Well, some folks, if they’re half-decent writers, can use them to spark discussion among a small audience about something that might not come up in regular conversation all that often.
I’m with SK here, if you can post semi-interesting stuff, your Live Journal can start interesting conversations in your community 
I’m thinking of starting my own tabloid. A live journal tabloid. Yeah.
Originally posted by Curtis
[b]Prideful self-promotion… heh…Seriously, I wouldn’t say all of them are exclusively that, though it does play a very large component. From what I’ve seen most online journals tend to be social tools. A bunch of online or real life friends will all create journals and list each other as friends, then try to express certain things about themselves and their lives in the way that they want those things to be expressed, to the people who they know will be reading their journals. [/b]
I totally agree with that. A majority of the users are young kids or teenagers and sadly online journals are the only way to communicate their trivial thoughts to their peers (“OMG I think so and so likes me and I hope he knows I luv him too”) without being embarrassed in public. Which is like I mentioned…sad, that they can’t openly talk to people or learn how to communicate their feelings in a fairly adult manner. But that’s just my rant, the only journals I’ve skimmed through were all written by teenagers who believe the world is out to get them, who discover for the first time that life isn’t fair and to compensate all of this, they also post the angsty song lyrics mentioned before.
The reason I originally got an online journal was because a group of friends (including a girl I was interested in/friends with) had them, and there were few desires in my mind beyond voyeurism and prideful self-promotion, though I might not have used those words then. However, after the ensuing relationship disintegrated, I mostly used my deadjournal as a way to put whatever was going through my head into words - like people use normal journals, I think - so that I could better understand what was going on inside me. It also functioned as a sort of humility device - since my friends read what was actually happening in my head, I didn’t have many secrets I thought too important for them. The fact that it was called a “journal” I think made that easier, because I felt more able to post either some disjointed bunch of nonsense or interesting discussion, as I felt like it. It felt nice to be so refreshingly honest with myself in front of an audience of friends - even though I doubt many of them really felt it. It was fun, while it lasted, and I don’t think it was too harmful. I don’t have an online journal now though.
-Mazrim Taim
I keep mine because I’m online anyway and I need to vent my feelings every once in a while. Online diaries are cool, but 3/4ths of the time they suck because you have NO clue who the person is and you really can’t get into their head, no matter how well they write.
Originally posted by Mazrim Taim
The reason I originally got an online journal was because a group of friends had them
That’s probably the most popular reason, although these tend to be the same people that use the journal to rant against “The Man” or “The Machine”. The ego part of it is most likely a factor in most/all journals, everyone likes having their ego stroked, nothing wrong with that as long as it doesn’t get out of hand.
it’s an interesting phenomenon to say the least, but that’s about as far as my level of understanding of them go for now.