PostSecret

PostSecret encourages lonely, suicidal, emo people, with fucked up pasts, twisted sex lives, and/or disturbing fetishes, to write their deepest, darkest secrets on homemade postcards. Then, these people mail their works of art with secrets scribbled on them to a man in Maryland that they've never met. He posts them on the internet and publishes them in books, making the secrets thoroughly un-secret. Some believe that having the most embarrassing fact about you on display to the entire world will, of course, prevent you from killing yourself.

A selection of some of the most controversial secrets are featured in the song, Dirty Little Secret, by The All-American Rejects. Hearing your secret in the lyrics is yet another reason to not commit suicide.

Materials

PostSecret postcards are commonly made of:

Google Image Search search results
Porn
Photoshop skillz
Song lyrics
Poetry
The creator's own artistic abilities
Fail
AIDS

History

Postcards are selected based on on how good of an ad they are.

Frank signing one of the books. Taking credit for the work of others.

PostSecret was originally founded by Frank Warren in response to the Supreme Court ruling that the Catholic Church must end its monopoly on secrets. Now, however, PostSecret continues mainly for the lulz and in the interest of capitalism.

In PostSecret's early days, information about the suicide prevention hotline would be present at the bottom of the page every week. Feedback from visitors would be emailed in and then hand-picked by Frank to be posted in response to the postcards, saying things like, "Don't become an hero! It was just an iPod! We still love you!"

Then, one day, Frank had an epiphany:

1. Collect postcards.

2. Compile these postcards into a book.

3. Everyone whose postcard is included in the book will be guaranteed to buy the book, plus some other saps.

4. ????

5. PROFIT!

From that point on, the website's primary motivation has visibly shifted away from keeping depressed people alive to keeping Frank's wallet fat. The suicide prevention hotline information was removed and replaced with information about the books, tour dates, and Amazon links. Visitor comments are chosen to be posted not by how uplifting they are, but based on how well they advertise the latest book. And if you send it in a postcard about the book, that HAS to go up. Quick, take down the one about having lost all hope, and put up the ad postcard!