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Hi, my name is Frank,
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and I collect secrets.
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It all started with a crazy idea
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in November of 2004.
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I printed up 3,000 self-addressed postcards,
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just like this.
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They were blank on one side,
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and on the other side
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I listed some simple instructions.
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I asked people to anonymously share an artful secret
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they'd never told anyone before.
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And I handed out these postcards randomly
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on the streets of Washington, D.C.,
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not knowing what to expect.
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But soon the idea began spreading virally.
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People began to buy their own postcards
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and make their own postcards.
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I started receiving secrets in my home mailbox,
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not just with postmarks from Washington, D.C.,
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but from Texas, California,
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Vancouver, New Zealand, Iraq.
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Soon my crazy idea didn't seem so crazy.
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PostSecret.com
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is the most visited advertisement-free blog in the world.
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And this is my postcard collection today.
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You can see my wife
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struggling to stack a brick of postcards
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on a pyramid of over a half-million secrets.
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What I'd like to do now
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is share with you a very special handful of secrets
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from that collection,
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starting with this one.
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"I found these stamps as a child,
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and I have been waiting all my life
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to have someone to send them to.
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I never did have someone."
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Secrets can take many forms.
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They can be shocking
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or silly or soulful.
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They can connect us to our deepest humanity
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or with people we'll never meet.
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(Laughter)
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Maybe one of you sent this one in.
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I don't know.
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This one does a great job of demonstrating
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the creativity that people have
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when they make and mail me a postcard.
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This one obviously was made out of half a Starbucks cup
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with a stamp and my home address written on the other side.
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"Dear Birthmother, I have great parents.
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I've found love. I'm happy."
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Secrets can remind us of the countless human dramas,
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of frailty and heroism,
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playing out silently
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in the lives of people all around us
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even now.
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"Everyone who knew me before 9/11
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believes I'm dead."
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"I used to work with a bunch of uptight religious people,
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so sometimes I didn't wear panties,
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and just had a big smile and chuckled to myself."
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(Laughter)
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This next one takes a little explanation before I share it with you.
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I love to speak on college campuses
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and share secrets and the stories with students.
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And sometimes afterwards I'll stick around
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and sign books and take photos with students.
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And this next postcard was made
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out of one of those photos.
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And I should also mention that, just like today,
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at that PostSecret event,
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I was using a wireless microphone.
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"Your mic wasn't off during sound check.
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We all heard you pee."
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(Laughter)
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This was really embarrassing when it happened,
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until I realized it could have been worse.
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Right. You know what I'm saying.
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(Laughter)
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"Inside this envelope
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is the ripped up remains
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of a suicide note I didn't use.
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I feel like the happiest person on Earth (now.)"
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"One of these men is the father of my son.
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He pays me a lot to keep it a secret."
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(Laughter)
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"That Saturday when you wondered where I was,
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well, I was getting your ring.
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It's in my pocket right now."
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I had this postcard posted on the PostSecret blog
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two years ago on Valentine's Day.
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It was the very bottom, the last secret in the long column.
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And it hadn't been up for more than a couple hours
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before I received this exuberant email
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from the guy who mailed me this postcard.
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And he said, "Frank, I've got to share with you
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this story that just played out in my life."
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He said, "My knees are still shaking."
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He said, "For three years, my girlfriend and I,
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we've made it this Sunday morning ritual
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to visit the PostSecret blog together
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and read the secrets out loud.
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I read some to her, she reads some to me."
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He says, "It's really brought us closer together
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through the years.
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And so when I discovered
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that you had posted
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my surprise proposal to my girlfriend at the very bottom,
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I was beside myself.
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And I tried to act calm, not to give anything away.
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And just like every Sunday,
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we started reading the secrets out loud to each other."
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He said, "But this time it seemed like it was taking her forever
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to get through each one."
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But she finally did.
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She got to that bottom secret, his proposal to her.
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And he said, "She read it once and then she read it again."
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And she turned to him and said,
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"Is that our cat?"
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(Laughter)
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And when she saw him,
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he was down on one knee, he had the ring out.
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He popped the question, she said yes. It was a very happy ending.
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So I emailed him back
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and I said, "Please share with me an image, something,
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that I can share with the whole PostSecret community
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and let everyone know your fairy tale ending."
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And he emailed me this picture.
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(Laughter)
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"I found your camera at Lollapalooza this summer.
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I finally got the pictures developed
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and I'd love to give them to you."
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This picture never got returned back
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to the people who lost it,
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but this secret has impacted many lives,
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starting with a student up in Canada
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named Matty.
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Matty was inspired by that secret
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to start his own website,
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a website called IFoundYourCamera.
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Matty invites people
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to mail him digital cameras that they've found,
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memory sticks that have been lost
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with orphan photos.
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And Matty takes the pictures off these cameras
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and posts them on his website every week.
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And people come to visit
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to see if they can identify a picture they've lost
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or help somebody else get the photos back to them
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that they might be desperately searching for.
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This one's my favorite.
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(Laughter)
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Matty has found this ingenious way
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to leverage the kindness of strangers.
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And it might seem like a simple idea, and it is,
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but the impact it can have on people's lives can be huge.
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Matty shared with me
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an emotional email he received
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from the mother in that picture.
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"That's me, my husband and son.
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The other pictures are of my very ill grandmother.
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Thank you for making your site.
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These pictures mean more to me than you know.
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My son's birth is on this camera.
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He turns four tomorrow."
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Every picture that you see there
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and thousands of others
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have been returned back to the person who lost it --
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sometimes crossing oceans,
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sometimes going through language barriers.
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This is the last postcard I have to share with you today.
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"When people I love
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leave voicemails on my phone
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I always save them in case they die tomorrow
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and I have no other way
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of hearing their voice ever again."
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When I posted this secret,
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dozens of people
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sent voicemail messages from their phones,
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sometimes ones they'd been keeping for years,
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messages from family or friends
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who had died.
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They said that by preserving those voices
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and sharing them,
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it helped them keep the spirit of their loved ones alive.
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One young girl
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posted the last message
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she ever heard from her grandmother.
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Secrets can take many forms.
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They can be shocking or silly
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or soulful.
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They can connect us with our deepest humanity
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or with people we'll never meet again.
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Voicemail recording: First saved voice message.
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Grandma: ♫ It's somebody's birthday today ♫
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♫ Somebody's birthday today ♫
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♫ The candles are lighted ♫
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♫ on somebody's cake ♫
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♫ And we're all invited ♫
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♫ for somebody's sake ♫
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You're 21 years old today.
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Have a real happy birthday, and I love you.
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I'll say bye for now.
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FW: Thank you.
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(Applause)
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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June Cohen: Frank, that was beautiful,
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so touching.
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Have you ever sent yourself a postcard?
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Have you ever sent in a secret to PostSecret?
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FW: I have one of my own secrets in every book.
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I think in some ways, the reason I started the project,
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even though I didn't know it at the time,
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was because I was struggling with my own secrets.
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And it was through crowd-sourcing,
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it was through the kindness that strangers were showing me,
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that I could uncover
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parts of my past that were haunting me.
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JC: And has anyone ever discovered
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which secret was yours in the book?
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Has anyone in your life been able to tell?
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FW: Sometimes I share that information, yeah.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
