There’s no secret like PostSecret

September 21, 2009 by Gregan Wingert 

Shhh… Creator of interactive community of postcard senders to speak at UNLV

“All I’ve ever wanted is to be a robot,” reads one otherwise ordinary postcard.

“I knew I was gay on our wedding day but wanted children and feared AIDS,” reads another.

Embarrassing, funny, shocking or sad, PostSecret creator Frank Warren has heard thousands of secrets of all kinds and tonight he will share them in the Student Union Ballroom.

For more than three years, people have been anonymously mailing in secrets on homemade postcards to Warren’s ongoing community art project. Select secrets are posted on the PostSecret Web site. Some are used for books or museum exhibits.

“I really don’t have any goals with PostSecret. I just try to follow where it leads and not screw up the trust that so many people have placed in me,” Warren said. “I guess if I was forced to come up with a goal, it would be something like ‘give voice to those who are not heard and tell the untold stories.’”

During the event, Warren will speak about the stories behind some of the quarter of a million secrets he’s collected through the project.

“There are two kinds of secrets: the ones we hide from others and the ones we keep from ourselves,” Warren said. “The most emotional parts are when audience members confess things they have never told a soul.”

Krista Mullen, entertainment and programming director for CSUN, expects that about 1,000 people will attend tonight’s event and many will come ready to tell all.

“There will be a time for students to share their secrets,” said Mullen, adding that a big aspect of PostSecret is enabling people to free themselves from their secrets and show who they truly are.

“It’s very emotional,” said Joey Shea, who helped coordinate the Postsecret event in April of 2008. “PostSecret has impacted a countless number of lives.”

Shea got involved in the movement when he lived in Columbus, Ohio.
“I’m published in the first one,” Shea said, declining to admit which secret in “PostSecret” is his.

Shea explained that the project gained more steam on the West coast when PostSecret images were used in the All American Rejects’ music video “Dirty Little Secret.”

The reason people are so willing to share their most personal feelings and experiences may seem unimaginable, but Warren has seen that it’s not unheard of, especially among youth.

“I think that our culture is going through a transition right now,” Warren said. “Young people are more confident sharing parts of themselves that their parents would never dream of talking about. Look online and you can see this demonstrated everyday on Facebook.”

Warren said his favorite parts of the project are speaking with young people, sharing the stories behind the secrets and listening to their own hidden secrets.

“At the last PostSecret event a young woman came to the microphone and confessed, ‘As a kid, I used to steal my dad’s Playboys and sell them to the boys in my neighborhood so I could have money for the ice-cream truck,’” Warren said.

Warren has published four books including “PostSecret,” “My Secret,” “The Secret Lives of Men and Women” and “A Lifetime of Secrets.” There will be limited supply of all Warren’s books on sale at the event for $20 cash each, Mullen said, adding that Warren has promised to stay and sign every book.
Besides being an author and entrepreneur, Warren is also a strong advocate for suicide prevention.

“Some of your closest confidants and friends can be hiding some really important things,” Shea said. “It’s important to get that out there.”
Though Warren said he sees no direct connection between secrets and suicide, he also mentioned that he worked for the suicide prevention program HopeLine when he first started the PostSecret project.

That experience, coupled with personal loss, has convinced him to use the project to benefit suicide prevention organizations.
“I have lost two people close to me to suicide,” he said. “So when PostSecret took off, I knew I wanted to use the popularity of the Web site to raise awareness and funds for suicide prevention and not just sell ad space.”

Warren is proud to say that the PostSecret Web site has received more than 250,000,000 hits and the program has raised over $500 thousand for suicide prevention, but he has never taken a dollar for advertisements.
Doors open for tonight’s evnet at 6 p.m. for students and admission to the event is free for students with RebelCards. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. to the public and tickets are $10 cash.