Recently I went to this website: Postsecret.com, I honestly didn’t know about it until I read about it in a British print magazine. This weird but somewhat fascinating website is a mail art project allowing users to post anonymous secrets and anyone can read them. This year Postsecret.com is 10 years old and still going strong.
Would You Post Anonymously A Secret Online?
I did some research about this site and this is what I found:
Wikipedia
PostSecret is an ongoing community mail art project, created by Frank Warren, where people mail their secrets anonymously on a homemade postcard. Selected secrets are then posted on the PostSecret website, or used for PostSecret’s books or museum exhibits.
The Concept
The concept of the project was that completely anonymous people decorate a postcard and portray a secret that they had never before revealed. No restrictions are made on the content of the secret; only that it must be completely truthful and must never have been spoken before. Entries range from admissions of sexual misconduct and criminal activity to confessions of secret desires, embarrassing habits, hopes and dreams. PostSecret collected and displayed over 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 Blogger, was updated every Sunday with 10 new secrets, all of which share a relatively constant style, giving the artists who take part some guidelines on how their secrets should be represented. From June 24 to July 3, 2007, the “Comments” section of the site was enabled. While a comments feature is often present on blogs, it had been absent from the PostSecret site. Many visitors felt that the new section contradicted the purpose of the site, as shown 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. Since its inception, more than 80,000 users have registered for the online discussion forum.
Safety
I wonder if it’s really safe and anonymous to post a secret online… personally I won’t trust it 100%. Also, there are two famous apps for sharing secrets with the rest of the world Secret and Whisper– and then have anyone comment on, share, or like them publicly. In a world where everything about you is public, these social networks feel like a safe haven for you to be the real you… or not.
Today
PostSecret is the largest advertisement-free Blog in the world.
Visitor Count: 714,053,467
I think this site is fascinating as I can’t stop reading people’s artworks, some are funny, some are totally creepy and for some I think people need mental health therapy. I’m intrigued and I love it. Check PostSecret maybe you can see my secret…
I also found out how the founder is making money from it, he is selling at least 3 books on Amazon – I think this guy is a genius!
