I've always found it fascinating to read things that were written by a person who isn't a professional and doesn't have some sort of agenda. When my Mom brought home journals from her English class, I would watch her grading them across the table. I can read upside down pretty well, as a result. Sometimes my girlfriends would let me read something out of their diary (usually after I had pissed them off and they didn't know how to say so to my face.), sometimes my friends will write things that I wind up reading. I like this type of reading because it's usually free of high-minded rationalizations for the public's benefit, it's got actual person thoughts in it. It's really difficult to get people to TELL you what they ACTUALLY think.

Anyway, now I can read a whole classroom's worth of amateur, not-necessarily-linear writing without having to get anywhere near my mom, thanks to the web and a pile of HTML-wielding exhibitionists.

I've been thinking about this because there's an actual "scene" associated with on-line journals. There's that big huge web ring that I joined last, mmm September. As a result, a big group of people who write this kind of thing are aware of each other, and that they are Part of the group. This skews the writing (like it's doing today) topics and sometimes, if the person gets heavily involved in the activity, it takes over their journal. (Like it's doing today.)

Anyway, the thing I was thinking about is when someone stops doing it. This usually happens because they get tired of it; it loses its novelty and doesn't interest them anymore. Sometimes it happens because someone they know personally finds it and then they feel overexposed, or they have said something about the person, or it's just too weird. Uh, I guess sometimes they stop because they've been doing it for eighteen months, and 'nuff already, for a while. (Like Kat did.)

The melodramatic endings are my favorite. Sometimes the Ender will delete all files pertaining to their journal, or they'll put up a somber black page that mourns their death, or explains why they left, a little like a suicide note. Heck, sometimes it's a LOT like a suicide note. "No one cares about me, so I might as well just go away." Too much death, black death, etc etc. Hurgh. (Sometimes the whole entire journal is like one long suicide note.) (Complete with lyrics from maudlin songs.) I can't say I know why. Perhaps a last ditch effort to get people to write encouraging email. Eh, I'm sure they all have really great reasons thought up. Not that I'm invalidating them. Oh no. I'm sure everyone is always completely honest about their reasons for doing things. (as far as they know.)

I, personally, am doing it for 'nilla. Cool as ice, baby.

Actually, the real reason I started was because I was in tech support for Hawaii Online, and I was idly browsing the user home pages after busting some guy for having commercial content in his page (you couldn't do that on aloha.net, on a personal webpage.) and I decided to look through my co-workers' pages. I went to Nate's (good lord, it's still there. With the chupa chups, even.), and he had this link to a "Kat" person, who I didn't know. After reading a lot of her online diary, I decided that I would pass idle time at work creating a web page that I could add to whenever I wanted, without having to think of something original (like the Potato of the Month page). So, THIS started happening (I know now how to spell "happening"). When I found out that people were keeping up with me through my page, I was very surprised. My then-roommate + friend Ed didn't know what the hell was up with me, except what I wrote there. I am sort of quiet, sometimes (usually). SO, then I was doing it to communicate with my friends. THEN I was doing it because I had nowhere else to vent (most of those entries are really boring and filled with technical details) about my stupid job. Now I'm doing it because I like writing again, now that I don't have to do it the way someone else wants me to. Ergh. Mrs. McGurk.

Back in tech support, I used to hope Kat would call in, if only to verify that she actually existed. There were times when she could have. Like the time I walked in one morning and the server room thermometer said "107" and things were shutting down because of overheating. Ah, the good old days.