There are some who write for themselves, and hoping to share thoughts simultaneously to friends and strangers. There are also some who write hoping to be read by the masses, and there are some who write to express themselves, opinitating on a topic. Some write just to entertain themselves and their friends with jokes and anecdotes. All this, made into reality, or hyperreality, in the form of the various blogs on the net. There's even a service called Twitter that takes personal journaling to microscopic levels, with people blogging through SMS talking about which loaf of bread they bought at the grocery store.
The various online social networks like Multiply, Friendster, Facebook, and all the thematic derivatives (career-oriented or interest-oriented) become the new face of humanity, ever more so than the clothes they wear and the music they listen to in presence of company. Self-expression has reached levels of high-volume information, where you can find out more about a person from their online profile rather than conversing with them (which they did in the old days). The thirst for individual expression has become part of the entertainment industry, from ringbacktones (which are total nonsense for the old guard) to status messages on your instant messaging applications, to putting your website address on your car or t-shirt.
People want to know much more other people, and want them to know about them, on a much larger scale, in a shorter time. And then forget about it.
Eventually, it's still the people we meet every day (or maybe not every day) and know in depth, where we know how they walk, how they eat, how they sit, that become the most important relationships we have. We bare our souls in chatrooms and place all our interests on our profile, and share our opinions on a blog, yet they are countered by faceless netizens (although they have avatars now). The internet thus is the like the radio, where it intices the imagination to fill in the blank spots. It's like a sufficiently platonic social platform, fully personalisable, although, popularly, some take it to the next level.
Me? I'll stick to blogging.. .and trying to ace higher Movie Triviascores on Facebook.
Look out ahead!
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