Hundreds of people are voluntarily sharing their deepest secrets with Washington, D.C. – anonymously.
On Aug. 3, the Smithsonian Institute’s National Postal Museum officially debuted its “Post Secret: The Power of a Postcard” exhibit to the public. The display houses over 500 submissions of homemade postcards.
“It is a celebration of a Millennial project,” museum historian and curator Nancy Pope told Red Alert Politics in an email. “PostSecret has fans across the age spectrum, but it has a special draw to younger audiences.”
PostSecret began in 2004 with founder Frank Warren handing out postcards only a few blocks from the National Postal Museum. He requested people write down a true secret that they had never shared with anyone else. Since then, the project has grown, and Warren has collected some 500,000 postcards. The PostSecret blog rotates the postcards displayed online weekly and has had over 700 million visits.
“I think those that know of, and appreciate, the website will especially relish seeing the cards up close and personal,” Pope added.
Northern Virginia resident Charlotte Thompson, 28, explored the exhibit and thought the initiative appealed to her generation.
“I think a lot of the secrets are things a lot of people my age would have posted,” Thompson said. “There’s one that’s like, ‘I’m being crushed by student debt and medical bills,’ which I think a lot of us can relate to.”
Museum spokesman Marty Marshall said PostSecret allows people to share parts of their lives that they may not be as willing to share online.
“In the digital age where social media has taken over, it’s interesting because we’re still using postcards that can do what we wouldn’t otherwise be able to do,” Marshall said.
In this way, the exhibit also preserves the importance of physical mail.
“Using the mail to carry messages is as old as the country,” Pope explained. “Yet this project shows that at a time when the postal system is considered passé by some, it was the system selected for the conveyance of secrets, at first as an art project, but soon thereafter, as a medium that conveyed those bits and pieces we keep close to our hearts.”
Similar to those found on the PostSecret blog, the messages on the cards range from lost loves, fears, unachieved dreams, and some content that can only be described as weird.
One of the cards contains part of a letter of rejection from a college application. The postcard sender wrote, “They just made a huge mistake.”
Another card shares the writer’s fear of revealing his or her sexual identity to others and the consequences of doing so.
“My parents found out I am gay. They hate gays. They are disgusted by me,” the card reads. “I would do anything, any sick, immoral, Godless thing to hear them say I love you no matter what.”
Displaying cards of such diversity, Pope said visitors would each get something different from the exhibit.
“Some will find solace in a card revealing a secret not unlike one of their own,” she said. “Others may simply enjoy ‘snooping’ in other people’s lives, or be moved emotionally by something they read. And we will no doubt have visitors who find pleasure in just walking through the displays, enjoying the artistic creativity of some cards, or laugh at the amusing bits of others.”
The exhibit will be on display until September of 2016.
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