"i am lonely will anyone speak to me" was the title of a thread that was posted on the
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...
of the video
codec
A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder.
In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or ...
downloads site Moviecodec.com, and had become "the web's top hangout for lonely folk".
The thread began July 14, 2004; it was the first hit when the phrase "I am lonely" was entered into the
Google
Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
search engine though it has since dropped.
It was featured in the magazines ''
Wired
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San ...
'',
''
Guardian Unlimited
TheGuardian.com, formerly known as Guardian.co.uk and ''Guardian Unlimited'', is a British news and media website owned by the Guardian Media Group. It contains nearly all of the content of the newspapers ''The Guardian'' and ''The Observer'', ...
'',
and ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
''.
Bjarne Lundgren, the webmaster of Moviecodec.com, has stated "Like-minded people tend to flock together and, in this case, Google helped in flocking them together on my site".
Mark Griffiths, a researcher in internet psychology at
Nottingham Trent University in the
UK, also addressed this question, stating: "There are a lot of lonely people out there. Some people rely heavily on technology and end up treating it as an electronic friend, a sounding board—just writing it down can make you feel better... That doesn't change their psychological world at that moment, but creating a kinship with like-minded people can help. You're all in this virtual space together."
Due to its large community, Bjarne created a new forum entitled "A Lonely Life", for the thread's numerous lonely inhabitants to move to. The original thread was later moved to Moviecodec.com's branch site, The Lounge Forums,
but as of December 24, 2016, the website the thread is hosted on was shut down and can no longer be accessed.
See also
*
Loneliness
Loneliness is an unpleasant emotional response to perceived isolation. Loneliness is also described as social paina psychological mechanism which motivates individuals to seek social connections. It is often associated with a perceived lack ...
References
External links
* {{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060324180631/http://www.moviecodec.com/topics/2420p1.html , date=2006-03-24, title=i am lonely will anyone speak to me. Original thread on Moviecodec forums.
Internet memes
2004 works
Internet forums