Do you have a secret? Send it in to bingsecrets@gmail.com and have it posted on the online anonymous secret Web site just for Binghamton University students.
The site, bingsecrets.blogspot.com, was inspired by PostSecret, a page which shows users’ secrets in artistic postcards.
PostSecret, which has received over 120 million visitors since its creation, began when creator Frank Warren printed out 3,000 postcards for an art exhibition in Washington, D.C., and asked strangers to communicate a secret to him that they’d never told anyone.
100 of the original 3,000 came back, and the numbers kept increasing. Soon Warren was getting postcards from outside D.C., and even outside the country. So he had the idea to put them on a Web site, which was launched on Jan. 1 of 2005 to almost instant popularity.
Warren displays 20 homemade anonymous postcards every Sunday and invites visitors to comment and discuss them.
“The idea to start the Web site came to me while I was sitting in front of my computer reading PostSecrets,” said the creator of Bingsecrets, who wished to remain anonymous in order to keep with the site’s mystery theme. “I thought it would be pretty cool if Bing students could have their own unique version of the site.”
The creator first urged people to put the link in their AIM profiles, then hung flyers around campus that displayed the Web site and urged students to share their secrets.
The Web site will allow students to get heavy secrets off their chests, according to the site’s creator, who corresponded with Pipe Dream only through e-mail.
“It allows for people to get things off their conscience that they may feel guilty about,” the site’s creator side. “If someone else reads the secret and they can offer advice, or help in any way, they can leave a comment on the post.”
Because the site has just started, the secrets have been coming in at a slow rate, according to the creator.
The Web site will update every Sunday with five new secrets. “If, or when, things start to get rolling, I may update with more secrets,” the creator said.
Jenna Goldin, a freshman linguistics major, heard about Bingsecrets from a friend who saw a flyer in the Lecture Hall.
“I love it,” she said. “I love reading PostSecret, and reading the Bing one is great, since you can relate to a lot of the secrets, and you know where a lot of the people are coming from.”
Though she hasn’t yet, Goldin is thinking about submitting a secret in the future.
Tara Blackman, a sophomore business and psychology major who has been a fan of PostSecret for three years, said she especially enjoys the art aspect of the site. Blackman said she was hesitant about the difference between the two sites in that aspect.
“I think it’s great and that the things people create are really gorgeous,” she said. “A lot of things will strike close to home so it’s great to be able to relate, and some of them are really funny.”
She said she doubted whether e-mailing secrets would have the same effect as making them and mailing them in.
“One of the reasons PostSecret is so great is because it shows personal works of art, and I don’t know if e-mail would miss out on a lot of that,” Blackman said.
Other students expressed both good and bad feelings toward the site.
“I think it’s entertaining to read, though some of it seems lame and made up,” said Kathryn Steigerwaldt, a sophomore environmental geology major. “It’s also good to be able to get things off your chest, and then people read and see that others have the same type of problems.”