Journal
A journal (manly word for diary) is "A personal record of occurrences, experiences, and reflections kept on a regular basis; a diary."[1] An on-line journal (as opposed to an IRL journal) is the same thing, only it is kept on-line, and is usually open to the public. IRL journals are traditionally private. Many people keep an OL journal and a separate IRL journal. Males should never admit to keeping and maintaining a journal because your friends will think you're some kinda fag.
Types of journals
IRL journals
IRL journals can usually be found under beds or deep inside a chest of drawers, next to the vibrator, or hidden under a playboy magazine in your teacher's desk. They are usually hand-written rather than typed. You normally have to date a girl for a couple of months before she will offer you a chance to read her IRL journal. You should refuse unless she will not have sex with you until you do.
OL journals
On-line journals are typically open to the public, although some journal sites give you the option to hide specific entries (or the entire journal) from unauthorized users. LiveJournal calls this feature making entries "friends only", and making your journal "friends only" is a popular way to avoid trolls. But since you are an insatiable comment whore and have no friends anyways, this is kind of redundant.
A Comparison
There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Your IRL journal will never be famous, and you will never become an Internet celebrity thanks to an IRL journal (Unless, that is, you have a really good public relations agent, like Anne Frank. However, you can write anything you want in your IRL journal without getting in trouble (except for that Pedophile that got tossed in prison for writing about child pornography), whereas OL journal sites often have Terms of Service which you must abide by.
Both IRL and OL journals have "Me" as the primary subject. Creative diarists will sometimes veer into related topics, like "What do you think of me?" and "Here's what me thinks of you." Memes and personality-analyzing quizzes are eternally popular entries in journals because they allow the author a new way of looking at himself, sometimes with pie charts. Pathological egomaniacs use "I" and "me" about four times per sentence, while 16-year-old girls and leather-clad submissives will always use a lower case "i" or even speak about themselves in the third person -- though their journals are no less self-centered for it.
Fictional Journals
Some people use the diary structure when writing fiction. This is useful for writers who don't have any actual writing abilities whatsoever but still want to achieve critical and commercial success. Some of these are tragedies, like Bridget Jones's Diary, and some are comedies, like The Diary of Anne Frank.
List of popular on-line journal/weblogging sites
- Blogger
- DeadJournal (view random journal)
- GreatestJournal
(view random journal)BALEETED! - LiveJournal (view random journal)
- MovableType
- pMachine
- Social Journal (now mercifully dead)
- tumblr
- WordPress
- Xanga
- MSN Spaces
- Orkut