When Frank Warren started the PostSecret art project in 2004, he decided to explore the relationships between ordinary people and the secrets each of them carried. Two weeks ago, when I went to the PostSecret@USC event hosted at Bovard, he explained how he started off the project by just walking around his town handing out postcards to total strangers. One side was completely blank while on the other, Warren laid out the instructions for the project. They were simple: the blank side of the postcard was a canvas for the participant to divulge a secret of theirs in some kind of creative manner. After they were finished, they could send the card back to Warren and share their secret. There were no restrictions on what the secret could be, as long as it was true and the artist had never told anyone else about it. When Warren received the postcards, he would put them up on the PostSecret blog. Then the project started to grow, and several years later, thousands of secrets have been sent to the mailbox in Germantown, Maryland. The project has grown beyond the Internet; four books of secrets have been published, and the band The All-American Rejects used postcards sent in to PostSecret as the backdrop in their music video for the single “Dirty Little Secret.” In addition, the site has raised money for Hopeline: the National Suicide Prevention Hotline and links to other wellness groups.
When I went to the event at Bovard, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had been checking the PostSecret blog every week for about a year or two, and though I liked the site, I knew it had its problems. For one thing, after a while, the secrets start to become repetitive. Every so often, there is one really inspiring or funny card that I really like or identify with, but the majority of them run together in my mind with nothing really standing out. Another problem I found with the site can best be described by a conversation I once had with a friend. Talking with him one day in class while simultaneously surfing the Internet on my laptop, I revealed that I was a PostSecret fan. My friend recoiled in disgust, stating that he hated the site because it was only a bunch of whiny emo kids seeking attention to validate their existence. He then pointed me in the direction of lolsecretz, a parody site that emphasizes this particular theory through the use of cats and poor grammar. While I personally don’t feel this way, as evidenced by the fact that I still frequent the blog every so often, sometimes the cards do have a certain quality that makes me want to say, “Jesus, get over yourself,” especially if I’m in a bad mood. However, then I remember it’s less about the people who see the cards and more about the individuals sending them in, the cathartic effect of letting go of these secrets to someone, even if it is an anonymous blog.
Warren talked about this at PostSecret@USC, how releasing the things we keep inside to the world at large eventually sets us free. The event was actually a very pleasant and personable one, simply a sit-down talk with Frank Warren about the origins of the project, some cards that for one reason or another couldn’t go in the books, and, the highlight of the evening, a town-hall type discussion and confession of secrets. This was the only part of the night in my opinion that reminded me of the above problems I have with the site, mostly because it felt like an AA meeting (“Hi, my name is Bob, and I’m an alcoholic.” “Thank you for sharing that with us, Bob.”), but that was to be expected. However, I do have to give credit to the people who went up to the microphone credit for telling their secrets in front of hundreds of people, from the girl who admitted she has only had one boyfriend because he abused her to the guy who gets annoyed at his iTunes for recording the number of times a song has played as being indicative of the songs he likes most (even if it’s just on shuffle). And even though I have my issues with the PostSecret project, I know I’m still going to check in every week for new secrets. Maybe I’ll even send in a couple of my own.
