For twenty years, PostSecret has broadcast suburban America’s hidden truths | Hacker News Reader

For twenty years, PostSecret has broadcast suburban America’s hidden truths

hazlitt.net

128 pointsonthesly25 comments

The Art of Authenticity: A Conversation with PostSecret’s Frank Warren - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9636568 - June 2015 (1 comment)

Can we learn from Post Secret's integrity? (largest non-ad blog in the world) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4119827 - June 2012 (2 comments)

PostSecret Pulls iOS App Over Abusive Submissions - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3418172 - Jan 2012 (7 comments)

I am a PostSecret Addict, I built this to ease my Addition. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2190110 - Feb 2011 (1 comment)

Ten Questions with PostSecret's Frank Warren - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=65147 - Oct 2007 (1 comment)

(The last two threads had no comments but I added archive.org links so the articles would be readable)

I've been a fan of the idea, but some time after following it I got a strong impression that people started pushing more and more edgy stuff for fun. It felt like either they're made up, or lots of people need serious psych help. (Lots of fairly brutal fantasies of self/others/animal harm)

It's been a few years now and I'm glad to see it's mostly back to how I remembered it from the beginning.

> I got a strong impression that people started pushing more and more edgy stuff for fun. It felt like either they're made up

Reddit’s AskReddit and AITAH are a fascinating example of this. Whenever I’ve browsed it, half the posts feel like thinly veiled creative writing exercises and/or karma farming. Often the accounts are a couple days old with a sudden burst of posts across multiple subreddits. Some of the stories are completely inconsistent with the poster’s past comments. Others aren’t even logically consistent from the beginning to the end of the story.

The most fascinating part is that the commenters don’t seem to care, even on the most dubious posts. They only want a creative prompt to comment on and add their opinion. Some times you can scroll half way down and find someone who debunked the post against the OP’s comment history, but it won’t get as many upvotes as the hot takes from others.

To some extent it doesn't really matter if the situations are real. It's the exploration of moral implications and disagreements and assumptions being made in the comments that are entertaining. It's like some of the funny video subreddits. In literally every post you've got someone being "clever" and stating "this video was staged!" as if that had any material difference on whether the content was funny or not.

For all I know I'm replying to a chatgpt bot right now. It doesn't matter. I found the comment chain interesting enough to reply. For all you know I'm a bot. We could all be bots except for you... Does it really matter? What would you do differently?

Whether a video was staged absolutely impacts how funny it is

Someone should tell SNL that they can't be funny because it's scripted. Comedians all across the globe should be out of a job because scripted comedy isn't funny apparently. This video has no value because it's clearly scripted. No way she actually has a nail sticking out of her head. When will these creators stop trying to fool us!?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg

It makes a huge difference to me. If we have an agreement in watching something staged (comedy movie, skit, etc.), great. If we have an agreement something is genuine (captured because it's partially planned or accidental), great. But if someone claims to post a funny genuine thing that's staged, it's not funny, it's just a lie and pissing me off.

It matters because people instinctively use these subreddits to calibrate their idea of what the rest of the world looks like

PostScret's actual site:

* https://postsecret.com

New posts generally happen every Sunday. RSS feed available.

What's the RSS feed address? Couldn't see it there.

I use https://postsecret.com/feed/

20 years, holy cow, didn't realize it's been that long.

But what does this have to do with "suburban" America? Very weird title.

I haven't thought about Post Secret since then. I remember browsing through their stuff at bookstores when I was in high school. Now I'm curious to go see some newer stuff.

Very different but also fun project from that era: dontevenreply.com

I think the article makes it pretty clear why suburban is in the title. The author relates the topic to her youth: "suburban life often felt stifling", for example. The link for her is the way American suburban culture involves distance and pretense, the keeping of secrets you may not be able to share with anybody. Something that PostSecret provides an outlet for.

The generous interpretation of "suburban America" is that both the author and interviewee live in the suburbs:

> I grew up in Temecula, a California suburb

> his house in Laguna Niguel, in a trim suburban neighbourhood

But the project started off in an urban area:

> In the fall of 2004, Frank [would] drive through the darkened streets of Washington, D.C., with stacks of self-addressed postcards

I think though that "suburban" is playing the same role as "middle-class". Despite the technical definition, I think both terms imply everyday, normal, boring, "real" Americans. I agree this usage is weird and I wish people would stop using "suburban" this way.

I was published on his website summer 2008, while engaged to a gal from NYC — "this has been the best year ever" — a postcard sent as a summer 2006 memory. Still in the same relationship, although we were about to begin breaking up =|

Thanks for reminding me of Frank's website (it's been years since I last visited), re-added to new bookmarks. What's old, becomes new again.

For people who like this kind of thing, I recommend the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb. There are a lot of objects from, well, broken relationships, and often some highly personal letters accompanying them. I didn't really expect to enjoy it, but I found it to be pretty moving. PostSecret was perhaps more in the zeitgeist when I went there, and the museum felt like a more complete version of it.

What a great idea he had and a well-written article.

I'm a sucker for r/AskReddit's periodic questions on redditors' secrets (e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ziqmsh/what_dark...): mostly it's what you'll expects, infidelity, sexual fantasies, etc. but every now and then an entry makes you think deep about what things are going on in the big wide world.

A really open and beautiful article, well worth the read.

I love this.

What would keep me from using it is that my handwriting is bad, but worse it is easily recognizable.

I guess if I had a typewriter (remember those) I could use it to fill out the postcard.

If I glued it to a regular sheet of paper I might be able to write on the postcard by trail and error. I think the postcard could be too big and hard to make it through the printer.

I could buy printer sheets with lables on it and blue those in. That I might be my best idea so far, but still a typewriter would make it simple.

or just print it out on regular sheet of paper with margins and all ensuring i keep it to the right size and then glue that on. That is even easier.

Just take a page out of a ransom note writers’ book. Maybe literally.

I’ve been a fan of PostSecret since the beginning and bought the (first?) book. Many years later, Facebook sent me some PostSecret posts. Do not read the Facebook comments. There isn’t the “art therapy” safe space that you usually feel witnessing Frank’s exhibit, just a bunch of moral judgment. “This was written by a bad person.” “They shouldn’t be glorifying this.” “This person needs help.” (Ya think?) It’s a really interesting contrast, people being vulnerable and people feeling morally obligated to condemn or silence them.

This is all Facebook comments. The medium really is the message and the Facebook medium leads directly to mouth breathing reactionary comments.

I have the same irrational fear about my bathtub.

I read this as postscript and was so very confused by the headline :D

Reply on news.ycombinator.com