How to be a Successful LiveJournal User.

I had originally written this a few years back. It’s been passed around to a couple of sites, so that means people must have found it funny. Now it shall be preserved on Oapboap.org!

As over almost half the internet is now blogging, since they’re all the rage..I’d figure I’d help YOU become on over-night sensation on everyone’s favorite blogging location–LiveJournal. This is a step-by step guide.

Preparations
1. Make sure you have plenty of spare time, you’re going to be nose-deep in sharing things. After all, this IS the internet.
2. If your life is boring, make sure you can lie. Afterall, no one wants to be -bored-…

Now that we’re prepped and ready to go, let’s get down to business.

Takin’ care of business
3. Point your browser (make sure it’s Internet Explorer, since no one else uses cool browsers) to Livejournal.com. Are you there yet? Okay, I’ll wait.
4. Make a tacky username. Just like AIM handles, IRC nicks, et-cee, these should be as tacky as possible. And MAKE SURE you are not original in the name–tack on like 8 numbers, just to be safe. If you can’t think up a name, here’s one for you “hot_sexy_stud_45787”. Afterall, no one likes computer nerds.
5. Now that we’ve got our account set up, let’s do some customizations! Afterall, we want our journal to be unique just like everyone else’s! This part does not have to be done right now, but do it within 15 minutes of making your account.
6. NEVER EVER test your style on ANYTHING but IE 6 for Windows. That’s what everyone else uses.
7. Be sure to fill in your user info page with your email addy (Makes sure it’s a hotmail account), AIM handle (make sure it has the same numbers are your LJ account, we don’t want a mind fuck now), Webpage URL (include l33t title and make sure it’s served on GeoCities), birthday (year optional), other handles. For your Bio, make it as LONG as possible, and include about 6 800K+ Jpegs of you, your dog, the weather pixies, or write your profile in Photoshop, and make it a HUGE image, even better. Be abstract.
8. Randomly friend about 80 people, and join about 20 communities. After all, we want our ‘friends’ page to be HUGE and busy so we have to refresh every 3.8 seconds, thusly taxing the LJ servers.

Yay! We’re ready to make our first post! I hope you’re ready, this is a big step!

Posting
9. For your first post, be sure to include the word “Sup!”. And include the phrases “I’m new to this journal thing.” and “I’m not a nerd.” and “Fuck off if you don’t like it.”
10. For this first post, ask for comments.
11. You will now not post again for at LEAST a week.
12. Your next post will include something like this “Wow, I forgot I had this thing.”. Throw in some “lol”s in for good measure.
13. You will now start posting on a regular basis. Make sure the posts are random, and can NEVER be linked together.
14. Within a month of making your journal, you will now make a “I’m weeding out my friends last, comment to stay added.” post. You want to instill some GUILT in those ‘friends’ that aren’t giving you three replies per post.
15. Repeat step 14 at random intervals, but eventually forget about doing it for about a year.
16. Within your first 100 posts, if you make it that long, you will make your journal “friends only” for no reason what-so-ever. Afterall, your writings are FAR too cool for the rest of the internet to read.
17. Once you think your ‘friends’ “know you” throw them a curve ball. Say something like “Yeah, I got laid about 8 times last weekend.” or “I got SO trashed..”, people like reading about that.
18. Be sure to include a few posts in annoyingly huge fonts to get their attention.
19. Be sure to do every single ‘meme’ out there. Make sure meme posts and quiz result posts outnumber your ‘real’ posts by a ratio of 5:1.
20. You will then realize that no one gives a damn which Power Ranger you are, or what you taste like. You will then stop doing the quizzes.
21. However, those little fill in the blank memes are SO COOL! You will do the same one about 15 times and not even know it!
22. Be sure to include obscure jokes that only two of your friends will understand.
23. Comment-whore posts, you must do them.
24. One sentence posts are great.
25. One WORD posts are even cooler.
26. RARELY comment on your friends posts, but throw a temper tantrum when they don’t reply to yours.
27. You must have 37 comments per post to be a real LJ-er.
28. Ask questions in your journal that no one knows the answer to, then complain when they don’t know the answer.
29. Post at LEAST 4 times a day. Never make one big post.
30. Never do serious posts. Nobody likes reading about serious events in your life.
31. Use internet slang in your posts constantly. Example: D00d! W3 g07z 50 707ally l33t serverz 4 u
32. Never use your shift key. Ever.
33. Never use punctuation. We don’t need to know when to breathe.
34. Go on about stuff we don’t care about, like how your dog is, or how cruel you parents are for making you clean your room.
35. Ask an opinion of your readers about one of your physical features. Include before and after photos–this shows them that their opinion means nothing.
36. Tell your readers about your killer nap you had today. We all care, really.
37. Why yes, it IS your journal. Viewable to the entire internet.
38. Never turn on anonymous commenting.
39. Share your favorite mixed drink recipe, since everyone on the internet is over 21.
40. Include a link to your favorite site. If you like it, then your readers MUST love it.
41. Photo posts must be done at LEAST four times a week.
42. Change your journal’s style monthly.
43. Join rating communities. After all, you are the hottest person on the internet, and you have the best design skills. Along with the other 3.7 million users.
44. You must share your desktop picture every time it changes. This could be a new icon, a new picture–whatever.

*Phew* That was a long list. Now how do we represent ourselves?

Icons
45. Bring special attention to your BRAND NEW icon you just made in MS Paint.
46. You must have at LEAST one animated icon at all times.
47. The animated icon must have a small movie contained in it, with a still picture behind it.
48. You must have one icon that contains text. This may also be animated.
49. This textual icon must use a small font. Longer sayings must be animated. Try to cram the works of Poe into a 100X100 square.
50. You must have one icon that contains transparencies and a drop shadow. The transparencies will suck, and the drop shadow will be mangled.
51. No icon will contain an image of you.
52. If an icon DOES contain an image of you, it must be done anime-style. Preferably chibi.

Next we move on to journal styles.

Styles
53. Your style will cater to one web browser and one web browser only.
54. Your background will be dark in color and most likely be anime-based.
55. Always make note that you changed your style. We all care.
56. When changing your style, NEVER be original. Just tweek colors and fonts. Never change where things are.
57. The graphics of the style will consume the page, leaving a little area for content, so you can have four words a line.
58. You can’t go wrong with a black background and white font.

We’re almost done.

Misc.
59. You must get a paid account, and then only use it to make a ‘killer custom style.
60. Once you do have a paid account, you must then complain when its time is nearing the end.

And there you have it. How to be a successful El-Jayer in 60 steps.

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