PostSecret
Encyclopedia
Community art
Community Art could be loosely defined as a way of creating art in which professional artists collaborate more or less intensively with people who don't normally actively engage in the arts. Community arts, also sometimes known as "dialogical art", "community-engaged" or "community-based art,"...
mail art
Mail art
Mail art is a worldwide cultural movement that began in the early 1960s and involves sending visual art through the international postal system. Mail Art is also known as Postal Art or Correspondence Art...
project, created by Frank Warren, in which people mail their secrets anonymously on a homemade postcard. Select secrets are then posted on the PostSecret website, or used for PostSecret's books or museum exhibits.
History
.jpg)
Acceptance
Acceptance is a person's agreement to experience a situation, to follow a process or condition without attempting to change it, protest, or exit....
.
PostSecret collected and displayed upwards of 2,500 original pieces of art from people across the United States and around the world between its founding on January 1, 2005 and 2007.
The site, which started as an experiment on Blogspot, was updated every Sunday with 10 new secrets, all of which share a relatively constant style, giving the artists who participate some guidelines on how their secrets should be represented. It recently began posting approximately 20 new pieces each Sunday after a week when Warren mysteriously did not post any new secrets for one week.
From June 24 to July 3, 2007, the "Comments" section of the site was enabled. While a comments feature is frequently present on blogs, it had been previously absent from the PostSecret site. Many visitors viewed the presence of a comments section as out of character for the site, which was previously distinguished as a non-judgmental space for participants to reveal personal secrets. Many visitors felt that the new section contradicted the purpose of the site, as evidenced in numerous comments criticizing a postcard in which the author claims to have fed bleach to her cat.
In October 2007, the PostSecret Community was launched (www.postsecretcommunity.com). Since its inception, more than 80,000 users have registered for the online discussion forum. Questions have been raised about how the forum affects the anonymity of the PostSecret project, but for those involved on the Community board, there seems to be a positive response of people who haven't sent in a postcard or haven't seen their secret on the site sharing their secrets with other PostSecret fans.
According to Youth Trends' February 2008 "Top Ten List Report" PostSecret was the 10th most popular site amongst female students in the USA, with 7% of those polled naming the site as their favorite.
In April 2008, Warren teamed up with 1-800-suicide
1-800-suicide
The Kristin Brooks Hope Center, commonly known by its phone number 1-800-suicide, is part of the National Crisis Hotline Network. It is an intended resource for suicidal individuals.It was Founded in 1998 by Reese Butler after the death of his wife....
to answer some of these anonymous cries for help through peer run crisis hotlines on college campuses.
Warren is currently hosting events at numerous colleges to speak about the many different secrets of today's society. An art exhibition—also currently traveling the country—showcases many of the hundreds of thousands of secrets he has received.
This idea of sharing secrets while still staying anonymous gives people the ability to say anything they want without having their identities revealed. It empowers the readers to confess about their depression, dreams, stories and experiences that otherwise in other situations they probably wouldn’t share with others. In his book, My Secret, Warren talks about his experiences with encounters with people all around the world who were inspired by the postcards, and how it got many people addressing things that they would otherwise never discuss. In this book he said, "I have been inspired by the stories they have told me, stories that begin with a secret and end with a hope."
In an article for USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, Maria Puente wrote "Evan Imber-Black, a family therapist and author of The Secret Life of Families, says telling secrets has no meaning except in the context of family relationships. We live in a time where people have the mistaken idea that you tell a secret to the multitudes on TV — and move on," she says. "But opening a secret is just the first step. (Posting on PostSecret) might offer some measure of relief, but I'm not sure how long it lasts. When a secret opens, it usually takes time and relational work to get a new equilibrium."
Breaks from weekly Secrets
The site was not updated on the Sunday of July 1, 2007 while the address and instructions for visitors to send in their secrets was removed. Also notable was the deletion of a long-visible post, which contained contact information for Hopeline, a suicide hotline the site previously supported, and the story and picture of "Casie", a young woman who fought depression and found help through the site. When the site returned on Sunday, July 8, 2007, PostSecret was updated as normal, with the address and instructions for users wanting to mail in their secrets, as well as the Hopeline and "Casie" posts, all reinstated. The page for this week included a message from Warren explaining the recent events, confirming the comments section would stay unavailable and stating that he had needed a break from the project for a week, but that he hoped to go another 130 weeks before he took another.
Sunday, August 12, 2007 constituted a break of sorts. In lieu of posting standard secrets, Warren posted the link to a video he had uploaded to YouTube entitled New PostSecret Mini-Movie, expressing his feelings about the project and promising that the next week would bring more secrets.
Warren took another break Sunday, December 28, 2008.
On October 11, 2009, he took a break posting a video and apology saying that he was busy touring, and urging readers to buy the book PostSecret Confessions on Life, Death and God.
Blogger (service)
Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com. Up until May 1, 2010 Blogger allowed users to publish...
thought the PostSecret blog was a "spam blog". The error was fixed and Warren's site was put back up with the secrets from September 9. A few hours later, just minutes before noon EST, the website was pulled down again, this time displaying a Blogger error message. Shortly after noon EST, with the site having been restored, Warren posted an explanation. Not long thereafter, that day's secrets were posted as normal.
Comment controversy
On February 24, 2008, Warren posted multiple e-mail comments from viewers that attacked various secrets posted that week—notably one from a parent insulting a teacher, one from a call operator insulting a relative of a soldier, and one from a would-be mother insulting a woman desperate not to get pregnant. This revitalized previous discussions on whether or not commenting should be allowed at all on the secrets, as while the drama of disagreement makes the site more interesting, it can sometimes lead to others passing judgment on the posters without granting them the opportunity to defend themselves. However, no action was taken, and the blog continued as normal the next week.Previous PostSecrets
The website does not provide any way to go through archives and view old posts.However, due to Google Reader's RSS
RSS
-Mathematics:* Root-sum-square, the square root of the sum of the squares of the elements of a data set* Residual sum of squares in statistics-Technology:* RSS , "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary", a family of web feed formats...
caching, one can go back through previous secrets by subscribing to the PostSecret feed using Google Reader.
