I've never been a fan of livejournal-style blogs. They strike me as a kind of geeks' version of reality TV, where a bunch of the more literate nerdy types can publicly dissect themselves to their heart's content, to the edification of no one. In a way, I understand this desire for self-exposure: modern life, particularly modern working life, gives people little opportunity to prove they are human. The trouble is, a livejournal account is a very poor way to demonstrate one's humanity.
Once, the appeal of keeping a diary was in its privacy, but now it seems that people are only too keen to get their interior lives out in public. In reality, livejournals are neither public nor private, but combine the worst of both worlds. They don't have the intimacy and openness of a private diary, but instead the guarded semi-honesty of a diary written with someone looking over your shoulder -- or in the hope that someone is looking over your shoulder. The worst such journals are pure sympathy-bait. And then livejournals aren't truly public: journal entries rarely make their way onto search engines, and are thus rarely read by less than sympathetic eyes. This encourages a certain laziness about the writing. Most journal entries are simply ad hoc, thrown-together crap -- a problem compounded by the fact that most journals are written under coy little pseudonyms. I wonder how many people would put this stuff online if they also had to put their name behind it?
Of course, livejournal isn't just a place for self-expression: it's also a discussion forum of sorts, and a useless one. Now that Usenet has been taken over by idiots, many of its best minds have retreated to the safe confines of livejournal. What a poor subsitute! For all its faults, Usenet at least encourages its better posters to think before they write. Nothing quite keeps you on your toes more than the knowledge that hundreds of people are waiting to pounce on your every mistake. With posts read only by friends and yes-men, there is no such danger on livejournal; instead of invigorating debate, we get the clammy atmosphere of people always agreeing with each other. Livejournal discussion rarely rises above the level of "me too."