PostSecret's Frank Warren asks SIUE for its secrets
Aren Dow
Issue date: 10/1/09 Section: A&E
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In an auditorium with the lights dimmed, students found courage to speak into a microphone and reveal their darkest secrets to 800 of their peers.
Their confessions Tuesday night ranged from sneaking into the show to feeling responsible for the death of their 6-year-old cousin.
The secrets were shared in the Meridian Ballroom as part of the project PostSecret, an event where anyone is invited to share their deepest secrets. Creator, Frank Warren, given the title of the "most trusted stranger in America," started the PostSecret idea as an art project five years ago. The idea was to have people send their darkest secrets anonymously on a postcard to Warren. Since then, it has taken a life of its own, accumulating 400,000 to 500,000 postcards, Warren said.
"To me it seems like a really simple idea, nothing complicated," Warren said. "Just mail me your secrets."
He was not intending for PostSecret to live beyond the initial idea of the project, but the idea had become infectious for those who had filled out the initial anonymous postcards.
"Not too long into the project, I stopped passing out the postcards. I thought that would be the end, but the secrets kept coming," Warren said. "That's when I realized I had tapped into something that had been there the whole time."
PostSecret has now evolved into a live tour, where people can share their secrets openly with the rest of the audience. Warren said the experience can help people face their secrets and begin a healing process.
"This is my favorite part of the project now, meeting the people face-to-face who have sent me postcards," Warren said. "It's a powerful thing for everyone who attends, to see your classmates expose themselves and become vulnerable, whether it's eating disorders or academic pressure, abuse, a sexual secret or a funny secret. It can create a spirit that lives beyond the event itself."
The event Tuesday began with Warren sharing how PostSecret had impacted his life, including the relationship with his parents. He intermittently told jokes and shared some of the secrets he enjoyed reading, including one in which an airline worker confessed sending luggage to the wrong city after being called an idiot.
Capping off the night, students came forward with secrets, this time without the veil of anonymity the postcards allow. Warren said the live events show how strong people are and even helped him with his own secrets.
"I really feel now that the courage these people were expressing allowed me to face parts of my own life I've been hiding. I think there is such a level of earnestness in these confessions. It can inspire people to face secrets they've been hiding from themselves," Warren said.
Speech-language pathology sophomore Gina Thomas said she has enjoyed PostSecret because of the intimate nature of the project. Thomas said she has never sent a postcard, but after seeing the courage of those speaking in front of the crowd, she is considering it.
"I'm from a small town so I've always had that sense of closeness," Thomas said. "For me, it's just being close with other people, not just my community but around the world."
Psychology junior Christina Suggs said she has read the PostSecret blog religiously for a couple of years. She saves the cards to her computer screen saver and finds others' secrets help her in dealing with life.
"A girl shared tonight she wanted to be closer to her mother, and I can relate to that," Suggs said. "People submit things all the time that you can relate to, and it kind of makes you feel better about your situation."
Warren still reads all of the postcards mailed to him, currently about 200 a day, and said he is just as thrilled to read them now as when he read the first one. Even though he spends around 40 to 50 hours a week on the project, he is hesitant to call PostSecret a job.
Beyond mailing in postcards and the live shows, PostSecret has a Twitter account, blog and forum where people can share.
Warren has published five books on PostSecret as well, the latest available Oct. 6, titled "Life, Death, and God." Warren said with every book he has tried to tell a different story, with this one taking two years of collected secrets.
"I tried to knit the secrets together to create a longer narrative with scenes from people's lives," Warren said. "A
lot of them are spiritual, too. It exposes our hidden morality. Some of the secrets I see remind me how selfish we can be and how selfless we can be."
Paul Rister, a Saint Louis University student who watched the event from the Goshen Lounge, said he was apprehensive when he first heard about PostSecret. During the three years since then, he has warmed up to the idea and even mailed in secrets of his own.
"I didn't really know about it until my girlfriend introduced me to PostSecret, and I always thought it was kind of sappy," Rister said "But actually having been to one of these and listen to them, it kind of resonated."
Rister said he believes in the power of PostSecret and sharing his secret with the project has helped him talk about it. Rister said he knew his father was close to death, and the night his father died, he spent the night partying instead.
"Instead of spending time with him, I drank," Rister said. "I should have been with him. (PostSecret) is a nice way to share the way you feel. I think people are afraid to share and put themselves out there, but if you can do it anonymously, you find the courage to do it."
Warren said his favorite secret is one he has not even seen. A woman e-mailed him a story about how she was going to write a postcard, hoping to feel better. Looking at what was wrote, she instead felt like she was being kicked in the gut. She tore up the postcard, and in that moment, decided she would no longer be the person to carry that secret. Warren said that story embodies what PostSecret means; sharing secrets is transformative and can help people change themselves.
Warren said he believes PostSecret has been embraced by this current generation so strongly because of their quest to find the truth in life.
"I think young people are more alive than the rest of us. They are in the middle of that search for what's authentic and what's bullshit. I think, too, there's a generational shift happening right now where young people feel more confident talking about parts of their lives where their parents would never ever share," Warren said.
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