Every Sunday morning at 12 a.m. on the dot, I find myself scrolling through the newly uploaded postcards inscribed with anonymous sender’s secrets on PostSecret.com. PostSecret is an ongoing, collaborative art project made up of homemade postcards from anonymous senders from around the world. It is also the largest advertisement-free blog in the world with a visitor count exceeding well over 600,000,000. The visionary and driving force behind this ongoing project is Frank Warren. Warren not only runs the site with assistance from others, including his wife, but actually has the postcards sent to his own home, oftentimes leaving him and his partner buried in piles of cards.
Some of the more recent postcards will be published in Warren’s sixth book to date, The World of PostSecret, which is compiled of dozens of secrets posted on the website, as well as some never before posted. Warren even includes secrets of his own in each book, but rather than leaving them anonymous, he signs them. That being said, it should be noted that the new compilation is to be released on Nov. 4 of this year.
Postsecret.com harbors a close knit, supportive community. Admittedly, it first struck me as a strange thought that so many strangers can come together to support one another as a result of having read a person’s confession. Sometimes, postcards are made to be responses to others and are sent to Warren as a way of connecting with a specific card sender. Other times the individuals leave comments to specific senders to let them know that their struggles are not hopeless or unknown to others. Warren goes as far as providing individuals with a number of tools via links, on the side bar of the site, to websites for suicide prevention and others that are meant to be platforms for discussion.
At times, the brief words written on the postcards are light, even playful, and others shake you to the very core. At the bottom of everything, PostSecret offers an atmosphere for individuals to feel secure in honestly confessing long-held secrets or even basic truths they don’t feel comfortable sharing aloud.
Written in purple marker on top of a ripped corner of a math worksheet, anonymous sender writes: “Being told I was smart when I was little has ruined my life.” This is just one of many confessions spilled out onto a postcard.
It is a humbling and touching experience reaching out to others and finding that you aren’t alone in feeling the way you feel, whatever that feeling may be. Any project that facilities such an environment for people, let alone utter strangers, to come together in support of one another deserves recognition.
Follow Ghoncheh Azadeh on Twitter @GhonchehAzadeh