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CONFESSIONS OF AN ONLINE DIARIST
BY JUDITH GRIFFIS
Around the time my ex-husband and I moved to Oregon
in 1988,1 started reading The Whole Earth Review They made
references to the 'WELL', or 'Whole Earth Lectronic Link', an
early, and apparently primarily Deadhead,version of the Internet
They also published frequent articles on Jaron Lanier and his
work as a developer of Virtual Reality. The WELL intrigued me
VR made me fume. Thanks for doing the CIA's work for them, I
thought — someday we will be unable to tell whether the world
in front of us is real or fake, and you will have a big hand in it
The ever-increasing presence of computers and the
development of the Internet as a substitute for face-to-face
human interaction vwjrried me greatly for a long time, and so
did its capacity to destroy privacy by means of insecure and
infinitely reproducible electronic files. Overtime, though, I
needed literary resources that I just did not have without it, so
I gave in — I bought a computer and went online By that time,
I had long since begun to see the whole of the 'reality' that lies
before me as open to question in innumerable ways, whether the
military/industrial complex has anything to do with it or not. And
the Internet has developed into a fascinating place to witness a
mode of strangeness that may or may not be 'real' in the form
of the group mind in action.
By 'group mind' I mean what used to be called the
'collective unconscious' by Jungians; I say "used to" because,
vtfiile it previously existed on a level that was subliminal for
most people, the Internet sector of it is now becoming more
and more self-aware and sophisticated because the individuals
v4io comprise it can communicate more freely and at the same
time more precisely than any of us could ever have imagined
just a few years ago. So vtfiile some may still refer to it as
'unconscious', have they been paying attention?
These thoughts were slov4y turning themselves over in
my mind vtfien I ran across a news item at the www.diarist.net
Web site a few weeks ago. They quoted some rather hostile
remarks about personal Web pages and online diansts that were
made during an episode of the ABC television show Politically
Incorrect (wth Bill Maher). I followed the link diarist.net provided
to the transcript of the broadcast Here are the remarks in full:
Bill: Okay, well — so. now, I thanked you First of all.
you paid $47,000 You must be doing awfully well in your day
job.
Darrin: I do very well.
Bill: Whatever that is. You're a model and a financial
planner
Darrin: Correct
(Laughter)
Bill: And that's what people want in their financial
planner — abs. (Laughter) Any way, what we did is we
auctioned off this seat on the Internet, as people know, and
you paid $47,000 for it. And I'm not trying to be picky here, but,
you know, I'm not an Internet guy. Mostly I think — and this sort
of feeds into my point — is because I think it's about ego. the
Internet. I think it's about people just wanting to share more
than the rest of us really need to have shared with. You know?
Websites with people's diaries — who cares? E-mail. "Hi. every
thought I ever had in my head, I'd like to share it now "
(Laughter)
What happened to the days when diaries were under
lock and key? Now people get pissed off if you don't read their
diary. I don't want to know every thought that's in everybody's
mind.
O'Reilly: But I agree with you First of all. I'm computer
illiterate. And I think that the people who really get absorbed in
this lose sight of what's going on outside They don't know what
the weather is. I mean, they just get so absorbed in it
Bill: Very frightening.
Drew: I think you're allowed to go on and look for what
ever you want on the Internet If you want to read somebody's
diary, if you want to see pictures of somebody's day. you know,
so what? That's your prerogative
Bill: Why would you, Drew?
Drew: I don't know I don't know why people do a lot of
the things they do But, you know, what the hell do I have to do
withit?
Bridgette: Although, it's also different, because it's one
thing if you're going on looking at all these things There's also
another thing — like I sign on to write E-mails to friends. And it
allows me to just go. "Hey, how are you?" and not get into a 30-
minute conversation So it makes it so much simpler to actually
keep in touch with people that, otherwise. I wouldn't Which has
nothing to do with all the other things that I think are weird on
there that people have, as far as sites and the different things
they write about
Darrin: But if you don't like the site, you just don't go to
that site
Bill: I know, but why. ..
