Sharing dark secrets online
21 May 2007, New Paper
By Yeh Wei Xuan & Lynette Lim
ONE woman openly claims she has slept with the boyfriends, fiances and husbands of other women.
Another says she’s only 17, but her boyfriend he refuses to use a condom when they have sex.
Then there’s a student who swoons over a guy in her lecture group because he is “hot” and his “perfume smells nice”.
Sex, love and relationships – that’s what most of the deepest, darkest secrets of Singaporeans are about.
ONLINE COMMUNITY
And they are being aired online on SG Secrets , a Singapore-based community website which invites people to send in their secrets without having to reveal their identity.
The website is a spin-off of a US-based site, PostSecret where secrets, sent in on postcards, are posted online.
SG Secrets is managed by a woman who asked to remain anonymous and declined to comment about the website or herself when The New Paper contacted her.
The New Paper counted about 600 posts on the website, from people claiming to be in all walks of life, since it was created in June 2005.
What makes the site interesting is that the secrets are told in mini drawings, coloured pictures and fancy fonts, either sent in online with the secret or by post to a Pasir Ris address.
The secrets range from poignant tales of forbidden love and empty promises to confessions of loneliness and inferiority complexes.
The most common secrets so far – almost two-thirds of the posts which The New Paper read on the site – have to do with love and relationships.
Some of them are innocent, like those sent in by contributors who pine for love or have crushes on their classmates.
One post reads: “Friends around me have met their loves, but what about me? It makes me feel unloved. (& I’m only 14).”
SERIOUS ISSUES
But others deal with more serious issues, with anecdotes of unprotected sex, infidelity and homosexual relationships.
One user, who claimed to be 17, wrote she had been having sex with her boyfriend for the past two years but he refuses to use a condom.
She wrote: “Yes stupid me, now I want to make this right... I’m too young to be pregnant... and pls don’t say he’s a jerk, I love this guy.”
Some have posted messages of personal problems, like depression, suicide and anorexia.
One disturbing post reads: “I’ve grown so dependent on my rage blackouts... popping pills and cutting. I think they sort of mould me, define me.”
And some of these posts have garnered responses from others reading the website.
One post, put up last August, said the writer had lost her mother to suicide when she was younger and that she also tried to kill herself and failed. She received responses from others to “learn to love herself” and to cherish life.
Another post which drew feedback was one which said: “I weigh myself everyday. 45. 42. 39. I’m not stopping until I reach 20.”
It ended up garnering 78 comments from readers, one of the highest on the site, with some readers chiding the writer for having such thoughts.
So what drives Singaporeans to want to reveal their dark secrets to the world?
When contacted, the moderator of SG Secrets declined to comment and felt that it was not in “the best interest of the community to expose the secrets to mass media”.
Mr Frank Warren, the moderator of the US-based PostSecret, believes some put up their secrets to “seek solace and healing”.
Young people The New Paper spoke to feel these sites are a good outlet for them to unload their burdens.
Said Irene Goh, 19, a polytechnic student: “It helps people to reveal their innermost secrets without having to disclose their identities. I guess, in a way, it helps them feel better.”
However, she said she wouldn’t post her secrets online and “would rather confide in my friends who can give me advice”.
Some say those who post their secrets are out to “attract attention”.
Eunice Kow, 19, a polytechnic student, feels that by posting secrets on websites like these, “the essence of a secret is lost”.
“If it’s meant to be a secret, it should be kept, and hidden in some unknown corner, not told to the world,” she said.
Talking to a friend may be better: psychiatrist
PSYCHIATRIST Simon Siew says secrets can become burdens for some people. Said Dr Siew: “Posting their secrets online will help them relieve their anxiety.”
But he felt the anonymity wasn’t all good. “As people become more Net-savvy, they may lose the ability to face others directly and become afraid to let people know who they are,” he said.
A more open and effective way of coping with a problem is to confide in a close and trusted friend, he said.
SG Secrets lists telephone numbers of helplines here, such as SOS, Pregnancy Crisis Centre and Touchline.
