Your deepest, most painful secret, exposed. Anonymously, but it’s still out there and anyone can see it. If your handwriting is too distinct, or your secret obvious, someone you know will know that the secret is about you.

That is the risk that people who send secrets into PostSecret take.

Frank Warren, creator of PostSecret, started the site on January 1st, 2005. It began in 2004 as an Artomatic project. Artomatic is a multimedia arts event held in Washington D.C.

Warren began this project by handing out index cards with the words “You are invited to anonymously share your secrets”.

Warren has received over 150,000 secrets since the website’s creation. Warren says on his site that he receives about 1,000 secrets a week, every Sunday he updates with about 2% of the cards he receives, about 20 a week.

With 4 books out on the market, PostSecret is spreading at an amazing pace. His blog recently won a “Webbie” award for art and for blogging.

Caroline Wright, a user on the PostSecret’s chat forum said she sends in secrets because, “Sending in a secret is a physical representation of letting it go. You're no longer the only one who knows and you can find some relief in the fact that it's no longer your burden alone.”

Then, “It's therapeutic in a way, to be able to literally let go of something that is so deep that only you know about it.” She wrote.

This phenomenon is something nobody could have imagined. People sending in their deepest darkest secrets in hopes that it ends up on the website or in a book.

Wright also said, “I guess people just want to be recognized. They want to think their life, their secret, is important enough.”