Why Live Journal, Weblogs, online diaries?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I can understand the diary. Writing out your feelings can help you sort 'em out. Reading experiences from your past can put things into perspective. And recording the important events in your life helps you to remember them and how you felt about them at that time. But…

Aren’t diaries personal? Why would you want to put it where anyone can find it? Diaries used to have locks on them even. Is it the semi-anonymous nature of the Web itself?

I just don’t see the appeal at all. What do you think? Why do you do it or why wouldn’t you?

2

I didn’t see the appeal until I actually started.

I don’t put anything in my live journal I don’t want public. I consider it to be a good way to keep in touch with people that I don’t get to see face-to-face that often. Also, if I wanted to share something only with a select group of people, I can lock the post so only the people I choose can read it.

I also like to make snarky comments in other people’s journals. :smiley:

3

Ya know, I wonder the same thing. I just actually got done setting up a blog about an hour ago, and I am starting to wonder, why? I am really a fairly private person and am paranoid about things in general. I am voyeuristic but not really an exhibitionist. Why the hell did I do it? A couple of times I thought well, it’s like therapy of a sort and people might comment …maybe relate or give me advice. Or maybe I wanted to give back some of that queer enjoyment to all of my fellow voyeurs. I guess I also just decided to jump on the bandwagon and I was bored. Seems like everybody’s doing it! How candid I will actually be there is yet to be seen. Another thing, I am paranoid that people have used online and offline info against me, anyways. I try to combat my paranoia problem a little bit with reverse psychology and will expose myself intentionally and face it. I try to change the paranoia into something besides suspicion. I think exposing some private things to the light of day is healing.

4

  1. You don’t have to write 20 different e-mails with exactly the same information detailing your life to all your friends and relatives.

  2. You actually meet similarly-thinking people this way.

5

I usually use my LJ to keep in touch with people at home that I don’t see very often, and let them know what I’m up to. And sometimes you just need to vent or babble, and that’s why there’s the friends-only and private post functions.

6

I have had a Blog for a couple of years now. I originally started it to keep people (family and freinds who were interested) up-to-date on what was blooming in my gardens. It became a good way for me to keep track of bloom dates and weather, too. The bad part was it was boring in the winter. We get heavy snow and lots of cold, nothing blooms in the winter here. So I let it fall off and never really got going again on it. I still post to it from time to time, like when I found my kitten Hanna and posted pictures of her growing up, but for the most part it is dead.

I don’t really get into sharing a lot of personal stuff online, but gardening and kittens are fair game. I did write some “what I did today” type stuff, but I quickly realized how boring that could be to readers, and I doubted anyone really cared (besides my Mom).

Not all blogs/live journals have to be the typical teen-angst type diary, you can journal anything.

7

I started it cuz everybody else was doing it, then I used to it post my fanfic. I reach a pretty big audience…all the people who have me on their friend list, and all the people who read their friend list but don’t have me friended and all the annonymous people who surf LJ and all the people who follow it based on recommends. I figured “Hey, while i’m here, I might as well post little things about me.”

It’s fun.

8

I have a livejournal and it’s what’s kept me sane over the past week with lots of drama going on in my life. Being able to type it all out and having friends console me and/or offer suggestions was really cathartic. Without those friends, I’d probably be really depressed right now.

Disregarding that, it’s really no different than posting in MPSIMS here on the board. If you like one, the other should be just as interesting.

9

I also use it to keep my friends up to date with what’s happening, especially my online friends. I don’t tend to talk about personal stuff (although I have from time to time). I always ask myself “would I still write this if the person I was talking about saw this?” and if the answer is no, I make it a friends-only entry.

And it’s nice to have strangers comment in my journal and tell me that they enjoy reading my journal.

10

What I don’t understand are these “pundit” blogs. Why spend so much time writing social and political analysis for free? You’d think these people would be trying to sell their work as a syndicated column so they could get paid for it.

11

PS: Does anybody else HATE the stupid word “blog” as much as I do? It’s no chore to say “weblog.” It doesn’t need to be shortened. Whoever decided to spread this “blog” thing needs to be reported to the Department of Homeland Security.

