Maybe it's because I've been "blogging" long before people decided to start to call it such.
I have an online journal (that I still update to this day) that I started in October 2000.
And, oh man, the days before html invaded were sweet.
When html came to TeenOpenDiary, a site that operated before livejournal, deadjournal, xanga, facebook, and the term "BLOG" (ugh) it became an intense social universe infested with "diary style professionals" that would create 'totally awesome' schemes for your online diary.
I stopped reading random entries off of the main page because I couldn't take being blinded with sparkles and little figures of customizable graphic chicas with 'cute l'il shorts and like, 'a dog that looks just like my l'il puppy, Princess.'
Along with html-encoding came the hackers.
There was once a TOD Apocalypse perpetrated by a sort of band of TOD terrorists.
(If you haven't caught on already, TOD stands for Teenopendiary)
These terrorists planned an apocalypse in the form of a virus that would delete all of your account's information if you signed into the site during the "hours of destruction."
I was a well-known diarist on the site in those days and had uncovered the plan through other, un-affiliated hackers.
These other hackers included one who communicated to me that he (allegedly) had invented the virus (or the process for manually hacking the system) and that the aggressors had learned it from him by saying that they would 'never use it.'
This "master" hacker, upon finding out that others were preparing to mis-use the information that he had leaked, created a system for site users to download their journals onto their computer hard-drives in the case that their diary was deleted during the attack.
Along with html-encoding came the hackers.
There was once a TOD Apocalypse perpetrated by a sort of band of TOD terrorists.
(If you haven't caught on already, TOD stands for Teenopendiary)
These terrorists planned an apocalypse in the form of a virus that would delete all of your account's information if you signed into the site during the "hours of destruction."
I was a well-known diarist on the site in those days and had uncovered the plan through other, un-affiliated hackers.
These other hackers included one who communicated to me that he (allegedly) had invented the virus (or the process for manually hacking the system) and that the aggressors had learned it from him by saying that they would 'never use it.'
This "master" hacker, upon finding out that others were preparing to mis-use the information that he had leaked, created a system for site users to download their journals onto their computer hard-drives in the case that their diary was deleted during the attack.
(That option that was either defective or non-existent on TOD at that point)
I alerted diarists as well and winced that entire day and night.
I stared at my computer knowing that there were so many innocent writers losing their every chronicled word, some their years of mental processes and poetry, some their glittery homepages, and for others, their desire to ever writer again.
I survived, bitterly, and eventually came to embrace the html medium of online chronicling.
The first picture that I uploaded onto TOD was one of my guinea pig that I'd taken with my dad's spiffy web-cam (got to love bachelor dads) of my darling guinea pig named Bugs.
But I never forgot the event nor the people who embraced it.
One aggressor of the event, who went by the name of a.n.t.i.f.r.e.ak., would post insults to "superficial sub-genre" diarists, with usernames like, ~*Preppy Lady*~, i/beat/up/preps/, ^Goth~Kittie^, XXXPuNkYMuNkYXXX, or,
OH, there was a fake celebrity sub-genre too!
Yeah, that was weird--
There were all of these people that would pretend they were celebrities and post fake fan fiction about how they were 'so pissed at Justin Timberlake and were DEF. gunna break up with him.'
And the "celebs," as they called themselves, would "meet-up" at a specific post, at a set time at one of their diaries, and have A PARTY there.
One had to keep refreshing the page to follow the conversation of comments on the post, like a sadsad delusional stone-age chat room.
And "Aguilerababy and BRITTY SPEARS, and *(jEwEl)* and TheREALbritney" would discuss the other parties they've been to and who they were mad at and who was a fake and who they had a crush on.
It was an enlightening phenomenon, but as all good (read: terrible) things tend to do, faded away in the "blog" pre-history.
More online diary sites moved onto the scene, including opendiary
I survived, bitterly, and eventually came to embrace the html medium of online chronicling.
The first picture that I uploaded onto TOD was one of my guinea pig that I'd taken with my dad's spiffy web-cam (got to love bachelor dads) of my darling guinea pig named Bugs.
But I never forgot the event nor the people who embraced it.
One aggressor of the event, who went by the name of a.n.t.i.f.r.e.ak., would post insults to "superficial sub-genre" diarists, with usernames like, ~*Preppy Lady*~, i/beat/up/preps/, ^Goth~Kittie^, XXXPuNkYMuNkYXXX, or,
OH, there was a fake celebrity sub-genre too!
Yeah, that was weird--
There were all of these people that would pretend they were celebrities and post fake fan fiction about how they were 'so pissed at Justin Timberlake and were DEF. gunna break up with him.'
And the "celebs," as they called themselves, would "meet-up" at a specific post, at a set time at one of their diaries, and have A PARTY there.
One had to keep refreshing the page to follow the conversation of comments on the post, like a sadsad delusional stone-age chat room.
And "Aguilerababy and BRITTY SPEARS, and *(jEwEl)* and TheREALbritney" would discuss the other parties they've been to and who they were mad at and who was a fake and who they had a crush on.
It was an enlightening phenomenon, but as all good (read: terrible) things tend to do, faded away in the "blog" pre-history.
More online diary sites moved onto the scene, including opendiary
(the, "graduation," I suppose, from teenopendiary),
livejournal, the obligatory deadjournal, xanga, etc
So here's to the "blog," which is only exciting now because you can say it in serious professional conversation and then continue to be taken seriously.
This agency contributes this entry as a toast to the "Blog-o-sphere,"
livejournal, the obligatory deadjournal, xanga, etc
So here's to the "blog," which is only exciting now because you can say it in serious professional conversation and then continue to be taken seriously.
This agency contributes this entry as a toast to the "Blog-o-sphere,"
and includes a link to her original archive:
