Why would a person buy a stranger’s diary?
The descriptions of some of the diaries available on eBay range from eye-catching to just plain disturbing. One post provides an extensive description of its writer, introducing a “young promiscuous mother” who has to deal with her “sexual addictions” while supporting a new child from an unexpected pregnancy. Another diary from 1980 seems much less dramatic: the eBay description says that the diary consists of daily notes, but it includes little to no information about the personal attributes of the writer. One seller advertises their product by musing that a “frenetic (possibly substance-induced) vibe radiates from every page.”
The diaries range from $10 to multiple thousands, varying drastically depending on the number of filled pages, the time period, and the author. Some are leatherbound and chock-full of cursive, some spiral-bound; some are organized like farmer’s logbooks with daily notes, and others are filled with emotional rants.
I purchased two diaries from the early 2000s for $10 total to get personal experience with the practice of diary buying. I wanted to fully understand the process and buying a couple myself seemed to be the first step.
Though I felt apprehensive, I went to pick up the diaries as soon as they had arrived in the mail. My stomach lurched as I pulled the two little books out of their bright yellow packaging. One was hardcover, and the other spiral-bound. They had biblical statements like “Trust in the Lord” and “God’s way is perfect” inscribed on their covers and printed on their pages. And, of course, they were filled with someone else’s handwriting.
Even though I knew exactly what I had signed up for when I decided to get them, flipping through the journals made my stomach churn. Looking at the lines of looping cursive made me feel uneasy; I didn’t consider myself the type of person to read someone else’s most private thoughts until that moment. I felt especially invasive when I read the inscription on the inside of one of the covers: “Private + Personal Property of mine––Betty Penrose.” (Her name has been changed to protect her privacy.)
I had purchased these journals for a reason, however, and I wasn’t going to just leave them on my desk. Despite my discomfort, I could sense my curiosity begging me to read through the pages.
To my surprise, it took less than a page for my inhibitions to fade. I realized that these diaries were not those of a young girl, as I had assumed (stereotypically, I know). I was reading the work of a 55-year-old woman, as she wrote on one inside cover. By the bottom of the first page, I had begun to associate her with a grandmotherly figure. It was as though her mannerisms were embedded in the diction. I could hear her voice talking about how she was sure the trash cans had blown over in the rain the night she wrote her first entry. She worried about her relationship with her children and detailed her day-to-day troubles, like an argument she had with her husband over a $5 loan. She often finished entries with entreaties to the Lord to guide her through her struggles.
As the months progressed, the intensity of Betty’s life heightened. She was having trouble with finances, her husband was succumbing to alcoholism for yet another year, and she was considering a divorce. Suddenly, the entries stopped. I flipped to the other diary and opened it to find that the next entry was from four years later. Betty was talking about her husband like nothing was wrong. What had happened in those four years?
It didn’t take much introspection for me to get a better understanding of why other people might read stranger’s diaries—I was doing it myself. Once I put the diaries down, however, my thoughts about the ethics of reading them kicked into high gear again. I didn’t intend to publicize Betty’s life or her acquaintances’ personal issues using their real identities. But what if someone did decide to do that?
I have no idea if Betty is still alive, but if she is, I now know more about her than I would ever want to admit. That’s the strangest part—I feel a bond with this stranger, and I am interested in her wellbeing. I want to know what happened to her after the pages ended, but at the same time, I would never want to meet her.
I can imagine that it might feel like someone sneaking into my room and reading my journals—I would rather not know what they had done, let alone talk to them about it. That, I realized, was where my qualms about the ethics of reading strangers’ diaries lay: awareness. I never questioned the morality of reading the journals of medieval monks, the logbooks of privateers, or even the diary of Anne Frank. None of those people would know that I had read their journals. The issues surrounding reading the diaries of the long-dead are far more easily dismissed than those of the still-living.
While I know my theory is slightly hypocritical, given that I myself read the personal thoughts of a woman who is likely still alive, I still stand by the idea that the private issues of another are meant to stay that way unless explicit consent is given.
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A Reddit user named Dawn used her writing to justify collecting used diaries. She first learned of used diaries when a friend gifted her one, and she has continued to collect ever since. In her post she wrote, “For someone who loves writing about real life, this is a perfect way to build a character and put myself in their shoes via written-down thoughts. The diaries were like fertilizer to my brain, blooming ideas and ways to write. It was eye opening.”
Though it had been years since the original post, I managed to speak with Dawn. I was glad to hear more of Dawn’s thoughts, especially those confirming the validity of the post—while she noted that she posted her original piece “thinking that people would see it as fiction,” the personal experience described within was real.
The post contained several excerpts from a diary with intense descriptions of the writer’s struggles with mental illness. It seems that Dawn is cautious about sharing more; even though I didn’t mention that writer (who is still alive) or his diary to Dawn at all, she made it very clear in her responses to me that she “will not try to answer questions related to the guy in the diary.” It made me wonder if others had contacted Dawn asking about that man in particular.
Dawn has spent hundreds of dollars on diaries, but she isn’t alone. In the Buzzfeed video “I Bought a Stranger’s Diary,” the host bid over a hundred dollars for the diaries she read on camera. The host’s motivations for investing in the diary market seem less personal than Dawn’s goal of improving her writing. The reasoning behind the Buzzfeed diary purchase is, as exemplified by the title, clickbait. Other videos by the same host have similar content, such as “I Bought a Stranger’s Love Letters from eBay.” The titles evoke a visceral reaction, calling to mind invasion of privacy and the commodification of deeply personal belongings. The strategy is effective; the used diary video has just under five million views.
While I understood the individual motivations, I also found the sheer amount of time, energy, and money that I saw pouring into the used diary market astounding on multiple levels—a commitment embodied by some particularly devoted collectors.
Sally Macnamara is a used diary aficionado who has read “between 8,000 and 10,000 pieces” over the course of 30 years. It would be difficult to find someone with more experience than she in the world of “vintage diaries,” as she calls them. While her enterprises with the personal writing of others began with a collection of letters, Sally soon moved into the realm of diaries. For Sally, the personal connections are one of the most important aspects of diary reading: “you get very attached to these [families] and it makes you only want to know more.” The more diaries she read, the more she considered herself “the perfect caretaker of their stories.” As she says, “I treat every family, every diary or archive with the deepest of respect … Each diary finds a special place in my heart and they become almost a part of me or I a part of their family, and I hold that in the highest regard … I take what I do very seriously.”
The majority of the pieces she has read are written by people who have passed away, because, as she notes, “it gets a bit tricky when you are reading diaries from someone who is still living.” However, no matter what types of diaries she reads, Sally is conscientious and respectful.
Sally is not just a “keeper of secrets,” as she has been described. Similarly to Dawn, Sally learns from the stories of other people. In fact, she says that what she has read has been “life changing”—understandable, given how many years of her life she has devoted to the practice.
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I still don’t completely understand why a person would buy a stranger’s diary. I question what type of person would bid a winning $46 for a “personal female journal” on eBay described to include “depression… secrets… anxiety… sexual harassment ...” But although some people might read used diaries for darker purposes, those I spoke to had varied and unique motivations for engaging with them. Dawn has her character studies, the Buzzfeed host has her viewer count. Sally has her personal attachments, and I have my curiosity. The draw behind vintage diaries, however, is the same for the majority of those who read them. Sally said it best: “Everybody has a story … and a good one at that.”