LiveJournal: No Life Required
Okay, this rant has been coming on for a while now, and now its time has come. This isn't meant to knock anyone in particular. In fact, it appears the whole world could be painted with this particular brush; each of the examples I cite below came from a different user's journal...
So I've been reading a couple people's journals that they keep on LiveJournal, and I must admit that's it's pissing me off. Here's why.
As I see it, there are two types of journals: one chronologically documents significant events in time, and the other is a place for exploring your private beliefs and feelings and reactions, and basically "working through" stuff, or at least recording the stuff that you worked through. That's why, when you look at my Web site, you get a listing of important or significant things that happened to me; and when you look at my LiveJournal, you tend to find fairly detailed opinions and thoughts.
Now, when I read other people's journals, I get neither of those. I get things like "I bought some cheese today", or "I hope I don't have to go to the DMV", or "I took an online test to see what Buffy the Vampire Slayer character I would be". Other people's journals are full of inane crap that is absolutely without any meaning or significance whatsoever. There's no unique viewpoints, there's no depth of character, there's no thought at all! And these entries aren't even valuable as historic documentation of significant events, because they rarely even get personal enough to deal with anything more than the mundane trivia of everyday life.
Let me attack this from another angle. When I share part of my journal, or when I note a special event on my Web page, it's because I want the reader to be able to connect with me and understand or empathize with me at a meaningful level. I want to share the joys of my life with others, as well as the unique insights that I've gained along the way. That's what I offer the reader, even if that reader is just myself ten years in the future. That's also what I, as a reader, expect from others' journals: I want to be able to connect with someone at a level that's beyond the inane surface that usually rules face-to-face interactions. When I have read someone's journal, I want to feel like I know that person better than I did before. Your journal is you being you, perhaps more candidly than you ever would in person; it's a sharing of who you are and what you value.
Or so I would expect, but that's not being borne out in my observations of real life. Sure, LiveJournal is a social phenomenon, and maybe I'm just expecting too much from a glorified public bulletin board. But if I were to judge solely by their LiveJournals, I would think that people in general are even more inane and shallow than I ever thought possible. If "I went to the bank and then bought a new highlighter" and "I forgot the sausage for dinner and had to go back" and "I'm making meatballs now" is the extent of what really matters and is important to people, so much so that they spend time recording it for posterity, I think that goes a long way toward explaining why I prefer isolation to society, and why sometimes I'm at such a loss to find anyone I can interact with on a the meaningful level I value. I really do hate to be so negative, when I've been trying hard to turn that around recently. And thank god there are the infrequent exceptions whose depth of character is a blessing I cherish; otherwise I'd surely either go mad from alienation or be labelled so by the majority for being so "different"!
"Got no life? Try LiveJournal -- no life required!"