I am lonely will anyone speak to me

"I am lonely will anyone speak to me" is the title of a thread which was posted on the internet forum of the video codec downloads site Moviecodec.com, and had become "the web's top hangout for lonely folk."[1][2] The thread began July 14, 2004. It gained media attention and popularity when it became the first hit when the phrase "I am lonely" was entered into the Google search engine (though it has since dropped).[3] Because of its popularity, it was featured in the magazines Wired,[2] Guardian Unlimited,[4] and The New Yorker.[5] 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," crediting the popularity of the topic to the nature of like-minded people, in this case being the lonely population.[2] Mark Griffiths, a researcher in internet psychology at Britain's Nottingham Trent University 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."[2] Due to its large community, Bjarne created a new forum entitled A Lonely Life,[6] for the thread's numerous lonely inhabitants to move to. Since then, the thread's activity has died down significantly though it still receives posts on a regular basis. The original thread is now located on Moviecodec.com's branch site, The Lounge Forums.[7]

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