I didn't like Online Caroline when I met her. The first time that I visited the Online Caroline webpage, I took one look at the faux-webcam -- showing her running around her house acting like a doofus -- and decided that I didn't really want to be "friends" with this person. But it was an assignment, so I registered my email address and waited for my first e-mail.

And the first e-mail was annoying, too.

So, I'll confess: I didn't bother with Online Caroline again.

The following Monday, we discussed Online Caroline -- and the Jill Walker essay that gave away the ending -- at length. Not being at all invested in Online Caroline, I had no reason to worry about her impending death, so I kept on ignoring the e-mails that were imploring me to visit the site. I wondered if maybe I'd get an email from XPT, anyway, to inform me of Caroline's disappearance or whatever, but no... I received nothing of the sort. Then, yesterday, I finally got this:

Like most of the class, I wasn't overly impressed with Caroline and Jemma. However, it occurs to me that most of our critiques of the sites have centered around the somewhat frivolous content of the stories rather than around the genre/medium itself. McLuhan would be displeased with us. It seems to me that it would be possible to create a very interesting story with this kind of format. There's no reason I can think of why these stories need to center around boys and clothes and alcohol. Alas, it seems that new literary and artistic forms often begin as either cliched, melodramatic entertainment or insufferably self-concious exercises in being different.

Like most of the class, I haven't been too impressed with my first five days of Online Caroline/Planet Jemma. Jemma bores me completely, and Caroline didn't interest me until I read Walker's article and got spoiled for the end. The problem for me isn't the false sense of friendship, it's the fact that Jemma's story is just really boring, and I just don't care at all about the stuff she's interested in (the little asides on astronomy or whatever). And it wouldn't be any more interesting if she were real--I wouldn't read a blog with the same content.

What I do appreciate about Online Caroline is the depth of Caroline's fictional world--the fact that there is an XPT website, for example, and pages like this one on that site.

Well, I initiated my "relationship" with Caroline yesterday, and I wanted to record my first impressions before I check my email (the "other one" that I gave to calm my fears of being spammed) to see how things have progressed.

All in all, I was more than a little uncomfortable with onlinecaroline. The friendly to neurotic tone was too much for me, and the snapshot intimacy was far from something that I could see developing into a friendship. In much the same way as tophat1, I browsed suspiciously through the website and found myself put that much more on the defensive at each cheerful greeting.

Warning: Don't read the recommended blog until you have spent a few days with Caroline. (Unless, of course, you don't mind that it gives away the story)

I just logged on to www.onlinecaroline.com and started what I believe will be a very strange "relationship." As a perpetually wary internet user, I was nervous to log in for the first time because it required my real e-mail address. Immediately, in her first greeting, Caroline assures you that she will e-mail you all the time. First thoughts: a) I have a new stalker that seems a little unstable; b) is my quarantine summary going to be fifty pages long?