health

The place where strangers confide their deepest, darkest secrets.

Frank Warren is the keeper of secrets. Over half a million of them.

He started an art project called Post Secret back in 2005 and for over a decade now, people have been confiding in him.

Warren runs a website called PostSecret.com, where people from around the world write down their innermost thoughts — their most shameful, embarrassing or difficult secrets — on postcards and send them to him. The whole thing is anonymous, and there are no limits.

The secrets rage from the illicit and erotic to the utterly mundane, but each one tells their own unique story. They include:

“I think Judaism is a beautiful, fascinating and true religion. But I am scared to convert, because I’m Asian.”

“In college, I sleep with the kind of boys who bullied me in high-school.”

“My dad is a Catholic priest. I have been HIS secret for 21 years.”

“I missed everything you said in lecture today. I was thinking of you… naked.”

Post Secret is the most visited advertisement-free blog in the world.

FrankWarrenPostCards
Warren’s collection of postcards (Image via YouTube: TedTalks)
ADVERTISEMENT

Warren posts 10 secrets every Sunday. Sometimes the selections are random, other times they follow a theme. The most recent collection is entitled Suicide Prevention Month Secrets.

“Being responsible for his life keeps me from taking my own,” writes one submission. “Thanks, Buddy. I love you,” The postcard is a photograph of a big, black and brown dog.

You can watch Warren discuss Post Secret in his TedTalk here:

Video via TED

Warren has published five books of secrets so far, the most recent of which, The World of PostSecret, was published on November 4 last year.

In an interview with Buzzfeed, Warren said:

“Secrets are universal. I go to my mailbox and secrets are coming from different countries, different continents. They’re all expressing the same taboos and longing and heartbreak and hope. We think that secrets separate us and make us different. But if you find the courage to share them, we shatter that illusion. We see that secrets aren’t walls; they’re bridges.”

When you spend some time scrolling through Post Secret you can’t help but feel connected. They’re sometimes sad, sometimes funny, and always moving.

Take a look for yourself.

Click through for a gallery of Post Secrets (via Frank Warren.)…

Would you share your secrets on Post Secret?

00:00 / ???