12

I guess it’s like “personal stuff we want to share with others.” Things that are even too mundane and pointless for MPSIMS. Self-serving babble. And like others have said, with respect to the SDMB, it’s a way to find out what going on in others’ lives without them starting a dozen threads.
I’m not a creative writer, nor do I usually spend lots of time waxing or pontificating on events, politics, or sports, so I have yet to figure out what’s going to fill out my LiveJournal. I haven’t even figured out if I should refer to my friends by name or not, with all the potential for bad things to happen.

13

I finally gave in yesterday and started a LJ. I didn’t get it either but I lurked and enjoyed other’s thoughts and comments so much that I thought it would be a bad thing to have my own.

It has been fun for me so far. Very freeing to just type out my thoughts and not feel like I’m running the poor hamsters to death with my rambling.

14

Yes! YES!! Please, let’s find them, drag them out into the street and shoot them in the head. Thank you.

I think we may have a lead on who started that term, too! He’d better watch out. :wink: OK, so it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll drag anyone out into the street and shoot them, but I just might give 'im the finger if I ever meet him.

15

Because it can’t be easy, selling your work. And a lot of people just want to talk and discuss and generally rant - money doesn’t come into it.

I’m a long-term blogger (link in sig, shockingly enough) and I keep my livejournal going for a variety of reasons.

I could never keep a diary before I started my LJ. I tried several times, but I just couldn’t keep it up, as I didn’t feel like I was achieving anything. I’d forget to write in it, I’d try to catch up what I missed, I’d get bored - it became a chore.

With an online journal, it became so much easier. I type much faster than I write, and if you can type at the same rate as thoughts appear in your head, it really feels effortless, whereas if I wrote as much on paper as I do in my journal, I’d have permanent writers’ cramp.

And now, I am achieving something by keeping a journal. I’ve made friends through it, and I read other people’s journals and learn things I never knew before. As far as my own journal is concerned, I feel much better writing in it because I’m writing for an audience. That piece of knowledge takes away my self-consciousness and forces me to make myself write lucidly, write entertainingly, write well. Like pepperlandgirl, I’ve got somewhere to post my fanfiction, too.

So, in conclusion, I’ve made friends, I’ve enjoyed myself, as I do really love writing, and I have a neat, accessible-from-anywhere record of my life.

NoClueBoy, yes, maybe diaries mostly are personal. But I don’t feel like I have anything to hide. Maybe it’s just me, but I take the view that I am a mundane and pointless person, one of six billion, whose daily thoughts and observations are not going to make that much difference to the world in general. If I’m going to bitch about real life people, then I’ll do it privately. Otherwise, my journal’s free for all to read.

16

Livejournal is like your own personal MPSIMS. Most of my LJ friends are also Dopers, or former Dopers, and I get to choose whose posts I read. It’s a great way to get to know people you like better. A lot of the people whose LJs I read, I knew them vaguely through the SDMB, maybe met them at a Dopefest once or twice, but after a year or two of reading their LJs, they’re close friends. My LJ friends are terrifically smart, entertaining, and engaging people. I just completely adore them and am so pleased that they share their lives with me.

17

Okay. That all makes sense.

The few that I’ve seen just right turned me off of them. Just a bunch of self important whining. I’m gonna have to look at some better samples then, verdad?

Anyone want to point me to some worthy examples?

18

I like to think of it as a personal webpage at times. It reaches a bigger audience than if I just made one from scratch and hoped people went to it.

19

I started my personal web page as a weekly journal to keep my family updated on what was going on with my kids and I. Well, it was mainly my Mom who read it, and she read it every week. In fact, she would call me if I hadn’t put it up at the regular time (which was usually Saturday night/Sunday morning). Even though my Mom is gone now, I’m still updating that journal every week. I try not to be put info that’s -too- personal about my kids, though!

I just recently started a livejournal account; I’ve been updating that more often than once a week and mostly have just made observations about life, that sort of thing. I’m still not reaching a very big audience, but I’m enjoying putting things down at least. :slight_smile:

20

Well, you can read my LJ if you like: http://www.livejournal.com/users/postmoderngirl/

It’s not full of self-important whining, but I can’t guarantee that you will find it interesting in any way. I’d recommend clicking on the “friends” link in the upper right-hand corner so you can see what everyone is up to.

The problem with just peeking in and not getting involved is that a lot of journals are locked to friends-only so that you can’t see the posts unless you’re listed as a friend. So you might be missing the most interesting stuff.