SecretTweet: like Postsecret, without the stamp
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Anonymously airing secrets — heartfelt, dangerous, even dirty — has been made possible, since 2004, with the help of Frank Warren, who visited Jacket Copy last year. He’s the proprietor of the website PostSecret, which encourages people to write their secrets on cards to be posted online; so far, there have been four books anthologizing the anonymous work, all of which gets to Warren’s house in New Jersey via regular mail.
But why use mail when you’ve got Twitter?
Some enterprising coders have built an anonymous interface (that’s what they say, anyway) that posts to twitter as SecretTweet. Following SecretTweet is a lot like reading Postsecret, in 140 characters or fewer. A few sample tweets:
— I know that my husband spent over $400 that we don’t have at a strip club this weekend.— I said my family was descended from Spanish royalty to get my kid into an elite preschool. I don’t feel bad about it.— My wife is asking why I am so moody. My secret mistress of 20 years just died of cancer. I need to talk to someone. I feel so alone.— The relationship is over, but we’re both still in love with the apartment.— I feel so significant when you say, ‘I love you,’ but I feel horrible because I can’t say it back. I love you.
Is SecretTweet the logical, next-generation of PostSecret mated with the short-form six-word memoirs? It’s feeding a desire to eavesdrop on the secrets of others — there are already close to 12,000 followers on Twitter.
— Carolyn Kellogg
