To each his own
Friday, January 25, 2002 - 15:30

Yesterday or the day before, I'm not sure which, I meandered into a diary whose author had been ridiculed by this diary. And it got me thinking. I agree with the basic complaint of Mr. Nameandshame. (My first impression was that it was a guy writing it. I can elaborate upon that assumption if needed. Whether it's a girl or a guy writing it doesn't matter much, so I'll just call the author Mr. Nameandshame.)

Mr. Nameandshame has noticed that (gasp!) guestbook entries aren't always unique or sincere. Sometimes people write something like, "uR diary is so kewl! i <3 the layout, and uR writing style is so L-o-kwent! Keep up the good work!!! 8-P" and they copy and paste it in as many guestbooks as they can find, whether they're familiar with the corresponding diary or not.

This is kind of what I was complaining about in an earlier entry, although I was specifically complaining about someone who always added some self-deprecation to her laudatory sentences.

You can tell who these chronic guestbook signers are, because their guestbooks are full of entries saying, "Thanx 4 signing my guestbook! uR so nice! u made my day!"

But is it that big a deal? Are the insincere guestbook signers such a plague that you have to devote an entire diary into humiliating them (semi-)publicly? If some obviously fake and insincere person pastes some generic entry into your guestbook, who really cares? They're obviously attention whores (as are most people with online diaries. Everyone who has a guestbook is an attention whore, to some degree at least.). People like that are best left ignored, unless you like them and want to be friends with them. Which is fine. To each his own. I don't see any need in singling anyone out and trying to humiliate them. It seems pointless and petty and it only results in hurt feelings. If a guestbook entry is that annoying, just delete it.

There are lots of things that I don't like about the way some people act or the way some people write, but I'm not going to devote much of my time trying to stop it.

But to each his own. So name and shame away, I guess, Mr. Nameandshame.