Museum of Man: PostSecret

Entrance to the PostSecret exhibit

The key word for the Museum of Man is interactive. There were a number of exhibits that engaged its audience with methods as simple as writing down fears and tying them to a dreamcatcher in the Monsters exhibit. But PostSecret, the winning exhibit for audience interaction, takes engagement to another level as the entire content was created by regular people. PostSecret is a collection of secrets written on post cards from average people, all sent to the curation of Frank Warren who began the project in 2004. Strangers would anonymously mail personal secrets to Warren which are now read and relatable to other strangers. I greatly appreciated PostSecret’s ability to have me empathize and not just sympathize with nameless strangers. I think the existence of this exhibit demonstrates a social cry for connectivity that many seem to be lacking.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but PostSecret is not a unique concept. As a native New Yorker, one of my favorite PostSecret doppelganger’s is an Instagram account called Humans of New York (HONY) created by Brandon Stanton. Stanton, much like Warren, gives his audience a little snapshot of an unfamiliar person’s life with a photo of them and a quote of their own in the caption. Also in New York, I saw a musical called “Found” in 2014 about the creation of the magazine of the same title created by Davy Rothbart and Jason Bitner. Found Magazine is the collection of notes and photos that the creators literally found littering the streets of Chicago, which is very personal because those secrets were never intended to be shared with the masses. Another example that may be more familiar to the masses is the All-American Reject’s “Dirty Little Secret” music video featuring blurred people holding up a secret on a notecard. 

We get the general picture that PostSecret is not that unique, but it is still effective in evoking an emotional response from its viewers. Personally, I cried reading several of the post cards in this exhibit. One note talked about blowing out red lights to make them green when driving, a practice that I associate it with my late great-grandma and this person associates with her late grandpa. On one hand, that postcard was effective because it invaded some deep emotional layers for me specifically. On the other hand, funny postcards—like one about the EMT partners that have sex to pass the time when not on-call—made me squirm and laugh even though I have no similar experiences. These mentioned postcards demonstrate the incredible range in the content of the exhibit. Some were more universal about not wanting to be lonely or feeling disconnected from a God, while others were about personal traumas. 

How is it that so so many different versions of PostSecret exist successfully? The answer is as simple and as complicated as saying the power of these shared secrets provides a deep sense of interconnectivity between the sharer and the viewer. These postcards allow a secret, a personal detail intended to be shared only with the closest confident if at all, to be released. The result is that others can find solace in knowing that they are not the only person with secrets, struggles, and insecurities. Since people do not often divulge this information about themselves, this anonymous vulnerability enables others to feel the same way. In our digital age, it is important to remember the bonds that keep us all human. In my book, there can be as many PostSecret-esque exhibits as needed if it allows people to connect with one another.

P.S. You can leave a voice message for Frank Warren if you want your secret to be part of the collection at 619-269-3894.