Frank Warren, who founded PostSecret.com, has received more than half a million secrets. He publishes less than 5 percent but keeps them all in an extra room he built specifically to hold them.
There’s usually no mail delivered on Sundays — but each Sunday, postcards are published on a blog that transcends languages and distances and helps people realize they are not alone.
Since 2004, PostSecret has captivated millions globally through the blog, books and a now-discontinued app. Founder Frank Warren has been called “the most trusted stranger in America” and refers to himself as a “professional secret guy.” There may be no one who has seen more secrets than he has; PostSecret.com has published thousands since its inception.
Warren gave his “PostSecret Live” lecture in the Grand Ballroom in Stamp Student Union on Friday, speaking about the power of sharing secrets. He emphasized that secrets are bridges, not walls, and can connect people. During the lecture, projection screens showcased postcards from around the world in their original formats.
“That’s my hope, really — through these soulful, sexual, silly secrets that students can maybe come to an understanding that whatever secret they may think they’re carrying by themselves, they’re not,” Warren said in an interview before his lecture. “It’s an illusion that people are alone.”
Though Ashley Venneman, Stamp special events and programs coordinator, said all 800 tickets for the event were given away, there were several empty seats in the back of the ballroom. Because of the more than 1,600 RSVPs on the Facebook event, a live stream for non ticket holders was playing in Hoff Theater, she said.
“He just expressed my philosophy of the world to a ton of people at once, which was fantastic,” said Rachel Greenberg, a special education graduate student who attended the lecture. “If you share your struggles and you meet other people who feel the same, the world will be a better place.”
Warren’s personal life has entailed divorced parents, homelessness, mental illness and witnessing death as a child . He didn’t tell his mother his secrets growing up, which contributed to his decision to start PostSecret as an adult.
Warren’s project was born in November 2004 not far from this university — he lives in Germantown — with the goal of exploring the possibilities of sharing secrets. He said the blog has helped him come to terms with his own experiences.
Warren, who used to work at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, said he would drive into Washington after work and distribute postcards to strangers, hoping to gather their secrets. If people replied that they didn’t have secrets, Warren said he “always made sure they took a postcard because I believe that they had the best ones.”
Warren said in a phone interview before the lecture that he’s noticed demographic trends — more women write him secrets than men, and younger people show more interest in the project than those who are older.
He said in an interview before the lecture that he publishes less than 5 percent of the secrets mailed to him because of the sheer quantity — he’s received more than half a million secrets.
The most received secret? “I pee in the shower.”
The second most common secret, he said, is the longing to find someone trustworthy with whom to share deep secrets.
He’s received secrets written on just about any object that can fit in his mailbox, he said — seashells, bras, a bag of coffee and even an uncooked Idaho potato.
Warren received and posted a postcard reading, “The holes are from when my mom tried knocking down my door so she could continue beating me,” mailed on a photo of a door with holes. It was a defining postcard in the blog’s rise to prominence; Warren said after he posted it, 1 million people visited the site and responded. Soon, he had a collection of a dozen photos of broken doors.
Warren, an advocate for suicide prevention, spoke on the importance of “sharing our secrets before they isolate us.”
“In the next 12 months,” he said, looking to the audience, “45 of us here tonight will think about ending our lives, and 15 of you right now are sitting by somebody who will actually try.”
Jeremy Hsiao, president of Active Minds at Maryland, which co-sponsored the lecture, said he thinks PostSecret has had a positive impact on reducing mental health stigmas, one of the group’s goals.
“I do know that on this campus specifically, more and more people are seeking help for mental health,” Hsiao said.
Warren then discussed more of his favorite postcards, including some sent from the College Park area (content included Terp pride and love for the football jerseys) and then opened up the lecture for audience members to share their own secrets.
The stories students shared at the lecture represented the range of secrets Warren sees: Some were lighter — someone confessed to sleeping with a stuffed Simba at age 23, and another audience member said he might have sneaked into the PostSecret lecture with an expired student ID.
Others involved heavier topics. One audience member shared that her mother has been through abuse and sadness and all she wants is for her mother to be happy, yet she can’t bring herself to be nice to her.
“That’s a real secret, when you hear someone struggling with how they feel,” Warren replied to the audience member. “Hopefully that moment at the microphone is the first step in a longer journey taking you closer.”
Another talked about the pain she felt from a friend’s suicide earlier this year — she didn’t even know it was going to happen, she said. One audience member talked about the relief of expressing to her father how much she hated the way he treated her as a child.
The room was filled with waves of emotion as people shared secret after secret. Some in the audience were crying while others were focused on the speakers, moved.
The last audience member to share talked about her pride for a cousin who was raped at a young age and is now working to become a victim’s advocate. She also talked about her own suicide attempts.
“Even though I’ve never been a strong person, I feel happy knowing that I know strong people,” she said.
Marshalle Grody, a senior family science and theatre major, shared a secret during the discussion portion of the lecture. She described the moment she released the secret as “unbelievably life-changing.”
“Something that you’re utterly terrified to do but you know not that you have to, but that you should, and after you’re done, it’s going to feel way more awesome than you felt before,” she said. “It’s funny, because he was talking about how everyone has a story and everyone has secrets. Once you share the secrets with people that you have to share them with, your life is going to change.”
