on December 1, 2005.

A second PostSecret book, My Secret: A PostSecret Book (ISBN 0-06-119668-1), was released on October 24, 2006. It is also published by Regan Books.

A third PostSecret book, The Secret Lives of Men and Women: A PostSecret Book (ISBN 0-06-119875-7), was released on January 9, 2007.

A fourth PostSecret book, A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book, was released on October 9, 2007.

International versions

With permission from Frank Warren, a French version of PostSecret was launched in October of 2007 under the name PostSecretFrance and in February 2008, a German version was started as PostSecret auf Deutsch

Historical analogues

The 1973 book Variable Piece 4: Secrets by the conceptual artist Douglas Huebler (one of many works in his Variable Piece series) was a compilation of nearly 1800 secrets written down by random people.

External links

Wikinews has related news: Interview with Frank Warren, founder of PostSecret PostSecret

Exclusive Interview With Frank Warren on Orato.com

Frank Warren Ubben Lecture at DePauw University

PostSecret promotional video

HarperCollins Publishers: PostSecret by Frank Warren

20 Questions with Frank Warren

Frank Warren Book Signing Photos, Austin, TX

Video Interview With Frank Warren

Audio interview with Frank Warren from alt.NPR’s Love & Radio

A Conversation with Frank Warren in MungBeing Magazine

Warren Interview on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos

Collaborative mail/art projects at the Open Directory Project

PostSecretFrance

PostSecret auf Deutsch

References

^ “Student Noses Buried in Facebooks”, eMarketer.com, 2008-02-26. Retrieved on 2008-02-25. 

^ The PostSecret Mini-Movie

^ postsecret.blogspot.com, August 12, 2007

Categories: Websites | Postcards

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