Another nervous moment during the panel came from Mark, a 15-year-old who bore a strong resemblance to a young Tobey McGuire. He announced he had a private, password-protected journal that had spun off from his Web log. "I can't let my family read it. I can't let my friends read it. I can't let my girlfriend read it," he said. "I'm scared."

I ran into him later that night and asked him what he was writing about in his private Web space, and why he felt like he couldn't share it with anyone.

He mentioned that his father was a conservative Christian and added, "I'm discussing my issues with my sexuality. I'm not sure if I'm gay, but I just want to be able to talk about it somewhere. My father isn't into me putting myself on the Internet. If he read it, I wouldn't be here (at SXSW) right now."

There was no one in Mark's personal community he felt he could go to, so he placed his thoughts in a controlled space where he could get feedback. He created his own community, in a simultaneously public and private manner. It's a fitting tribute to the many possibilities of the Web, though a precarious situation, particularly for an adolescent: substituting interaction with strangers for real communication with friends and family. But Mark is one of thousands -- there are a lot of isolated people out there posting their stories in hopes of anyone, anyone at all, listening.

As for me: How isolated was I to post my thoughts online? It initially began as an experiment, a step toward developing an online writing voice vs. my existing print voice. It eventually helped me to create a career as a multimedia producer, and I made some friends in the process.

My journal was never fancy, nor did it garner a lot of attention. (Lately I've been receiving 150 hits a day.) I never used my last name, and I certainly never used the name of my employers. I didn't want to piss anyone off; I just wanted to document my experiences in New York, get some feedback on my writing style and, in general, just keep myself writing on a regular basis. I wanted to maintain it as long as my identity remained a secret.

I recently published my first article on Salon, and damn if smart, curious readers didn't suss me out. I thought I had erased any connection of my first and last name to my journal, only to discover that former band mates had used my name in the meta tags of their site, as well as indexed me on certain search engines. A persistent investigator would find a link to my journal on the band's site. My journal was suddenly flooded by people who knew exactly who I was. Worlds collided. I shut down the site.

My private life became public, and the worst part was, I did it to myself. I'm not too upset about it, to be honest, because I haven't lost my ability to write, just my ability to self-publish temporarily. I'll get over it. It's just a little difficult on those bright, sunny days in New York when Hare Krishnas dance wildly around trees.

I want to raise my voice up high with them.

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