New Times / Art

Sites to behold: postsecret.blogspot.com

Everybody’s got a secret. I have one. You have one. Your neighbor has one. And your girlfriend does too. We live in a world where there are just some things you can’t do or say, fantasies you can’t confess to, emotions you’d sooner not be mistress or master of.

In 2005 Frank Warren started a website, called PostSecret, which enabled people to share their secrets, anonymously, by mailing them on a postcard to: Post Secret/ 13345 Copper Ridge Road/ Germantown, Maryland 20874. Each Sunday he posts new secrets for the world to see. Secrets include, “I used to think that my parents had a book to tell them how to be an adult,” “I left you three years ago … I’ve convinced myself I made the right decision … but I still check the weather where you are …,” “I lied about my depression and suicidal thoughts, because I don’t want to lose my pilot’s license,” “I think fat guys wearing white briefs look sexy,” “I told everyone that I voted,” “I purposely don’t get pregnant to piss off my mother-in-law,” “I know you have a crush on my husband and I flush my tampon down your toilet every time you have us over,” “When I discovered my estranged mother’s blog, I began making anonymous comments there … hoping she’d realize it’s me,” and “When I see an airplane I watch it … in case it crashes so I can be a witness on TV.”

The site is enormously popular, and to date Warren has published five books of secrets: PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives (2005), My Secret: A PostSecret Book (2006), The Secret Lives of Men and Women: A PostSecret Book (2007), A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book (2007), and Confessions on Life, Death, & God (2009). The site is also equipped with contact information for the National Hopeline Network (1-800-SUICIDE) as well as the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network and National Domestic Violence Hotline.