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Move aside, Tinder—there’s a new sleazy app in town. Secret, a much buzzed, newish smartphone app, allows users to anonymously share, well, secrets. After entering just an email address (and a phone number if they’re feeling bold), users gain access to browse and post to a cyberspace version of PostSecret, tailored to their exact location. You might read, for instance, that a particularly juicy secret came from someone as close as within 100 meters away from you. Likewise, if someone in your contacts posts a secret, you’ll see that a post came from someone you know—you just won’t know who said it.
This week, Secret expanded from iPhone to Android, and the number of new posts, at least in my vicinity, exploded. And it’s clear that Secret is the app that humble-bragging, ostensibly buttoned up D.C. deserves. “I did porn in college and now have security clearance working for the federal government,” goes one confession from today, almost inevitably.
In a town full of people with security clearances, Secret could have tantalizing potential. But the app reserves the right to turn any “illegal or unlawful” posts over to “proper authorities” if they ask for it, which might deter any smartphone Edward Snowdens. Instead, most people instead use the app to talk about mostly nonscandalous things: sex, politics, religion. As you’d expect, it’s mostly vulgar (and often sexist, racist, or homophobic).
You can download Secret for iOSand Android. Here are some of the more, erm, interesting secrets from the last day.
