Frank Warren tells all at PostSecret event

The PostSecret event on Thursday was a reflection of the PostSecret project itself: serious, funny and heartfelt. Post Secret is an online art phenomenon that was started in 2004 by Frank Warren.

A soft-spoken and earnest speaker, Warren has been touring around the country to promote the newest PostSecret book, Confessions on Life, Death, and God, a compilation of just some of the half-million postcard secrets sent to his home address thus far.

The show started with the music video of "Dirty Little Secret," by The All-American Rejects. Warren introduced himself saying, "I'm Frank and I collect secrets."

Those entering the auditorium had been given a blank postcard, which he said he hoped would be used for the audience's own secrets.

Warren then introduced the idea that we all have a metaphorical box of our own secrets that we choose to either bury within or share with others.

On stage he had an actual box of secrets, which he used to illustrate some more colorful stories. One secret was written on an In-and-Out burger wrapper, the text admitting that the meal had been sneaked into a Post Secret event.

"Extraordinary items [have been] turned into 'postcards,'" Warren said. His list includes shells, Polaroids, wedding and funeral announcements and even fruits and vegetables. He has even received a one pound bag of coffee.

Warren said he has been called the "most trusted stranger in America," and it has been suggested that no living person has seen more secrets than him. Warren said that he does his Post Secret events hoping to demonstrate that growth is possible when a person is, "open to true secrets."

He is often asked what secret has touched him most deeply, but claims that the secret which made the deepest impression was one he never saw. He told the story of an e-mail he received about a woman from Texas who was moved to illustrate her secret.

However, once she saw it written out, she tore it in half and made the decision to "no longer be the person to carry that secret in her life."

When he thinks about this story, Warren wonders whether we keep our secrets, or if "secrets are actually keeping us," and getting in the way of relationships, careers and life.

Warren talked about first starting this project by handing out three thousand cards, addressed to his home, that invited the sender to share a secret which had "never [been] shared with anyone else before." He distributed these to strangers in Washington, D.C, and the results were astounding.

Once the pre-addressed cards ran out, more secrets kept coming, from around the world. "I accidentally tapped into something," Warren said, "that I still don't understand."

Warren's parents, however, were less than enthusiastic, his mother originally calling the idea "diabolical."

During the show Warren played a recent phone message from mother, who said she had glanced through his latest book in a store, and was "not too happy with it," which got a big laugh from the audience.

Warren then projected a postcard of a broken door, the text revealing that the damage was from the sender's parent trying to break down the door to continue abusing their child. Warren said that after the overwhelming response online to this card, he began to realize what kind of power the Internet has to bring people together.

Warren's own project has successfully brought six million visitors a month to his website. Eventually, the publisher HarperCollins became interested in a book deal. On a screen, Warren projected the cards that had been left out of the most recent book due to censorship or copyright issues. He proudly explained that this new book was not available at Walmart because of its "sanitizing" policy, which would have censored even more secrets.

One of the cards was about suicide, which gave Warren the chance to discuss the pattern of secrets about self-harm, eating disorders and suicide that he sees in many cards.

He took a sobering moment to discuss the fact that statistically for college students, eight in the audience would attempt suicide within a year, while 30 would consider it. PostSecret is associated with the suicide prevention center Hopeline and has won an award from the National Mental Health Association.

The next card described the recovery of a person who had once been in a mental ward. Warren described the hope this card gives him, and the effect his own rough times have had on his life.

"The children broken by the world become the adults most likely to change it," he said.Warren wondered aloud why, exactly, so many people send in secrets - possibly for absolution, self-acceptance or a chance to let go of personal history.

The most common secret is "I pee in the shower," but the second most common is hope that the sender will someday have a person to whom they can tell all their own secrets.

Warren also told a sweet story about a proposal that took place through PostSecret.

Although the event was solemn, there were some funny moments punctuating Warren's serious message.

Warren also opened the talk for questions. To answer one about his selection process for the website, he said that it was a "gut" choice, but also an attempt to knit together a cohesive story.

He also explained, laughing, that he once received a card from his wife saying, "I want to sleep with Richard Gere," but he was able to recognize her handwriting.

Near the end there was a chance for audience members to divulge their own secrets, which several did, emotionally. The atmosphere was respectful but Warren seemed to end the session too quickly, with more students still hoping to share.

At the end, Warren encouraged the audience to, "free your secrets and become who you are." For the last few minutes a video about the PostSecret story played, with stirring music and tear-jerking secrets.

Audience reaction was enthusiastic.

"I thought he was going to promote his book, but he made it more about what the book means to other people," said freshman Cinthya Garcia. "He really spoke to every individual in the audience."

"He definitely exceeded expectations, and brought out the emotions," freshman Emily Kashka said.

Freshman Meghan Lavin pointed out, however, that the event was not that well publicized. Although PostSecret events are often sold out, this audience was not completely filled.

But despite the "unimpressive turnout," sophomore Trevor Hummel said that overall, "it was a nice injection of vivacity into a rather hopeless campus."

After the event, there was a book signing. On Oct. 25 there is another PostSecret event at the American Visionary Arts Museum in the Inner Harbor.