Medium is LiveJournal for Grown-Ups
I ’m 35 years old, which means I’ve seen a lot of changes to the Internet since the days I used to sit in front in front of the bulky CRT monitor perched on the desk of our basement home office and wait patiently for the dial-up to complete its strange series of clicks and beeps.
I remember updating my MSN Messenger status with angsty song lyrics, discovering the original pixelated Hampster Dance and debating whether I should include the guy I liked when forwarding ridiculous chain messages from my Hotmail account.
But what really changed the World Wide Web for me was when I stumbled upon DiaryLand, with it’s cutely simple interface and ability for me to wax teenage poetic on whatever my heart desired.
I’d always kept diaries as a kid — long-winded ramblings about boys I liked and friends I was mad at — but the notion of sending my thoughts out into the world was something new entirely. It felt exciting and risky to lay one’s heart bare for literally anyone to find, and I loved it.
Writing for an audience (regardless whether one actually existed, which in those days, it definitively did not) felt different than the childish musings of my handwritten journals.
Suddenly, it became imperative that my words be crafted with as much rawness and candor as possible. That they be succinct…
