This editorial isn't really about LiveJournals, at least, not in the biblical sense. That was just the cheese to draw you into my mousetrap of comedy so that I could pull the old Russian Switch on you. Rather, this is instead about the type of people who actually have LiveJournals. Which I guess is basically the same thing, so forget what I said earlier.
Originally, I think this was going to an editorial about bullying. Or possibly beavers, which may or may not fascinate me.
Now, already I can see you taking a sip of your imported coffee and chuckling a little to yourself as you roll your eyes and think "Here we go again, another tired article about sorting people as goth or emo and pointing out the obvious and overused fallacies in their life philosophies." Well think again douchewad, because this is the article that will shatter your expectations and bang your girlfriend!
Okay, I realize that was a little unfair. No one sophisticated enough to be drinking imported coffee would ever be reading this.
Before writing this article, I decided that it would be wrong of me to make any judgments without getting the LiveJournal experience myself. So, in the interest of 'journalistic integrity' (I once heard them use this term on "Entertainment Tonight" and thought it sounded professional) I decided to go out and get my own online journal. However, this proved harder than you might first imagine. You see, since
internet journals have now become almost a hundred dollar a year industry, there are countless different journals to choose from these days. The original LiveJournal has become so popular as to inspire the completely unnecessary rip-off for kids with skin problems DeadJournal. According to their own webpage:
"DeadJournal.com is a journal site (much like LiveJournal), but as you will quickly see, not all journals are apple pie and fruitcakes. Here is where you find the journals that nobody else wants to see, or even host."(emphasis mine)
Well, at least they admit it right up front.
While I’ve never heard of LiveJournal being taken down a journal for being just too angsty, or even mildly retarded, if it’s happened to you, DeadJournal.com is the way to go I suppose. Despite all this, DeadJournal has now gotten so big that it is even getting its own spin-offs such as UnDeadJournal.com (also known as LiveJournal). After much deliberation however, I realized that I had to be true to myself, since that's what online journals are all about (that and letting everyone else know how much you love My Chemical Romance). So the answer was obvious; the only thing that could ever suit me would be a JiveJournal.
Unfortunately, I then discovered that there was no such thing as a JiveJournal. Which is really a shame because if there was I imagine their logo would look something like this:
In the future, LiveJournals will be telepathic, but still just as pointless.
Alas, it was not meant to be. I suppose it's probably for the best anyway though, I look terrible in black and white picture unless I have a handlebar moustache and cowboy hat.
Nonetheless, I was determined to write this editorial because it was the only thing keeping me from doing anything productive with my time. So I stayed up all night in my underwear reading every journal I could find until my eyes started to crust over and my mind swam with useless information about saruki_9589's current mood (tired). By the end I'd finally discovered what I think most people have known all along - most LiveJournals are
pretty boring, but that's okay, because for the most part they're a harmless sort of boring. However there are some exceptions.
Old Doc Internet's Cafe has been doing terrible business ever since people started associating it with the World Wide Web.
Now I'm not talking about the really fucked up shit like this. Which, according to their information, is in no way related to pedophilia, because that would just be crazy and where would you get a crazy idea like that? No, nor am I speaking about furries or Harry Potter or even Italians. For while those are all awful, they're a very specific, small, niched awful that is so far out there that it doesn't really register. No the real horror of online journals, and really the Internet at large has been right under our noses the whole time, and thankfully, I've found it embodied within one single person.
I'm pretty sure that's a typo and it's supposed to be "Your world makes me sad"
Who is this person you say? Well, thanks for asking, because otherwise I had nothing left to write about. This person is, as you may or may not have already guessed, a teenage girl, and her LiveJournal can be found here.
The first thing you'll notice, aside from all the black and red, is the girl (whose name can be derived as 'Christina') stating that this will be her last LiveJournal entry ever. Now, if you're like me, you'd say that was a good start. Then you keep reading. It seems that Christina abandoned her LiveJournal because she was tired of other people making 'friends only' journals that she couldn't read. Because by not writing her deep journal entries about how she thinks she has PMS they'll all learn a valuable lesson about something or other. Of course, the icing on the cake is that while she abandons her LiveJournal, she still updates her DeadJournal. I guess no one told her that they're exactly the same thing, except that one of them has a default black background. It's like saying that you're fed up with America so you're moving to Detroit. In fact, it's like moving to Detroit at all; it just doesn't make any sense.
Even other computers have LiveJournals where they talk about how they hate their manufacturers.
