Sarah from Newcastle (originally Edinburgh) used to write a Weblog called “Not You, The Other One,” which is sadly defunct. It was one of the first Weblogs outside of the Salon Weblog universe that I read. I don’t remember how I first found it, but I was immediately fascinated by it. There were a couple of interruptions when she went away to do volunteer work in first the British and then the Greek wilderness, but I kept following. I couldn’t say why I found the site so compelling–we have very little in common (though my mother’s family is from her part of the world), and she didn’t really write about anything grand or universal. It was, I suppose, the simple humanity that she so effectively communicated that kept me reading her.
Earlier this year, Sarah stopped updating her Weblog and deleted (or lost) its archives, which was disappointing. Instead, she’s been posting her pictures on Flickr (she even added me as one of her contacts), and I find them, like her Weblog, very engaging, especially her pictures of Northumbria. But yesterday, she posted her finest picture yet, a self-portrait in a suit that, like pretty much everything else about her, I find enthralling for no reason I can put my finger on. Can anyone help me out on this?
morgannels 
A comely young lady she is, and the suit does become her.
LikeLike
Yes, I suppose, but that wasn’t really what I was getting at. With that picture, as with her other pictures and with her former Weblog, it’s not so much her as what she says and how she says it. There’s a narrative there that I find very intriguing, even if I can’t quite put my finger on what or why.
In the real world, there’s a mysterious process by which we decide whether or not we like or are interested in the people we meet. We often attempt to justify these judgments after the fact, but if we’re honest, they’re not entirely rational. What I’m trying to understand here, I guess, is the Internet version of that process. Why do we find some Internet personae more compelling, interesting, likable, etc. than others?
LikeLike