Do you want to share a secret?

[Blackthorn]

EDIT: Hmmm...appologies for the rexes. Links now included in the image's place.

PostSecret (PostSecret BlogSpot Link) offers it's visitors an annonymous outlet for sharing their deepest darkest secrets. Some of the illustrated submissions sent in through the promotion event displayed below are just peculiar enough to make you want to keep reading.

Would you share a secret through this medium? Would it make you feel relieved in any way to do so?

Invitation for a Secret

Over 3000 visitors to a Washington DC arts festival picked up postcards (like the one below) inviting them to share a secret anonymously. Before Artomatic ended in December 2004, 148 PostSecret cards, with secrets - some illustrated, were received through the mail.

http://photos1.blogger.com/img/296/2612/1024/4.jpg

Text from the image:

You are invited to anonymously contribute your secrets to the PostSecret project. Each secret can be a regret, hope, belief, experience, fear, betrayal, desire, feeling, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before.

Create your own 4-inch by 6-inch postcards out of any mailable material. But please only put one secret on a card. If you want to share two or more secrets, use multiple postcards.

Tips:
Be brief - the fewer words used the better.
Be legible– - use big, clear and bold lettering.
Be creative - let the postcard be your canvas.

PostSecrets are more likely to be displayed if they are easy to read, short, and creative. (Can't draw? Try including an old picture, memento, or collage).

Mail your secret to:
PostSecret
13345 Copper Ridge Rd
Germantown, Maryland
USA 20874-3454

Email questions or comments to: Frank@docdel.com

Example 1 --

http://photos1.blogger.com/img/296/2612/400/pills.jpg

Example 2 --

http://photos1.blogger.com/img/296/2612/400/c21.jpg

[thingstodo]

These all rexed out.

Thats an interesting site..maybe we all need someone to tell our darkest secrets to even if its anonymously.

[maleficent]

Some of them are a little disturbing. This one in particular caught my attention


It's almost as if 9/11 was a suicide for him/her and all aspects of their past life were erased and they got to start over. But I can't imagine anyone intentionally putting friends and family thru the torture of thinking that they were dead....

Interesting site... Interesting stories... Woud be interesting to know the stories behind the stories

[*Nikki*]

Isn't this just another version of Hal's www.ventanger.com?

[MSD]

Originally Posted by *Nikki*

Isn't this just another version of Hal's www.ventanger.com?

Hal's site is a fun side project. This is art, and it's not really on the same level. It's one thing to post on an anonymous site, it's another to pour emotion out into a postcard and mail it to someone who will never know who you were.

[TexanAvenger]

Originally Posted by *Nikki*

Isn't this just another version of Hal's www.ventanger.com?

While I agree with SelfDestruct, I'll admit this was my first thought too.

[Squishor]

It's interesting how the internet fosters this type of public, anonymous expression.

[Gilda]

Isn't that what places like this are, also, to a lesser extent? I've already posted things here that I wouldn't tell anyone at work, or even most of my friends, partially because this is a bit anonymous. I don't know anyone here in real life, and unless I choose to, never have to, which gives me the freedom to say things that I'd otherwise keep hidden.

[Stare At The Sun]

While this site is more artistic, vent anger serves the same purpose. Still, it is rather interesting, thanks for sharing.

[Squishor]

There's this one, too:

http://grouphug.us/

Out of the three of them, I think PostSecret is by far the most artistic and personal.

It just kind of makes me wonder whether society will change as a result of people having access to an anonymous form of confessional or place to vent, or if maybe it's just that the pressures of our lifestyle mandate some form of release, and it just sort of cancels itself out.

[Bill O'Rights]

Eh, I heard about this on NPR, as I was driving home from work yesterday. I meant to check it out, but forgot. Thanks for the reminder.

[spived2]

I found it rather interesting. Kind of depressing seeing some of the tragedy in peoples lives. But also rather uplifting knowing that I don't share any of those tragedies. Some of them are kind of funny:

I believe that my dead grandmother watches me with great dissapointment every time I masturbate

[bernadette]

those postcards are interesting & some creatively made.

but no. i would not share my secrets even anonymously.
my secrets stay with me. not that i have so many secrets...

[Zeraph]

Very cool site, did you read about the two that were stolen?

Two PostSecret cards (that I know of) were stolen from the display. The first one read, "I like white girls but hate white people." The second said, "Shamefully, some lonely nights I would willingly exchange my BA degree for better hair." This card included an image of long blonde hair, loosely curled.

No one can say for sure why these two were stolen (other secrets are more obscene and/or malicious). Perhaps not all secrets are held by individuals. Maybe ethnic, gender, religious, political and other social groups collectively hold their own private ideas and views. And even though one member might be willing to share one of these secrets publicly; other members of the same group might act to suppress it.
-Frank

Two pretty odd secrets (especailly the hair one.) You guys think Frank's thought has any validity? To an extent I'm sure it's true, but specifically for these two secrests? I dunno.

[JamesB]

That site is cool! I think I might send a few their way ...

[muttonglutton]

That is such an amazing thing. Everyone should send one thing in.

Sharing secrets lifts such a burden, even if it's to the impersonal void of the internet.

[meembo]

Awesome site. Anonymous confessions are like really good, really bad novels.