Christina goes on to talk about how much she hates the people who post pictures of themselves and think that they are "some awesome photographer" and are out to get attention. Of course, one of the first things you'll probably notice on her DeadJournal is this.
Now, before we all get too caught up in our own ego masturbation, let's step back for a moment and look at things objectively. Sure, we get it that she's a total hypocrite and a huge bitch, but does that in and of itself warrant such derision? Her spelling and grammar is pretty good for the internet, she shows trace amounts of intelligence and based on her pictures, she's totally doable. So you might be thinking
that I've got some personal vendetta against this girl and am engaging in some sort of twisted revenge by mocking her to the half dozen people who will actually read this. But no, I've never met this girl, had never heard of her before I stumbled across her journal, and other than one brief interview that ended in her blocking me, I've never interacted with her.
And you see, that's just it. It's her good (or at least, not so shitty) qualities that make her all that more terrible on the whole. She represents that annoying, hypocritical, ego-ridden part of all of us that we don't like to think about. Reading what she writes can very easily make you feel worse about yourself when you see the similarities and think "Shit, do I sound like that?" By noticing the parallels between hers and regular journals it turns something harmless into something mean and spiteful that reveals an ugly core of humanity that I don't want to believe in.
This was getting a little heavy, so I decided an hilarious comic would be perfect to lighten the mood.
Anyway, I probably sound like a bit of a dick, and by no means do I mean to come off all high and mighty. Hell, I'm not even wearing pants as I type this. The point is, you can read Christina's journal, and it's all the typical bullshit you'd expect, but there's something about the whole thing that's mean and vile and pretentious (and not just the lovable British kind) that gets me all hot and bothered. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, or maybe it's just the mescaline talking, though in all probability, it's the annoying as hell screen wipes that you have to endure when going anywhere in her DeadJournal.
At this point I probably seem a little obsessive, after all, I haven't spent this much time talking about any one person who's not Keanu Reeves since Chi McBride. But I hope that (while still pointing out how Christina embodies everything wrong with the internet) you realize that I'm simply using her to at larger issues. Because even everything wrong
with Christina can, like most things in this world, be traced back to one thing: people taking the internet seriously. Even that tsunami that everyone is harping on can be traced back to the internet. Somehow.
Now, before this old timer saddles up and rides off into the sunset, I'd like to make a few closing remarks. Not all LiveJournals are boring. Specifically, those that mention me I find hugely interesting, and to a lesser extent those that mentions my friends. Because then it's like I'm on the internet and I'm a celebrity, just like Steve Buscemi. I imagine that African Americans get the same feeling whenever they see a black person on T.V.
So remember kids, if you begin to respect the internet, then it has already won.
*Update* I tried to post a comment in Christina's DeadJournal to give her a chance to stand up for herself, but she had to approve the comment before it would appear. What a cunt. Now I regret my decision to not make more of this article about needlessly insulting her. Oh well.
*Double Update* Okay, I chatted with Christina the other night and in the interest of Patriotism and America and all that crap on bumper stickers, I decided it would be best to let her have her say, so here it goes:
"LiveJournal is full of scene kids who like to wear tight pants and take pictures of themselves in every entry. EVERY ENTRY. (no joke). And they talk shit and mark it friends only and that pissed me off so I was like them, and did the same thing. I've been writing in my DeadJournal since I was a Freshman...so that is why I continue updating it. As for pictures of myself, okay, I'm a hypocrite, you got me, good job.
Lastly, I would like to not consider myself part of the annoying online journal crowd, simply because I don't write about the kid who tripped me in the hall today, how much my life sucks, or the boy I like. I write about experiences and things that piss me off about high school as a whole...like rape jokes... All in all, you got me pretty good, I commend you, but you weren't completely true."
So there you have it. Now, if I may ramble for a moment, while I was talking to Christina, I discovered the worst thing I can about a subject for derision, and yet it was inevitable. If she had started bitching at me, and demanding I take the article down, or tried to tell me how I was wrong, I probably would have just continued to rock out while typing Harry Potter quotes at her. But instead, she had to go and act cool with it, and I had to acknowledge her as a person. This of course, doesn't diminish everything I've said earlier, in her Live(or dead)Journal, she does come off as a horrible bitch, but hey, I've been told that sometimes I come off as funny on this website. So you never know. Nor does this mean that we can't continue to laugh at her past actions, I'd be disappointed if we didn't, it just means, "Hey, there's always another side. Jerk." Maybe you think I've gone soft, but the joke is on you, because far from the rock star God I often appear to be, I've always been a wuss. Plus, if I did this, she promised me nudes.
