Do you have a secret? Well according Frank Warren, the creator of postsecret.com, we all do and they are all surprisingly similar. The most common according to his talk held at Penn State was “I Pee in the Shower”. Now, all the secrets he shared with us that night weren’t nearly as humorous (although a lot where.) Instead we hit upon a lot of darker and heart wrenching confessions that really make you aware of the inner turmoil affecting the people that surround you.
The general idea of post secret is that you take a post card and anonymously write down a secret that you’ve never told anyone. Afterwards you mail that post card to Frank Warren and he posts it on his website. The goal of this process is therapeutic, for both the writer and reader. No one ever has to know it was your secret that you sent in, but at the same time you are sharing it with the world. Warren described it as releasing a weight and burden off of your shoulders. People reading the secrets have the ability to realize they aren’t alone and other people have similar secret as them, as well as the ability to empathize with peers.
Not only is the concept phenomenal, the presentation was pretty cool too. He kept it very simplistic with just a stole, and power point presentation. Although, he did work in bringing in his personal favorite post cards (that apparently are with him all the time in a box), as well as the music video for “I’ll tell you My Dirty Little Secret” By: The All American Rejects, and (the most touching) the last recorded sound bite from his grandmother calling to sing him “Happy Birthday”. This part almost brought me to tears, as he reminded us of our deceased relatives.
Finally, the night ended with him inviting a group from the audience to go up to microphones and share their secrets. This was also a very rough part because you almost never realize just how many people have serious issues, such as depression and thoughts of suicide that you interact with on a daily basis.
This entire presentation was very touching, and definitely made me more aware of just how the people around me are. It made everything very more realistic and the majority of people much more relatable. I feel like if more people did just open up about their secrets as a whole the community would just be a lot closer. When you share secrets you are inviting people in, and a lot of the time you will find they can actually easily relate or empathize whatever it is you’re sharing.