What's Your Secret?

In December of 2003, a man named Frank Warren went to Paris and bought three postcards. As Warren slept, he had a vivid dream in which he modified the postcards with a different message written on each. When he awoke he changed the postcards with the messages he saw in his dream. The first read, "unrecognized evidence, from forgotten journeys, unknowingly discovered," the second "reluctant oracle." Warren said on his website that he "could not understand at the time" what the third message meant.

In December 2004 Warren decided to start the "reluctant oracle project" in which every Sunday he created a work of art like a postcard with advice or a secret and send it to nowhere in particular. As more and more people found these works, media coverage began. Frank Warren sent his last art project out with the third message he wrote on the postcard in France "You will find your answers in the secrets of strangers." The following Sunday Warren established www.postsecret.com and lives began to change, perspectives began to grow and secrets began to be shared.

"PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard" Warren put on his website. He still updates every Sunday with new secrets sent in from all over the world. It's been four years, more than 200 million views, four books of nothing but secrets and innumerable postcards sent. With each week the trend grows. Warren has even begun to travel to colleges and venues across the country giving lectures and sharing more secrets.

For some people PostSecret has become more than a website to read heartbreaking, chilling and funny secrets "It's taught me there's more to life than just the selfish things. It's taught me to be grateful for the experiences I've had and the experiences I've avoided," said Melanie O'Laughlin a student at Marquette University who heard about the website through a communications course she was taking. O'Laughlin jokingly said PostSecret is "my religion, that's how I go to church."

For others the secrets are more for entertainment purposes "It's like if you pass a car accident, you don't want to look but you do," Molly Skyles, a student at Truman University said "Other people's lives are fascinating. It's the whole 'Ha Ha your life sucks more' factor." For Skyles reading other's secrets is a way to pass the time. Unlike Skyles, O'Laughlin said PostSecret gives her perspective "I read them to know the world is bigger than the bubble I live in at school and that sometimes, my problems aren't so bad."

Similarly a Fontbonne University student, Chelsea Hejnal, admitted that the website "makes me feel more sane knowing other people have problems too." Hejnal shared her opinion on why people decide to send their secrets "It's probably freeing that someone knows it. Sometimes you can't tell the person [the secret is] meant for." O'Laughlin had much the same thought on why people send secrets "So they're not trapped anymore, so they can move on."

Though Hejnal, Skyles and O'Laughlin have never sent a secret they all admitted to having thought about it. With their perspective it is easy to see how appealing the whole PostSecret project is. Both sides of the spectrum have a benefit; one side gets a burden off their shoulders and the other feels a sense of relief or gratitude.

"There's one secret that has stuck with me, it said something like 'I don't read PostSecret as much now that I'm happy,'" O'Laughlin said of her favorite secret. "That's so true." Though O'Laughlin agrees and relates to this secret she also admits to reading PostSecret three times a week. "Sometimes you get a new perspective on what you read." She explained. "I don't wait for midnight on Saturday to read the secrets, now it's more of a 'Oh I've got time to look up PostSecret' thing."

Out of Molly Skyles, Melanie O'Laughlin and Chelsea Hejnal, O'Laughlin said she has been undeniably the most affected by the PostSecret project. She admitted to having all of the books and anticipating the new book. "For me the main thing PostSecret has done for me is teach me the true strength of people."