Blogger speaks to SRU students about secrets
SLIPPERY ROCK — The things they keep to themselves were the things that brought them to hear Frank Warren
Warren, who is creator of the group art project Post Secret, spoke Thursday night to a standing-room-only crowd at the University Union on the Slippery Rock University campus.
"Hi, my name's Frank, and I collect secrets," was his introduction to the crowd of at least 900. The event was organized by the University Program Board.
Warren, of Germantown, Md., in 2004 started the blog "PostSecret.com" by handing out 3,000 postcards to strangers and asking them to anonymously mail it to his home with a secret. When the stockpile of his postcards ended, people had started to decorate their own cards and mail them.
Today, he receives about 200 cards every day and the Web site gets 7 million visitors each month. The project raises money for the National Suicide Hotline.
Warren, who freely admits to a few dark secrets in his life, compares secrets to a hidden box. When people bring out the box and open it, it's like a gift, he said.
"Sometimes when we are keeping secrets, we think we are keeping them, but really they're keeping us," he said.
The most common confession is "I pee in the shower," he said, and the second most common is a message about looking for someone to confide in.
Some are romantic. Warren shared one on a photograph of a diamond ring that explained the man's whereabouts the Saturday his girlfriend thought he was missing. Another read: "I didn't enlist to escape you. I enlisted to pay for our wedding."
Warren only accepts secrets that are true and that are shared by the writer. For example, he said he eliminated a postcard that showed the inside of a temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Admittance to the temple is limited and much about it and the ceremonies there is kept from the public.
The thousands of postcards he has received over the years have been turned into five books and multiple exhibits.
He said he can't quit the project because the mail keeps coming. His wife has joked with him that they can never move or change addresses.
Each audience member got a postcard to share a secret. Warren also encouraged the audience to create an Internet project that would help others. For example, after one Canadian teen heard Warren speak, the teen created a site that identifies the owners of lost cameras.
"Get a crazy idea to change lives, maybe even change the world," he told the crowd.
