Got a secret?

By Candice Montenegro, Contributor INQUIRER.net WHAT if you were given a chance to reveal a secret without anyone ever knowing itâs yours? Would you? PostSecret is a blog that allows you share your deepest, darkest secrets anonymously. The blog is a collection of secrets from people across the US and around the world conta ining revelations ranging from childhood humiliation and betrayal, to funny exp eriences and fantasies. You can reveal practically anything, and you only have to follow two rules: it must be true and it should never have been previously shared with anyone else. Frank Warren, the artist behind the project, put up the blog in January 2005 an d has since received and displayed up to 200,000 secrets. The site is updated e very Sunday with 20 new secrets, all 4-by-6-inch postcards in which the secrets are written, drawn or otherwise creatively put together. The site is simple and straightforward. The artwork is posted one after the oth er, sometimes with a short explanation or story. Past secrets arenât archived a nd cannot be accessed after an update. And you can't post comments on the blog, in keeping with its non-judgmental feel. The blog also features a PostSecret Community where readers can participate in a forum and check schedules for PostSecret events. It also features Video Secrets that are much like the traditional postcards, except the secrets are revealed throu gh a montage of sorts. PostSecret won the Best Blog category in the 2007 Weblog Awards. It also gave birth to inter national counterparts PostSecret France and PostSecret auf Deutsch. The idea is also starting to catch on locally, in young blogs such as Code Blued. Warren stresses in the site that he cannot vouch for the truthfulness of all th e secrets he receives. Each postcard, however, is a work of art that has differ ent layers of truth that can mean different things to different people. He also says that a secret we keep to ourselves sometimes becomes true only aft er we read it on a strangerâs postcard. Some people probably find consolation in knowing that somewhere out there, some one is hiding the same dirty little secret. To most, it's simply entertaining t o read another person's embarrassing, disgusting or stupid secret. Is it any wonder then that the postcards keep coming?