Wednesday, January 31, 2007

got secret?

Got any secret that you want to share but too shy/embarrassed to say it? Try PostSecret.com. It started as a public art project for Frank Warren. He started his website of postcard-submitted, artistic, sometimes enigmatic personal admittances, after he went through a period of personal travails. The voices presented on PostSecret can be troubling, tender, hilarious or heartbreaking. Some of the art and graphics may have taken "less than 10 seconds," says Warren. "Others take hours of time and effort."

Warren finds that PostSecret affects different people in different ways. People who have had more fortunate lives may look at some of the submissions and "feel a sense of shock and sometimes repulsion," he says. "That's good -- it shows those folks there's another side [of things]." And for people who are coping with difficulty, he adds, "It allows a sense of solidarity. When I see humility, guilt ... I feel a connection. Maybe my own burdens are lighter."

The project started with 3,000 self-addressed postcards Warren handed out to strangers, asking them to mail back a secret, anonymously. He received about 100 and thought he was done. But "the idea spread in a viral way," he says, and with postcards continuing to trickle in, he started posting several every Sunday on the Web site.PostSecret has now received more than 100,000 cards, up to 200 a day, which have toured the country in exhibitions and appeared in two other books: "PostSecret" and "My Secret."

(taken from cnn.com. To read the whole article, you can visit here)


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