Mostly, I'm fascinated with the overall reactions to this situation, including my own.  It’s obviously that the majority of the web either thinks A) LJ users are a bunch of melodramatic teens or 2) they sorely underestimate the amount of people who regulate everything they do around their LiveJournal.

At first glance, that final statement may sound pathetic.  But consider the world we’re in.  How often do you check your email?  How many hours a day do you spend instant messaging?  If you’re offline for more than a day, how many people around the world wonder if something’s happened to you?

To the web culture, there’s a core to our routine.  Over time, trends have sprung out of newsgroups, message boards, and chat rooms.  The latest and greatest in online communicating is the weblog.  There are those who will argue into the night that the LiveJournal interface is not a true blog, but despite their protests, the concept behind the movement still exists.  And for a world wide audience, LiveJournal is an oft used source of entertainment, not to mention the amount of support and general sense of human contact that it allows so many who may not get either anywhere else.

The internet has certainly downsized the world.  Losing a connection with something on the scale of LJ is equivalent to a road washout that cuts you off from a large percent of the people you know.

For most of us, the only contact info we’ve ever needed for the majority of our blog buddies is the simple, easy to remember, username.  Paid members can have their email forwarded to them from their LJ account.  There’s no need to recall multiple addresses or screen names. 

Unless, of course, the system goes down.

This is where the simple task of creating a universal hub comes into play.  The LJ Patch is just a standard freebie message board, designed to let LJ users communicate with each other and point friends in the direction of a dusty, unused alternate journal.

Of course, this is where the second wave of madness comes into play.  JournalFen.net is a very similar website, where many LJ users have accounts, but it’s not designed to withstand the sudden rush of usage that it’s seen over the last twenty four hours.  This results in the occasional maintenance downtime, thus causing the already frazzled LJ user to assume that, in fact, the end is nigh.  GreatestJournal.com saw a similar surge, but seems to be more stable that JF.

My online journal’s down. Who cares? But those who frequent LJ.com at the consistency that so many do, are intensely immersed in a sense of community that has grown out of blog based websites. Imagine attempting a visit to your favorite twenty-four hour diner or coffee house, only to find the doors locked and no one inside. [LJ user hecatehatesthat brought up a much more valid allusion. “It's not like your favorite coffeehouse being suddenly closed. It’s like EVERY Starbucks is shut down, and all the bookstores and malls and city blocks that have Starbucks' in them being shut down.” It’s true. The magnitude of this incident is not just akin to the local Mom and Pop hang-out. It’s equivalent to chain store capitalism and our dependency therein.]

The internet has become a place of camaraderie and fellowship where the like minded from every corner of the globe can link up and, ideally, not feel so alone. Unlike chat rooms or instant messaging, the blog format takes us back a couple of decades and utilizes a standard bulletin board system that gives the users their own personal space to post their thoughts and allows others to come along and voice their feelings at any given time. It’s easy, it’s laid back, and it’s a gateway to obsession.

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