I post a lot more during the school year, don’t I? I hope this is a meaningful entry worth reading.

I love Livejournal, because it’s the place I get to vent and express myself, but yet I still am able to retain a certain level of anonymity (use of that word directly correlates to Internet personas IMO). The people that usually read my posts are friends that I’ve never met in real life (but I love them anyways <3), so they have an outside perspective of things – no drama.

Over the summer, there’s nothing much to talk about. Sure, we’re supposed to have all this extra time to accomplish things and go out to explore the world, but I usually just stay indoors and sit by my computer all day (how dreadfully boring?). As I waste precious minutes refreshing a Facebook page, watching a new Asian drama (with actually very little real substance – amusement) or browsing through Digg articles, nothing eventful occurs that is worthwhile to mention. Frankly, I’d prefer it that way, because I have less things in my mind so I can actually relax for a bit.

Then school starts, and every day, I seem to be making at least 2 entries, sometimes because I’m overly frustrated and just need to get my mind off of one thing and think of something more lighthearted and other times because some issue has just been bubbling up inside of me and I can’t hold it longer. I rant to friends too, but you feel a different satisfaction when you ramble on a blog than when you ramble to a friend. You don’t have counter-arguments, and although you sometimes miss that shoulder to cry on (instead, you’re depending on a mechanical system that retains your information – something more permanent than, per say, a memory that becomes warped and deteriorates over time), you feel relieved. I do enjoy the comments of my friends, because they cheer me up when I’m upset, and, in a way, Livejournal allows me to lean on other people through the comment system.

Blogging is remarkable. How many times have I just felt too lazy to open up a journal and start spewing out personal feelings in events? And yet, I turn to a different means of journal writing. One of the reasons why online blogging systems (WordPress, Livejournal) are so enticing and alluring is that you type entries. I never feel too lazy to type something. I type much faster than I write, and I have the ability to go back and make changes. It becomes much more of a tedious job to change things on paper, and since when is journal writing supposed to be tedious?

I love to open up on Livejournal and just talk like a carefree girl too. In school, you see one side of me, the side that worries before and after every test, the one that’s too preoccupied with schoolwork to go bowling with friends, but on Livejournal, I like to take the opportunity to fangirl about the latest Asian drama or the latest Final Fantasy game. I’m no longer hiding in that shell.

Ironically, I started feeding -almost- all of my Livejournal entries to Facebook. I wonder (but doubt) if people bother to read my entries, because, for the most part, they’re personal to me and useless to other people (One man’s trash is another man’s treasure? I think.), but it’d be interesting to know of people read my entries (and if they can do so without looking down at me and considering me to be some stereotypical, immature, self-absorbed teenager due to my poor entry structures, pitiful Internet slang, overly used smilies, and repetitive word usage, intertwined with the occasional spelling and grammar mistakes). Yep, it would be interesting, because I find satisfaction in being acknowledged. (Haha – which was funny, because the APUSH teacher that is now the CSF advisor knew my name even though I had never really talked to her before – that was cool.)

However, I’ve become more cautious with my entries too. It’s intimidating to know that people close to me might read personal thoughts that I don’t want them to read – some inner opinion on a matter that I wouldn’t want to reveal to people that I make direct contact with every day. It’s that whole sense of anonymity again. It is a source of protection, although nothing’s really safe on the Internet (pshh intellectual rights). Well, to get to my point, I’ve been friends-locking a lot of entries lately too. Maybe I’ve become more opinionated as of late, but I guess it all comes down to fear and a desire to be accepted.

I have to point out 2 more things too. Online blogging and blogging communities (through comments and actual groups of people that unite over a common interest) mean a lot to me. That’s how I get my daily news, how I’m introduced into new fandoms, how I’m able to interact with people that have similar interests, and how I get to make new friends (despite my parents’ worries that there are pedophiles and whatever other types of people lurking around the ‘net) that I grow to trust (I really appreciate their friendship, because I often just want to get away from the people I deal with at school, and yet I want to have a person I can lean on or talk to). You see, I find those communities actually meaningful. I don’t understand the ridiculous aspects of these so-called online social networks like MySpace (proof of the deterioration of American culture), what with all those nasty plug-ins and features that allow users with absolutely no aesthetic instinct to create these completely blinding “layouts” that they can seriously feel proud of. (I’m sorry for bashing people! It just irks me so much that this hub of stereotypical teenagers has become so popular. It’s disgusting.)

Those statements make me hypocritical. Although I’ve never had a MySpace, nor do I intend to ever get one, I have been swept into the Facebook phenomenon. I would try to justify myself by saying Facebook is different, but the concept is still the same. People obsess over it, and spend wasted hours constantly refreshing the page. How productive can we be if we live off of these social networking sites? Oh, so now you’re allowing developers to create applications for Facebook. I feel like my Facebook account has been completely overtaken by spam in the form of friends’ invites to “be a pirate,”
etc. Pointless! I like the Wall. We interact. I like the profile sections. They actually represent you and your environment. Those applications, on the other hand, are a completely different story! It’s almost as if my Facebook account has been infested with the type of spam and advertising you get from spambots. Eh, why would anyone even care about some group that was titled “If this group gets so-and-so members, I will -insert some false promise of action here-.” Then you have all those applications that really test people. Top friends was created to both make people feel accepted and also to isolate them from others. Who wants to go to a friend’s profile (a friend you would consider a “top friend”) to feel you don’t belong? Sure, make that top friend list a private deal, because it is useful when you don’t want to go searching for your friend’s name in some long list of networks, but beyond that, it’s meaningless. It’s like pledging loyalty to something that you don’t care for (that didn’t make any sense). Then you have all those “best shopping companion,” “best whatevers.” Seriously. People have too much free time.

Social networks are double-edged swords. Mmm… preconceived notions.

The end. (I just wasted slightly under an hour typing this for no apparent reason, or rather, to get away from heavy SAT subjec test cramming for a while.)

BTW I did not realize Tokyo Game Show was this week. *drops mouth* No wonder Jai made those Square comments. (And I hope things work out with school @_@) <33