The Grapevine Institute. Measuring the collapse of your discretion since 2026.
The Grapevine Institute is an independent body dedicated to modeling exactly how fast a piece of information you asked one (1) person to keep quiet about travels through a social network. We are not affiliated with any actual epidemiologists, though several have asked us to stop using their charts.
Every secret you submit begins at 100% Discretion. This number never goes up. It is not designed to go up. In field testing, it has never once gone up, regardless of how sincerely the one person was asked to keep it between the two of you.
The Index tracks the estimated number of people who now know, updated live as your secret moves through group chats, lunch tables, and at least one meeting that had nothing to do with it.
Our researchers have identified six universal checkpoints a secret reliably passes through on its way to being common knowledge: the group chat, your mom, your boss, LinkedIn, the entire building, and, finally, everyone. We did not choose this order. The data chose this order.
It doesn't, not really — the secret was probably fine to share. But you clicked "Tell Just One Person" anyway, which tells us everything we need to know about how much you trust that plan. The spread map is just paperwork. The feeling was always the point.