Ethan Chiel recounts the strange story behind the decade-old Internet phenomenon I am lonely will anyone speak to me:
[Ten years ago] an unregistered guest poster using the name “lonely” started a thread on the forums at moviecodec.com, a site usually dedicated to discussing digital video files. The thread was titled “i am lonely will anyone speak to me,” and the first post read:
please will anyone speak to about anything to me …
Ten days after the thread was created, another guest, wetfeet2000, made the first of what of what would be many similar posts:
dude, i typed in “I am lonely” in google, and your post was the very first reposnse. does that make you the most popular lonliest person on the planet ?
Noting that the thread is now nearly 2,200 pages long, Chiel considers its significance:
I’ve never posted in the thread, but I think about some of the posts in it often. Having spent time as the top search result for lonely people seeking help through Google means that it doubles as a public archive of mostly anonymous human loneliness. … There are definitely bad elements in “i am lonely will anyone speak to me,” but I think of it fondly anyway because for a long time it’s struck me as an enduring example of something the Internet is well suited for: an impromptu place where people can say something out loud, and where doing so might help them a little.
Which makes us all a little less lonely.
The Dish 