Mr Frank Warren, who started the US-based PostSecret website on which SG Secrets is based, said his aim was to create a space where people could share a part of their lives and get a weight of their minds.
Mr Warren, 43, told The New Paper in a phone interview from Maryland, the US: “I started the site because I had a belief that all of us have rich, interesting, inner lives.
“So, I decided to create a non-judgmental place for people to share parts of themselves.”
Mr Warren added that his “monotonous job” as the owner of a document delivery company was partly the motivation to start the site, as an avenue for him to express himself creatively.
STARTED WITH POSTCARDS
PostSecret didn’t start in cyberspace. In November 2004, Mr Warren gave out about 3,000 self-addressed postcards encouraging people to send him their secrets.
Subsequently, he put up these postcards at an art exhibition in Washington DC. But weeks after his project ended, he continued to get postcards with the senders’ secrets. So he created the PostSecret site to share them.
Today, Mr Warren said he receives about 1,000 postcards a week. He estimates that 70 per cent of them are from the US, with about 10 per cent from Asian countries.
The process of selecting what to put online has been tough. Said Mr Warren: “I select secrets that surprise me, secrets that express different emotions. Then, I arrange them in a way that they tell a story.” The most shocking secret he received was a postcard showing the burning Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. On it was written: “Everyone who knew me before 9/11 believes I’m dead.”
Another, written on part of a Starbucks cup, said: “I give decaf to customers who are rude to me.”
Said Mr Warren: “There’s an artist inside all of us... All of us have a secret that will break hearts.”
He uploads new secrets every Sunday. And in conjunction with Mother’s Day last week, all the posts were about mothers. There were tragic secrets like “My mom disowned my grandmother. I disowned my mom. What will my daughter do?” and “I’ve spent 13 years trying to get you to love me. As of today, I officially give up.”
A compilation of the secrets has been published in three volumes, available on Amazon.com. While he enjoys what he does, his wife has a fear. “She’s afraid that even after we retire, secrets will continue to follow us,” he said.
By Yeh Wei Xuan & Lynette Lim
ONE woman openly claims she has slept with the boyfriends, fiances and husbands of other women.
Another says she’s only 17, but her boyfriend he refuses to use a condom when they have sex.
Then there’s a student who swoons over a guy in her lecture group because he is “hot” and his “perfume smells nice”.
Sex, love and relationships – that’s what most of the deepest, darkest secrets of Singaporeans are about.
ONLINE COMMUNITY
And they are being aired online on SG Secrets , a Singapore-based community website which invites people to send in their secrets without having to reveal their identity.
The website is a spin-off of a US-based site, PostSecret where secrets, sent in on postcards, are posted online.
SG Secrets is managed by a woman who asked to remain anonymous and declined to comment about the website or herself when The New Paper contacted her.
The New Paper counted about 600 posts on the website, from people claiming to be in all walks of life, since it was created in June 2005.
What makes the site interesting is that the secrets are told in mini drawings, coloured pictures and fancy fonts, either sent in online with the secret or by post to a Pasir Ris address.
The secrets range from poignant tales of forbidden love and empty promises to confessions of loneliness and inferiority complexes.
The most common secrets so far – almost two-thirds of the posts which The New Paper read on the site – have to do with love and relationships.
Some of them are innocent, like those sent in by contributors who pine for love or have crushes on their classmates.
One post reads: “Friends around me have met their loves, but what about me? It makes me feel unloved. (& I’m only 14).”
SERIOUS ISSUES
But others deal with more serious issues, with anecdotes of unprotected sex, infidelity and homosexual relationships.
One user, who claimed to be 17, wrote she had been having sex with her boyfriend for the past two years but he refuses to use a condom.
She wrote: “Yes stupid me, now I want to make this right... I’m too young to be pregnant... and pls don’t say he’s a jerk, I love this guy.”
Some have posted messages of personal problems, like depression, suicide and anorexia.