In addition, the postsecret community on Livejournal enables you to scroll back through previous journal entries to view older posts from postsecret's Sunday Secrets collection. This can only be done by searching directly through postsecret's Livejournal page, and only allows you to view the last 4 entries, as viewing of any posts older than this has been disabled.
On Sunday, July 27, 2008, the website provided the previous week's secrets at the bottom of the new updated page under the heading "Last Weeks Secrets." Warren will usually keep last week's secrets up for only a few hours or days.
Public attention and other media
The project has received some national news coverage, such as featured weekly in the Washington City PaperWashington City Paper
The Washington City Paper is a U.S. alternative weekly newspaper serving the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.Founded in 1981, and published for its first year under the masthead 1981, taking the City Paper name in volume 2, by Russ Smith, it shared ownership with the Chicago Reader from 1982...
.
Artwork from the site was blown up to poster size and used as the background in the 2005 All-American Rejects music video for "Dirty Little Secret
Dirty Little Secret
"Dirty Little Secret" is the first single by the rock band The All-American Rejects from their second studio album Move Along. It was released on June 6, 2005, to modern rock radio stations, and later to contemporary hit radio on July 12. "Dirty Little Secret" is an electric pop rock song that...
."
The blown up poster-size PostSecrets, along with thousands of regular size PostSecrets, were then featured in an exhibition with the Washington Project for the Arts
Washington Project for the Arts
Washington Project for the Arts, founded in 1975, is a non-profit organization dedicated to the support and aid of artists in the Washington, D.C. area.-History:...
.
In the sixth annual Weblog Awards, the PostSecret website received five Bloggies in 2006: Best American Weblog, Best Topical Weblog, Best Community Weblog, Best New Weblog, and Weblog of the Year.
In the seventh annual Weblog Awards, the PostSecret website received Weblog of the Year for 2007.
Lyxzen Suicide shot a set for Suicide Girls entitled "Post Secret" which featured her creating post cards that were seemingly supposed to be sent in to Post Secret while undressing.
In an episode of CSI: NY
CSI: NY
CSI: NY is an American police procedural television series that premiered on September 22, 2004, on CBS. The show follows the investigations of a team of NYPD forensic scientists and police officers as they unveil the circumstances behind mysterious and unusual deaths as well as other crimes...
, titled "Dead Inside," the murder victim was linked to a website called "SecretsU," where viewers mail in the deepest, darkest secret and turn it into art. This episode paid homage to PostSecret.
Warren speaks on college campuses, informing audiences about and promoting the PostSecret Project.
According to PostSecret's official website, Warren will be holding a Spring 2011 tour, and will be making 17 different appearances between January 27, 2011 and April 13, 2011.
Worldwide Inspiration
PostSecret has inspired thousands of individuals to create their own PostSecret Video tributes, which are often posted on Youtube and themed according to the new release of PostSecret Books, capturing the spirit of PostSecret and further inspiring communities around the world.Books
Selected postcards, including some not on the website, were published in PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives (ISBN 0-06-089919-0). It was published by Harper Collins/Regan Books and released on December 1, 2005.A second PostSecret book, My Secret: A PostSecret Book (ISBN 0-06-119668-1), was released on October 24, 2006. It is also published by Regan Books.
A third PostSecret book, The Secret Lives of Men and Women: A PostSecret Book (ISBN 0-06-119875-7), was released on January 9, 2007.
A fourth PostSecret book, A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book (ISBN 0-06-123860-0), was released on October 9, 2007.
The most recent PostSecret book, Confessions on Life, Death, & God, was released on October 6, 2009.
Instead of sending in their secrets, many people take their postcards to a bookstore and discreetly hide them between the pages of a PostSecret book. This spin-off activity means that the eventual purchaser of the book gets an unexpected secret to keep.
Warren has also stated that he includes a secret of his own in each of the PostSecret books. His "secret" is not anonymous like most; rather, Warren signs his. For example: "Sometimes when we think we are keeping a secret, that secret is actually keeping us. -Frank"
International versions
With permission from Warren, a French version of PostSecret was launched in October 2007 under the name PostSecretFrance, in February 2008, a German version was started as PostSecret auf Deutsch and in April 2010 a Portuguese version was launched as PostSecretPT. There is also one in Spanish called Los Secretos Dominicales and now a Chinese version PostSecretChina. The Chinese blog is not officially affiliated with PostSecret. On 23 January 2010, PostSecretUK was launched. Like the Chinese version, it is not officially affiliated with PostSecret, but full credit is given to Warren and the original PostSecret. Post Secret Kazakhstan, a trilingual (Russian, Kazakh, and English) project was launched in January 2011 by a Peace Corps volunteer inspired by Frank Warren's original. It, too, has no official affiliation. The Norwegian page "Norske Hemmeligheter" was inspired by Warren but made their own version of the secrets. Secrets are sent through the webpage but illustrated by the two illustrators behind the page.Historical analogues
The 1973 book Variable Piece 4: Secrets by the conceptual artConceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
ist Douglas Huebler
Douglas Huebler
Douglas Huebler was an American conceptual artist.-Life and career:Douglas Huebler grew up in rural Michigan during the Depression and served in the Marines in World War II...
(one of many works in his Variable Piece series) was a compilation of nearly 1800 secrets written down by random people.