Drew: If somebody wants to start — some chick wants
to start a college dorm room cam. good (Laughter) Yeah. I really
wanna know what happened in your day.
O'Reilly: He's rethinking the Internet thing.
Bill: No
O'Reilly: He's rethinking the Internet thing. You can see
him going — "Dorm room thing?"
Bill: But what does it say about the world when people
think that they have to share every bit of their, you know, interior
monologue, really? And there's a reason why it's called an
"interior monologue", because it should stay interior I mean, you
used to have talent before you were published
The defensive tone of these remarks is what clued
me in to the seriousness that underlies them. Why would a TV
show host feel concerned that 'interior monologue' should stay
interior? Why should it stay there? Something is happening on
the Net, and it has everything to do with privacy and the lack
thereof — something we are all starting to feel more and more
I suspect, and increasingly feel inclined to believe, that I am
seeing a very large portion of the human world in the act of
turning itself inside-out. This is a radical notion and a far more
radical act; its implications are bound to be disturbing to those
who still like to feel that they can keep certain aspects of their
lives to themselves.
Now that a TV show has informed that it is a shameful
thing to be. I confess: I am an online diarist. I maintain a diary
at what is called a 'hive' site, or collective Web site. vtfiere
anyone who wishes can start a diary. It is free, and the diary can
be public or private; the only condition is that it has to be anony
mous. which means that we all write under pseudonyms Diarists
can receive notes from readers if they choose; notes can either
be from anyone at all or only from registered diarists who are
logged in The site address is www opendiary.com
These open diaries are thus private and public at once:
Anyone with Internet access can browse the site and read any
public entries, including past ones going all the way back to
the start of each diary, but family members and other unwanted
intimates cannot read a given author's diary unless they know
the pseudonym Keeping a diary on these terms and receiving
notes, especially if the option to accept all notes is chosen
can easily become an experiment in discovenng how much
self-revelation one can bear What I learned is probably typical
Because the overwhelming majority of notes is supportive, and
because the other writers — there are purportedly more than
200.000 diarists at OD — are writing away like mad on topics
at least as personal, the need for privacy tends to diminish very
quickly I have never served in the military, but I imagine the
expenence of using mass toilets produces a loss of physical
modesty similar to the Internet journalist's psychological loss
of modesty The commentators on Politically Incorrect assume
that this exhibitionism, if it really deserves to be called that,
immediately runs into egotism; in my view it goes the opposite
way When countless other wnters are telling virtually the same
real-life stories, except that a lot of them are infinitely more
fascinating than one's own wll ever be, a sort of comfortable
humility sets in: One is not as distinguished as one might have
preferred to think, but one is not as hopelessly incompetent
either
The opportunity to observe others as described by
themselves and to study the wrds of non-professional authors
in an effort to understand vtfiat they really mean to say has held
a few outright surprises I discovered Napster around the same
time that I started my diary. I also happened upon a Web site
maintained by a disgruntled former member of the Ordo Templi
Onentis, a ntual magick organization. One of the articles at the
OTO site gave a history of David Bowie's involvement with that
group It also described the cut-up technique he used to
compose lyrics for his songs A nostalgic bent had already
caused me to download some Bowie songs that were great
favorites of mine vtfien I was about 13-14 years old On listening
to them again after a number of years, I realized that the lyrics
really were cut up. sometimes almost gibberish on the surface,
yet with all sorts of odd connections forming underneath When
I was a kid, that all made perfect sense to me, or so I thought
When I started to read dianes by some of the more expressive
teenagers at OD. I saw what was going on: They assume they
understand what is happening around them and what is being
said to and in front of them, but apparently they miss a lot of it
without even noticing the gaps — they are not much more than
children in years, after all — so they fill in what is lacking with
imagination and intuition They write the way they perceive
Some of their diaries are so loose and so subjective that they
make almost no surface sense, and yet they convey meaning
— sometimes a great deal of very poignant meaning So many
of them lament the fact that the world they are growing up in is
so bizarrely unreal Every day countless teens at OD contem
plate suicide or describe their latest actual attempts. More
mature OD friends assure me that this largely drama. While I
don't disagree, I feel that the need for drama of this particular
intensity spnngs from fairly desperate sources. The teens'
confusion now strikes me as deeper than I ever realized before,
for more basic cognitive and linguistic reasons than I can recall
heanng acknowledged. And of course their distress at growing
up in an unreal toxic hyper-commercial reality' is perfectly
reasonable That they have places like OD where they can vent
their outrage and form connections with peers and elders who
can support the legitimacy of their desire to dissent gives them
a great advantage that former generations never had It seems
to me that they use it well, although their anguish is still great.
