Media Meditation #5. Dirty Little Secret

PostSecret is an ongoing community mail art project in which people mail their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. Created by Frank Warren, the concept of the project is for people to send in a secret anonymous that is completely true and has never been spoken before. The site is run on Blogspot, and it is updated every Sunday with 20 new pieces. Warren sees PostSecret as an art project, getting thousands of postcards a day. This blog has a very interesting concept, and I enjoy looking at it every Sunday to get my fill of secrets.

Since Warren controls what pieces are put online, the site cannot really be considered a blog where users contribute themselves. A comment option was installed, where people could comment on the secrets posted, but it was controversial. Some believed the secrets should not be commented on out of respect, but others like to contribute. I find this interesting because the majority or people like being able to contribute to things bigger then themselves, such as a recognized website like this. In order to fix the issue of users being unable to contribute a lot, PostSecret Community was launched in 2007. With options like PostSecret chat, it makes the website a tad more hands on. 

Four Tool Sets

• The limbic brain is stimulated when looking at PostSecret because of the vivid artwork on the postcards. People spend a lot of time making their postcards special, and it shows. Many of the secrets are also very dark, which affects the emotional limbic brain. There is a variety of funny and sad ones, but when reading sad PostSecret's, I often get chills up my spine. 
  
• PostSecret is a epistemological shift because they are being put on the web. The concept of PostSecret is the opposite of epistemological, because people are mailing postcards which seems like something of the past. This contradiction proves for an interesting mixture, and it is strangely enjoyable reading people dark secrets. 
  
• There is an emotional transfer when browsing PostSecret. There is a variety of funny and sad secrets, and Warren mixes it up enough so that it is not all just depression or too funny. This principle works well for the site, and I believe it is a key reason why people enjoy PostSecret so much. 
  

There are many PostSecret's that contain inappropriate subject matter or images, so it is interesting how they are able to post these things. Media & Culture answered this question for me, explaining that the Internet is not regulated by the government, and therefore not subject to the Communications Act of 1934. "... many have looked to it [the Internet] as the one true venue for free, unlimited free speech under the First Amendment." This makes posting controversial secrets okay, and ensures they will not be taken down.