It is the day after Saint Valentine's Day and also the day after Elin's nineteenth birthday. She has been writing Reload since April. That's when she got a mail from Nanok who asked her if she would like to join after being tipped by Peter. "But Nanok is no longer on the net," Elin informs us. "He's turned completely analog." Peter on the other hand, who is an old net friend from the days on the Swedish BBS StingNet, is also writing an reload as well as looking after the page together with David.

Reload is a phenomenon started by Nanok and has received great publicity in the Swedish mediums lately. It began with just a couple of persons writing personal texts about them selves and their surroundings. They were all linked from Nanok's page Concussion. The list of link grew and the Reloaders, as they called themselves, moved to the new address www.reload.org. Today reload is more popular then ever and not anybody who wants can become a reloader. "Some have even been kicked out," Elin says. "But those are people who haven' t updated their pages for months."

Elin objects when I call Reload a diary. "Yes, diaries are meant to be personal, but Reload is not a diary. A diary is a book that nobody else, but oneself, reads. Something personal." She doesn't tell everything about herself, although it's easier writing personal on the Net than it would be telling somebody in real life.
    Except for reload Elin doesn't write. Not voluntary. Only when she has to at school. " It's easier to write about oneself. You can make it simple and don't need to learn a lot of rules," she says.
    Although it's hard she tries to avoid reading the other reloads. "It becomes an obsession," she says. "You're sitting behind your monitor and make yourself read every single reload. So I'm trying not to do that."
    Though she does visit Raisa's reload frequently. "We read each other's reloads and send small messages through our homepages," she says.
    Another reload friend is Daniel, who saw her page about Yvonne and mailed her asking if she would like some pictures. This started a collaboration which lead to the Honey is Cool homepage. Today they are working on a third homepage for the record company Starboy. She's also working on a page for the Swedish band Robot, with a girl named Lena. The Swedish band's Polythene's homepage she's done on her own.

Elin is not much for following trends, but she's decided she's staying at Reload. "Yes, this is something I enjoy to do. It's an ego-thing actually... you can't make up in a reload." At the same time she doesn't want to think about that there are actually people reading what she writes. "None of my friends have mentioned anything, but I think there's at least one classmate who's reading. During my winter break, I got a message to my mail, which was sent from my homepage. 'What?? We've got a French test?' it said."
    To write a reload under a false name has crossed her mind. "I've written things before under a false name," she says. "And it would be cool to write under a false name... while nobody would know who you are you would still be writing true occurrences. But that's impossible," now she says with a sigh.

"Laugh at me. See if I care.

I care too much, but don't tell me if you know and it's cool.
    It doesn't sound too bad but of course I haven't been able to tell you all I'd like. It's so hard. How do you do?"

extract from elin's reload, Wednesday 28 January 1998