Through notes, diarists become acquainted with each
other and form little subsets within the hive. If a reader notices
an interesting dianst vtfio exchanges notes with another wnter
frequently, they can easily follow the notes to the diary they
came from — signed notes from OD members contain hyper
links that lead to the note-leaver’s Diary Contents page. There
the diarist is free to introduce their diary by telling as much or
as little about themselves as they wish Usually it is possible
to determine at once if they are likely to be of interest. OD
also offers the option of searching for diansts by age, location,
membership in content-oriented diary circles, or random recent
entries ! have found intriguing writers each way By the exchange
of notes, ongoing dialogues and sometimes multiparty conver
sations can freely develop I once saw one of these become
disturbingly emotional, but that was due to one party's genuinely
traumatic circumstances. The overall tone of OD exchanges is
not merely civil; it is kind.
The diaries I frequent, like the entries I write, tend to
focus precisely on the place where the territory of reality as we
perceive it diverges from official consensus reality. For some of
us, that leads into outright magic and mysticism; for many more
it generates discussion of dreams and personal insights, and it
leads us to remark to one another with great frequency that we
have just experienced yet another stunning OD synchronicity.
Recently I have felt myself approaching a breakthrough,
a moment of psychic/psychological enlargement. I have
encouraged it with meditation and special attentiveness to my
dreams. Another diarist, who is also an E-mail correspondent
of mine because of our shared interests, has been going
through a spiritual crisis. We have never met in Real Life, but
we passed through an extreme opening together the week of the
earthquake Would this have happened to us independently had
we never met through our dianes? We have been witing back
and forth on more than one level, and we have influenced each
other. Certainly without OD the change wjuld come in a differ
ent way. Other diarists are watching it happen As one of them
lately remarked in a note, we seem to go through mass mood
swings together Surely that is a function of the collective mind
My history at the open diary site only goes back for
half a year, but in that time, and in the time I have been thinking
about the Internet in general. I have made a few observations
about its implications for that mind: If the real world' around us
is hopelessly tainted by mind-control propaganda foisted upon
us relentlessly by organized religion, the military/industrialized
complex, nghtwing conspiracy theorists, our refined sugar-
aspartame-prozac-fluonde-GMO-tainted brains, and — above
all else — the commercial mass media, the Internet gives us
one more chance to fight back Still uncontrolled, cheaper and
easier of access every year, and not merely tolerant but friendly
toward dissenters and eccentrics, our personal pages and Web
diaries provide us wth the means to download the contents of
our actual life expenences and observations and preserve them
in a publicly accessible mass-memory vtfiere they can serve the
needs of others who are seeking support and corroboration
Back in the heyday of the women's movement, a
quotation was popular that went something like, If just one
woman would tell the truth about her life, the world would split
open Millions of diansts are telling the truth about their lives
online — you can see for yourself any moment you choose
that the cracks are beginning to show The change may feel
ominous to some, but I suspect that 'privacy' has always been
more a figment of denial than an actuality and the loss of it
merely means a return to the condition that most of humanity
has taken for granted for tens of thousands of years the
extended family/village mentality in which everyone knows
everything that the other members have ever said or done That
knowng runs deep, so deep it might in part become telepathic
Right now. participation in such a future is optional I
would not count on its remaining that way Once the thought
of being dragged into the world it implies would have frightened
me out of my wts Now that my diary and I have tested it, my
tentative conclusion is that its potential to enlarge the very
ground of our conscious existence can be made to outweigh
its potential for harm
Judith Griffis is a poet writer and dianst living in Astoria