Some secrets want to be shared.
That’s according to Frank Warren, founder at PostSecret.com, a platform where users can send postcards displaying their deepest secrets, where Warren then shares them to his online audience.
“Over one million people have trusted me with their stories,” he said. “To be able to share them is really meaningful.”
He said that people send him their secrets because they want them to be shared, even if their close friends and family won’t know about it. Letting go of a secret, even for a moment, can be liberating, he said.
Warren will be bringing an event called PostSecret Live! to Long Beach this week, where he will showcase different post cards, talk about secrets, and a lead a discussion with the audience, encouraging them to share.
Warren started the PostSecret blog in 2005. He said that he stood on street corners in Washington, D.C., with index cards that had instructions to write down secrets and mail them to an address.
Out of the 3,000 cards he passed out, he said that he received about 100 returned post cards — containing secrets — in the mail. He scanned the cards onto his computer and launched PostSecret.com.
Since the blog’s inception, the website has seen more than 800 million visitors and has posted thousands of secrets. Also in 2005, secrets from the website were displayed in the All-American Rejects’ music video for the song “Dirty Little Secret.”
“One of the things I have learned with this project is that there are two types of secrets,” he said. “There’s one that we keep from others and then there’s ones that we keep from ourselves.”
Secret announcements have included wedding proposals and a college professor announcing that she was “stoned” at all of her lectures.
“The most interesting part of the night — in addition to hearing secrets from strangers and friends — is the conversation afterwards,” Warren said.
The Long Beach event is at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center, 6200 Atherton St. Tickets for the Long Beach event start at $35, with parking available on site for $8. To purchase tickets, go to CarpenterArts.org or call (562) 985-7000.
To see more post cards, go to PostSecret.com.
To send a post card to PostSecret, send a stamped postcard or letter to: PostSecret, 13345 Copper Ridge Rd., Germantown, MD, 20874.
Stephanie Stutzman is a staff writer at Gazette Newspapers. She can be reached at sstutzman@gazettes.com.
