This is a personal journal; otherwise known as a blog in internet parlance, the shortened euphemism for web-log.

Because this is a personal journal it means that the only person responsible for anything which gets posted here is me. I am responsible for all editorial decisions, creating all of the content, and for keeping the lights on. If I decide tomorrow that I don’t want to continue sharing my thoughts with the world – oh well. There’s no one to complain to, and no one to listen if there were. This was the whole idea of keeping a blog to begin with – as an exercise in literary narcissism which operated in a world of net neutrality and Google and where what I have to say can matter as much as the BBC.

But then something happened…

People started reading other people’s blogs and the next thing you know ordinary citizens suddenly became internet celebrities – basking in their fifteen seconds of imaginary influence peddling fame and generating all of that juicy good buzz we all seem to be vicariously drawn to like a bunch of summer insects flying towards that glowing ultraviolet bug-lite hanging in the backyard.

It’s an ugly business but someone has to zap the little fuckers.

Not that it matters – but I’ve always believed that you bring who you are when you come out into the untamed wilderness of cyberia … meaning, if you’re a bit of an asshole in real life, you’re probably going to reflect that in the things you choose to write about and in how you interact with people – and vice versa, I would hope.

In many ways we’ve become a world of lowest common denominators, and as I’ve often expressed… popular doesn’t always equate to good or even merely interesting either. Tho sometimes it does. I mean, where else are you going to get this much free entertainment in your cubicle?

Killer Coding Monkeys indeed.

Human psychology is an interest of mine, and the psychology of the internet and how people conduct themselves online is so totally ripe for some kind of research grant and a team of scientists because it would be fascinating to compare some of the internet personas you come across out here with what the likely reality would be. Would they be the same? In some cases perhaps – but in others… wow… what color is the sky on your planet?

When I first started keeping what has become affectionately known as geishaland at the end of 2005, I too was seduced by the lure of instant popularity and recognition and all of the trappings of internet success. I worked to have my posts linked and listed in places and started exchanging links with other bloggers all in the hopes of driving up my own traffic and thereby gaining more attention and more recognition and more and more and more! Blogging became my primary focus in life – often at the expense of real relationships – and as I became more noticed and more “popular” for lack of a better word, the ugly side of doing this became ever clearer; jealousy, spitefulness, rumors, blog drama… all of the worst examples of human behavior amplified and intensified by the high speed data pipelines encircling the world; all feeding this angry beast with the frailties and fragilities of basic human emotions.

It isn’t that I don’t enjoy keeping my blog. I do. There are many reasons why I still do this after all this time, but the primary one is personal expression. This site is for me and me alone. You choosing to read what I have to say is a gift to me, and one which I am grateful to receive. You choosing to share your thoughts with me by leaving me a comment is also a gift I am grateful to receive – but those things do not and cannot define my existence or become my only source for human validation; something which I have seen many many bloggers succumb to.

Yes – all of this attention is like a drug… and there’s a lot of addicts out here too.

In the last year or so I’ve made a concerted effort to shrink my internet profile. Not because I don’t want people to read what I have to say or interact with me – but because I don’t ever want to be in the position of having my blog or name listed as one of Forbes most 25 influential people. That isn’t for me. I don’t want that responsibility. Nor do I ever wish to employ a volunteer army of robots armed with flamethrowers to take up my cause when someone wrongs me in the blogosphere either.

I wear big girl panties – I can fight my own battles.

I’ve seen some strange things out here in cyberia in the almost three years that I’ve been actively doing this, and there are days when I shake my pretty blond head and wonder, “Were these people all dropped as infants? Was there no one in their life to give them a hug and tell them that they were loved?” and most often, “Is there something wrong with her?”

Maybe I just lack the fundamental vanity necessary to want to be the most popular girl online. I know how I see myself and how some others see me are so far opposed that you’d wonder if you were talking about the same person if you were to compare what each had to say – but perceptions often become our reality, and perhaps there’s a useful lesson in observing someone else’s naked cyber-narcissism in its full glory. I can’t say for sure, I only know that those lessons haven’t been lost on me.

But in case anyone cares, no pornstars are currently using the name lazy geisha (TM)…. or nina aoki (TM) … and if they were, well, wouldn’t that just be special!

See you in court, counselor. :P