One disturbing post reads: “I’ve grown so dependent on my rage blackouts... popping pills and cutting. I think they sort of mould me, define me.”
And some of these posts have garnered responses from others reading the website.
One post, put up last August, said the writer had lost her mother to suicide when she was younger and that she also tried to kill herself and failed. She received responses from others to “learn to love herself” and to cherish life.
Another post which drew feedback was one which said: “I weigh myself everyday. 45. 42. 39. I’m not stopping until I reach 20.”
It ended up garnering 78 comments from readers, one of the highest on the site, with some readers chiding the writer for having such thoughts.
So what drives Singaporeans to want to reveal their dark secrets to the world?
When contacted, the moderator of SG Secrets declined to comment and felt that it was not in “the best interest of the community to expose the secrets to mass media”.
Mr Frank Warren, the moderator of the US-based PostSecret, believes some put up their secrets to “seek solace and healing”.
Young people The New Paper spoke to feel these sites are a good outlet for them to unload their burdens.
Said Irene Goh, 19, a polytechnic student: “It helps people to reveal their innermost secrets without having to disclose their identities. I guess, in a way, it helps them feel better.”
However, she said she wouldn’t post her secrets online and “would rather confide in my friends who can give me advice”.
Some say those who post their secrets are out to “attract attention”.
Eunice Kow, 19, a polytechnic student, feels that by posting secrets on websites like these, “the essence of a secret is lost”.
“If it’s meant to be a secret, it should be kept, and hidden in some unknown corner, not told to the world,” she said.
Talking to a friend may be better: psychiatrist
PSYCHIATRIST Simon Siew says secrets can become burdens for some people. Said Dr Siew: “Posting their secrets online will help them relieve their anxiety.”
But he felt the anonymity wasn’t all good. “As people become more Net-savvy, they may lose the ability to face others directly and become afraid to let people know who they are,” he said.
A more open and effective way of coping with a problem is to confide in a close and trusted friend, he said.
SG Secrets lists telephone numbers of helplines here, such as SOS, Pregnancy Crisis Centre and Touchline.
Mr Frank Warren, who started the US-based PostSecret website on which SG Secrets is based, said his aim was to create a space where people could share a part of their lives and get a weight of their minds.
Mr Warren, 43, told The New Paper in a phone interview from Maryland, the US: “I started the site because I had a belief that all of us have rich, interesting, inner lives.
“So, I decided to create a non-judgmental place for people to share parts of themselves.”
Mr Warren added that his “monotonous job” as the owner of a document delivery company was partly the motivation to start the site, as an avenue for him to express himself creatively.
STARTED WITH POSTCARDS
PostSecret didn’t start in cyberspace. In November 2004, Mr Warren gave out about 3,000 self-addressed postcards encouraging people to send him their secrets.
Subsequently, he put up these postcards at an art exhibition in Washington DC. But weeks after his project ended, he continued to get postcards with the senders’ secrets. So he created the PostSecret site to share them.
Today, Mr Warren said he receives about 1,000 postcards a week. He estimates that 70 per cent of them are from the US, with about 10 per cent from Asian countries.
The process of selecting what to put online has been tough. Said Mr Warren: “I select secrets that surprise me, secrets that express different emotions. Then, I arrange them in a way that they tell a story.” The most shocking secret he received was a postcard showing the burning Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. On it was written: “Everyone who knew me before 9/11 believes I’m dead.”
Another, written on part of a Starbucks cup, said: “I give decaf to customers who are rude to me.”
Said Mr Warren: “There’s an artist inside all of us... All of us have a secret that will break hearts.”
He uploads new secrets every Sunday. And in conjunction with Mother’s Day last week, all the posts were about mothers. There were tragic secrets like “My mom disowned my grandmother. I disowned my mom. What will my daughter do?” and “I’ve spent 13 years trying to get you to love me. As of today, I officially give up.”
A compilation of the secrets has been published in three volumes, available on Amazon.com. While he enjoys what he does, his wife has a fear. “She’s afraid that even after we retire, secrets will continue to follow us,” he said.
