Answering night-time calls at a suicide hotline in Washington DC some years ago, Frank Warren found himself using The Voice. Addressing callers’ problems and telling them where they might seek help, he noticed, was not nearly so important as adopting a certain tone: soothing, hypnotic, passive.
Nowadays, Warren regularly speaks before hundreds of people; he says he sometimes slips into The Voice at these public events, but from what I can tell he seems to talk this way all the time. Whether he is discussing one person’s trouble tuning in to a radio station, or another’s difficulty with childhood sexual abuse, he projects relentless and unflappable sympathy.
With narrow shoulders, grey hair, glasses and a shy smile, Warren, aged 47, looks like an extra from The Office—you can imagine him trying to fix a photocopier. He also bears a resemblance to Dr Drew, America’s most famous television therapist, and like Dr Drew, Warren has risen to prominence by providing a forum where people can air their most closely held (and at times shocking) secrets. Warren has become America’s secular confessor. The question is whether so many people should be entrusting him with their most private thoughts.
Back in 2004, Warren had a small business that managed medical documents and he was bored with it. To amuse himself in his spare time he devised a little project, inspired by a dream he’d had on holiday in Paris the year before. He printed a batch of postcards with brief instructions typed on them: write on a postcard a secret that you’ve never told anyone, design the card however you like, and send it anonymously to the address provided—Warren’s home in Maryland. Warren then handed out these postcards on the streets of Washington, DC and also tucked them into books in shops.
There was an immediate and extraordinary response. The postcards soon began to pour in—and when he launched PostSecret.com on 1st January 2005, the online traffic was heavy. He used the free, bare-bones Google blogging service for amateurs that he still employs today. An armload of web awards and a spate of press attention further boosted the site’s profile. When Warren sits down to pick the 20 postcards that he posts online each Sunday, he is often choosing from a week’s total of more than 1,000, many of which are intricate works of homespun art.
Warren’s house is in a well-kept, upmarket development in Germantown, about an hour’s drive from Washington DC where the suburbs give way to farmland. The postwoman who delivers to his address tells me with a laugh that at least working the route gives her job security. Her confidence is well founded. Independent data that Warren showed me reported 1.7m unique visitors to his site per week and the hit counter on the website has registered more than half a billion visits. There are now French, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Chinese versions of the site, some of which are unauthorised. PostSecretUK launched two years ago; it is not affiliated with the original site but credits it as its inspiration.
PostSecret.com provides readers with small, potent doses of humour, sadness and intrigue. “I would rather be hit than ignored,” says one. “I stare at my cleavage when I walk down stairs.” “My mom puts a star on the calendar for every day I haven’t cut myself. I don’t deserve 5 of those stars.” “Is it wrong to thank God every day for the man I’m having an affair with?” “He said my meat loaf wasn’t as good as his Mom’s. Now I put dog food in it. And SMILE when he eats it.” Next to a US Army pin, against the backdrop of an American flag: “I will feel forever guilty for leaving you just like everyone said I would.” Absurdity and heartbreak are often placed side by side, which makes the tone of the website both weird and powerful.
by Evan Hughes, Prospect | Read more:
