Please Don't Jump: PostSecret Fans Try to Save a Life

When an anonymous postcard was delivered to PostSecret from an illegal immigrant in San Francisco contemplating jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, the PostSecret community sprang to action: a Facebook group called "Please Don't Jump" was made by sympathetic fans in the virtual effort to save a life.

PostSecret, a blog that weekly displays anonymously mailed-in secrets on postcards from across the country, has long been known for revealing suicidal secrets, and has set up a phone hotline in response since the blog began in 2004. Yesterday, a postcard read, “I have lived in San Francisco since I was young … I am illegal … I am not wanted here. I don’t belong anywhere. This summer I plan to jump off the Golden Gate.”

Within 24 hours, nearly 20,000 people had signed up for a Facebook group titled “please don’t jump,” which was later linked beneath the secret on the Post Secret blog, linking in thousands of supportive comments. On the group’s page, sympathetic users posted comments ranging from simply “I want you here” to “If I knew when you’d be at the bridge, I’d drive all the way from Ohio to meet you there, and hold you until you changed your mind.”

Link | The Post Card on PostSecret | The Facebook Group "Please Don't Jump" - Thanks Frank!


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Everyone has an opionion, as well as myself. Does it really matter if it's fake or not if a life is spared? My brother hung himself without warning. It doesn't make it any easier to live with his decision and, without him. Suicide is suicide. A cry for help is a cry for help. Those who want to help, keep doing what you're doing. Those who do not wish to help, please step aside. As for postsecret being fake, if it is, KUDOS!!!!! Why? because it's helping people. It helps to know you are not alone in your existence with your particular secret. Everybody on this earth is not a strong indidvidual. Sometimes a stronger person has to lift a weaker one up. Let's elevate people with our comments instead of preying on them with negativity which only displays your own weaknesses within yourself. Also, postsecret started as an art project but has become so much more to a lot of people. So, just like you have freedom of speech, you also have the freedom to "change the channel" if you dislike or disagree with something. So, do us all a favor, please change the channel now. Thank you.
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Postsecret is just another confidence game where some "artist" figured out they could make a bit/lot of money by duping morons into thinking they were witnessing something profound. I remember when I first heard of it years ago and almost all the cards appeared to have been written by the same person or group of people, not hard to notice if you pay attention to writing and graphic compsition styles. Also the vast majority of the secrets seemed like they were taken right out of daytime soap operas and after school specials. Of course som schlubs got conned and sent in a real one, but most of these just get thrown away that is why they all look like they were taken from a crappy MFA project.

Postsecret is like a joke stereotype of the real diversity that exists underneath the facade of humanity, a pop-culti version of secrets that mocks reality and truth. Truth and actual reality are important, and I hate the people who make these fake projects like Postsecret, they are the same ilk that publish 'memoirs' like "A Million Little Pieces" (or David Sedaris books, etc), filling up unwary people's brains with a manipulative cloud of lies.
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If it is a real secret postcard, it's a good example of what can happen when you go live somewhere where you are 1) not legal and/or 2) not encouraged to or able to forge an attachment to the place you live.

Young illegals very often are encouraged to think of the country they left behind as home, by their elders. I saw this all the time in France with the North African illegal and immigrant population.

They very openly speak of their hate of France and their love of a country they hardly know. And they don't feel welcome because they are always somewhere that belongs to other people and refuse to even try to fit in.

Being an illegal is always uncomfortable. It takes its toll.
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Shannon Larratt: it's my impression that some of the PostSecret cards are exaggerated or are sent simply for art's sake, but most are sincere. People have written back in after having seen their posts published, reporting that the act of "telling" something dark in this way changed their lives.

In all honesty I lost interest with PS some time ago, but maybe I should take another look.
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