Have you seen these?
A Year in Books - 2009-12-27
Skip Tracer, Loan Detective - 2009-11-22
New Job - 2009-11-03
The coleslaw got served. - 2009-10-21
Probably a new job. But maybe not. - 2009-10-08

Hey, Remember the 80's?
2000-05-04 09:24:12

I've been spending a lot of time lately reading other journals. Yesterday, I somehow stumbled into somebody's forum. Man, that was a trip. Apparently, there's a whole bunch of controversy going on. Some people are doing nothing in their journals but trashing other journalers. Everyone was repeatedly making the comment that the online journal community is "just like high school." There's all the different cliques, and power plays, and presumably, study halls and pep rallies and biology homework, or something.

I found the comparison silly, if you can't tell. I also find it hard to believe that there are people going out of their way to make another journaller look bad. I mean, really. What's the point? It's tawdry and cheap. (Please note that I am not mentioning any names. Though this is probably because I don't know any names to toss around, I would like the record to show that I for one am not slinging any mud whatsoever. I feel all warm and fuzzy and morally superior now.)

I'm not sure why I'm bothering to comment on this. I know I'm so far out of the loop that it doesn't matter what I say. I'm the freaky foreign exchange student nobody talks to. I'm the secretary of the JV chess club (I'm not even kewl enough for the real chess club.) I'm Ally Sheedy from The Breakfast Club. Wait, she's actually pretty cool. There's probably hundreds of people already claiming to be her. Hmm. I'm Stork from Animal House (the tall, funny looking guy who has like one line. Otter is trying to convince the guys to let Flounder be a pledge. "Remember? We all thought Stork was nuts!" Cut to Stork, sitting in the corner, looking nuts indeed.) I'm Veronica's dorky ex-best friend in Heathers (Can't remember her name. Betty, maybe? The whole point of her one scene is to remind Veronica that she wasn't always with the Heathers, and maybe, life was better then.) Ooh, wait. I know. I'm Martha Dumptruck, the fat chick who tries to commit suicide, because she thinks that's what all the kewl kids are doing. Feh. 80's movie references galore. This is silly.

The point is, the activities of the online journal "community" are really none of my concern. (One more movie reference, then I swear I'll stop: "I'm a rebel, Dottie. A loner.") Bastids won't even give me the time of day.

Yeah, yeah. I know. I'm still a newbie. And I live in DiaryLand. If I even deserve one, it's going to take a long time to earn a fan base.

One thing the people in the forum were saying was that they (the Journaling All-Stars, the "popular" kids, whatever you wanna call them) were tired of newbies assuming that if newbies linked to the All-Stars, the All-Stars would be obligated to them, and link to the Newbies in return. That way, the Newbies can catch an easy ride to Online Fame, and the All-Stars get, I dunno, four more readers.

This, quite simply, never even occurred to me. So, even though I recognize the All-Stars point, that this is rude and presumptious of the newbies, not to mention completely insane, I'd like to take a moment to highlight some of my Most Favoritest Journals.

Stee was the very first journal I read. Someone on a message board linked to one of his entries, and I got hooked. Stee is trying to Make It In Hollywood. Good stuff. Stee talks about Pamie a lot, so I checked her out. If you read any online journals, you must have heard of her, so I'll just say I'm in love with her cats. I'm not sure how I found Gwen , but she kicks ass. If I married D, and lived in a trailer, and had a few kids, and drew stuff, and had a good singing voice, and wrote funnier and better, and was more outspoken, and wasn't quite so neurotic, I would be Gwen. The parallels are spooky, aren't they?

I find DiaryLand people by randomly browsing through the list of recent entries immediately after finishing my own daily entry. I started a list of people to keep an eye out for. They include sei, ymi, wendigo, and unclebob. (I'm not going to bother linking to any of these guys. If you found me, you can probably figure out how to find them.) I'm ashamed to admit that I can't tell you why these people amused me. But at some point, they wrote an entry that I liked enough to bother remembering their names. That doesn't sound like much of a compliment, but there are a lot of people I don't do that for.

So, if you could go to one of those places, and just sort of, you know, casually mention that it was your good buddy ana-ng who sent you, and that Ana is good people, and that she's the Next Big Thing in online journals, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

...

This is kind of related, but not really.

Lately, I've been wondering if my whole paranoia schtick is making people afraid to write to me. They're worried that actual confirmation of an audience would drive me over the edge. Yeah, that it. I have sensitive, caring, teeming millions. A rabid fan base with a heart.

If you're out there, I really would like to hear from you. I'll probably freak out, but inside, I'll be touched.

(I'm not even going to consider the possibility that I have no teeming millions. I've simply got to have them, because so many of my entries center around them. It's kinda like the way I'm absolutely convinced I'll win the lottery someday, because my "when I'm rich and rule ze world" fantasies are just too damn elaborate to never come true. I've put such an excessive amount of thought into it, it just wouldn't be fair if I never got a chance to carry any of it out.)

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