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PostSecret releases most recent collection of anonymous secrets |
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Thursday, 18 October 2007 |
by JULIA HARR
Lifestyles Reporter
Everyone has a skeleton or two in their closet.
PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard, according to the Web site.
“A Lifetime of Secrets,” Frank Warren’s latest PostSecret publication, showcases the secrets of people young enough to scribble with crayons to the elderly.
The book, released Oct. 9, was teased on the founding Web site, www.postsecret.blogspot.com for months before its release.
“Hundreds of never-before-seen secrets, arranged in loose chronological
order, reveal the fascinating ways our secrets change over the course
of our lives and the surprising ways they remain exactly the same,”
Warren said on the Web site.
“A Lifetime of Secrets” is available in the University Bookstore for $27.
“The PostSecret books always sell well here,” University Supply Store
Manager Bill Pillow said. “I think the Web site really drives sales.”
 Special to The Appalachian
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The book has only been on University Bookstore shelves for a few days.
The PostSecret project began when Warren left 3,000 blank postcards
around New York City with instructions to decorate the postcard with a
secret that was true and never spoken before.
He started a blogspot.com Web page and the site has grown in popularity ever since.
It is now the most popular advertisement-free blog on the Web with more
than 101 million visitors, according to the PostSecret Web site.
“I think college students like the book because it has pictures as well as text and it’s interesting,” Pillow said.
New secrets are posted on the Web site every Sunday.
No restrictions are made on the secrets and they are 100 percent anonymous.
Warren tours college campuses with his art project to promote his books
and get information from the students about what they want to see.
Inspired by these books and the Web site, Samuel N. Byrd, a sophomore
undecided major, created a Facebook.com and MySpace.com version open
exclusively to Appalachian State University students.
The Facebook.com site is called “ASU Post your Secret” and the MySpace.com page is www.myspace.com/asupostyoursecret.
The Web site has around 50 images of post cards posted in the photos section of the page.
Byrd encourages students to mail anonymous secrets into his Appalachian State post office box.
He then takes the submissions and scans the pictures to produce the
images on the page. E-mailed submissions are also accepted at
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The submissions range from “I have sex on my roommates bed because I hope I get caught” to “I pee in the shower.”
“I thought it would be interesting to see if I could get it started
here at [Appalachian.] I’ve been keeping up with the site,” Byrd said.
“I visit at least once a week. I wanted to see if people would respond
to it and they did.”
Byrd has posted every postcard he’s received and posts them immediately after receiving them.
“They all came
in at once. When I first started, they came in steadily for a week or
two but lately I haven’t received any,” Byrd said.
Byrd says he doesn’t believe he is violating any copyright laws because he is not doing it for profit.
“Each one is individual and reflects different personality,” he said.
“They all have their own story and I find them all interesting.
Sometimes you get one that only the author would understand and
sometimes the meaning is obvious.”
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