Flustered and anxious, I began to write. Allowing my thoughts that had been stampeding through my mind leak effortlessly onto a word document, I was instantly hooked. An anonymous blog, an outlet where I could dispose of my worries and journal my life through a minuscule corner of the World Wide Web; my secret, my place. It held a different attraction than a diary, it had the opportunity to be accidentally stumbled upon, a canvas of thoughts to an individual who was seeking inspiration. That enticed me. That lingering hope that I could help someone, or offer a part of myself that they identified with seemed to always bring a smile to my face. Perhaps it was the need to feel endlessly connected to people around the world, or perhaps it was the enigma circling it, the recipient of my words wondering what kind of person I was.
That is how it began. I was fifteen, and along with my high school friends who were interested in similar things, I had discovered the world of blogging. This new method of writing, pitched to be an online diary, was a new fad amongst my friends, like the previous ones of emo-music and jokes of sexual innuendos that we naively assumed made us grown up. It was a place we could write, and journal our thoughts, without judgment.
I found myself writing about anything, everything; it almost became a part of my thought process. My method of unwinding and analysing how I felt. So when I met him, a part of my future, and then a part of my past, through a friend online, and after some time I allowed him to read my blog, I had to wonder if my writing showed a different side of me. Did my words reflect who I was, am? Or were idealisations of what I could be grabbed from this forum of hormonal outlet?
It was, really, at first, just that. A place where a typical teenager could seek comfort and pity with complaints of how difficult her life was. A mixture of hormones and heartbreak; with the occasional philosophical wonderings and poetry that arose from the writer within me. But as I continued blogging, and writing my perception of the world around me, it became almost ritualistic.
I did stop, once. My future, then to be my past somehow deferred me from writing. I wasn’t ever told to stop, I just did. I used to write for enjoyment and for understanding, and over some time it had ceased. I felt no drive to document my feelings; I felt as though I had nothing interesting to document. It took me a while to even realise it, but my daily posts had dwindled to monthly ones, if that. This was an early sign of how wrong my relationship was, but it was a sign that would take me some time to realise.
As time progressed, along with blogging, websites like Myspace and Facebook also allowed me to place myself into a corner of the web, though this time, it was a lot more public. Photos were uploaded, brief “about me’s” were written and comments from friends were displayed, linking me to networks of friends in which I was subconsciously self-marketed. Who do I know on here? Without knowing it, this method of connecting to friends around the world, I was placing myself to be represented in a particular way. I didn’t even consider my online persona, or how a stranger or old friend may perceive me. I didn’t imagine these outlets were creating fictitious perceptions of me, or anyone, dependent on comments friends had made, or photos I decided to upload.
I had been included in the era of public profiles that deemed it acceptable, sociable, to post so much of yourself onto a website, for others to read about. I wasn’t protected by an un-named, unclaimed website, my photograph and my name were, and still are displayed.
It wasn’t until strangers began to add me as a friend that I began to wonder about the sincerity of it all. Was the purpose of these profiles to connect friends around the world, or to substitute friends you didn’t have in real life? Or was it simply a popularity contest, where the person with the highest “friends list” was the queen bee of the online world?
Over some time, and after starting uni and meeting new friends, I began to write again. Meeting someone new had inspired me once more, but along with that, the profiles my generation had become so fixated on, addicted to, offered no real meaning of the world. I still can’t answer their ability of how they capture you; but I think it’s a need to always know what’s happening, almost instantly.
Returning to writing helped immediately and I found myself thinking subjectively again. The comfort of going back to leaking my secrets into a secluded section of the web was almost therapeutic. I read, and I watch films (but not frequently enough), and listen to music, but writing is the way I find meaning in the world. I often wonder how other people form their meaning; their perception of what surrounds them.
I am just one person with ideals of the space I’ve grown up within. I’ve written nothing life changing, but what I have wrote matters to me. And if my online persona, through a cryptic and “who’s behind the computer screen” mystery has meant something to another; I have succeeded in leaving my mark on the world, if only for a moment.
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