"What’s A Secret That Could Tear Your Entire Family Apart?" (32 Answers)

We contacted the author of the post, Amerisbf, who was kind enough to share more insights about the now-viral thread and provided a glimpse into its genesis.

"When I got the idea for it, I was at work," the Redditor told Bored Panda. "It's a job in the fast-food industry, and I was stationed at the back window. The monotony of the job made me bored out of my mind, so I tried to come up with something that would resonate with people and initiate a conversation."

And they picked a fitting topic for it—we constantly gossip. In fact, a 2019 meta-analysis published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science found that, on average, people engage in it for 52 minutes.

However, we shouldn't vilify the act. According to the research, three-quarters of our gossip is actually neutral. One subject, for example, spoke about someone who was watching a lot of movies to stay current. It's something that comes very naturally to us; an integral part of conversation, information sharing, and even community building.

Just a small portion of our conversations—around 15%—are deemed negative gossip (though positive gossip amounted to an even smaller portion, at only 9%). So, while it is true that we can spend a significant amount of time talking about our peers, oftentimes that chatter is... kinda boring.

Not this thread, though. Amerisbf was interested in the juicy stuff, the secrets that could potentially tear families apart. It's interesting to note how a seemingly mundane moment at work led to the creation of a space where people felt compelled to unburden themselves with deeply personal experiences.

"After going through the discussion, I noticed that a few topics have become considerably more popular than the rest," the Redditor said. "They're either of a violent or sexual nature."

Among more than 50,000 research participants Dr. Michael Slepian has surveyed, the most common secrets include a lie we've told (69 percent), romantic desire (61 percent), sex (58 percent), and finances (58 percent).