Jonathan Foster

In an effort to create a “safe, nonjudgmental place where people could share their true selves,” Frank Warren started a “community art project” that would eventually become Post Secret. Post Secret is a blog where people send in their secrets on the back of a postcard to be scanned in and uploaded to the website www.postsecret.com. The only requirements for the secrets are that they must be true and they must be something that has never been shared before.

In 2004, Warren handed out thousands of self-addressed postcards to strangers he met on the streets of Washington D.C. “Hi, my name is Frank and I collect secrets.” The unique greeting got many different responses. “The most common response was ‘I don’t have any secrets’… But I always made sure they got a card because they have the best secrets,” Warren said. As time went on, word of this “collection of secrets” spread quickly and the Post Secret phenomenon was born.

“When I was in third grade I found my mother’s diaphragm. I put it on my head and wondered why she never told me she was Jewish.”

“Your mic wasn’t off during sound check… We all heard you pee.”

“When I was in a mental home, I would look out the window a lot… now I ride my bike past and smile.”

These were some of the secrets revealed Wednesday, October 26 at the Post Secret @ RIT event in the Clarke Gym. While “I pee in the I shower” is the most common secret Warren receives, a close second are those sent in by people looking for someone to share all of their secrets with. Warren said that the thousand or so secrets he receives each week are divided into two categories; “secrets kept from others and secrets kept from ourselves.” During the program he urged the audience to embrace their secrets and share them with others. Says Warren, “sharing a secret can be transformative; not just for the person who shares it but for others who read it.”

Warren shared with a secret with the audience, which he said had that kind of resonant effect on him. On the back of the post card was a picture of a bedroom door with holes in it. The text read, “the holes are from my mom knocking on my bedroom door so she could continue beating me.” After this secret was posted, Warren began receiving many pictures of doors with holes in them. The gym was silent as Warren revealed that he too had a broken door as a child.

Warren stated, “The greatest epiphany that people can have is seeing a secret they’re struggling with, at a level beneath their own awareness, articulated by a stranger better than they can say it.”

At the end of the program, audience members were given a chance to share secrets of their own. Some were personal, many were sad, but just like the secrets written on the backs of post cards, all were true.

“We all have secrets,” says Warren. “All of us have a secret that could break your heart if you just knew what it was… if we could feel that truth, I think it could allow us to have more compassion and empathy and maybe there would be more peace in the world.”

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