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Reading diaries aloud
大声朗读日记
The art of over-sharing
过度分享的艺术
Who are personal journals written for?
私人日记是为谁而写的？
The tales embrace the mundane and the seismic, from being dumped by a boyfriend before the school prom to the sudden death of a parent.
这些故事既平凡琐碎又震撼人心，从在学校舞会开始前突然被男友甩掉，到父母突然去世。
The tone ranges from cheesy to heartbreaking.
叙述语气从俗气做作到伤心欲绝，五花八门。
The storytellers are “journal influencers”, mostly young women reading their teenage diaries to audiences online.
讲故事的人是“日记网红”，她们大多是年轻女性，在网上向观众朗读她们青少年时期的日记。
Some videos are mingled with other content, merging pre-teen dreams with make-up tips; others are simple shrines to past selves.
有些视频中混入了其他内容，比如把十一二岁时的梦想与化妆技巧融合起来，还有些视频则是对昔日自我的简单祭奠。
One influencer, Carrie Walker, draws 1.2m views for a half-hour read on YouTube; the shorter content on TikTok’s #diarytok tag has reached 54m.
其中一个网红嘉莉·沃克，在油管上朗读日记半小时的视频就吸引了120万的浏览量，发布在TikTok上带#diarytok标签的短视频浏览量已经达到5400万。
And sharing secrets presents commercial opportunity: selling notebooks and pens on Amazon; auctioning copies of diaries on eBay.
分享自己的秘密带来了商业机会：在亚马逊上卖笔记本和钢笔，在eBay上拍卖日记复印件。
Many people think about writing a diary, especially at New Year.
许多人都有写日记的打算，尤其是在新年之际。
Some start. Some even keep it up. But why write, and for whom?
有些人开始写了。有些人甚至能坚持下来。但为什么要写日记，日记又是为谁而写呢？
Whether a novice facing a blank page or a seasoned scribbler with years of good meals and gossip in irregular notebooks, almost any diarist has asked themselves that question.
无论是面对一张白纸的新手，还是多年来在笔记本上不定期记录了许多美食和家长里短的经验丰富的写手，几乎所有写日记的人都会问自己这个问题。
Sally Bayley of the University of Oxford, author of “The Private Life of the Diary”, regards sharing on social media as the antithesis of diary-keeping.
牛津大学的萨莉·贝利是《日记的私生活》一书的作者，她认为在社交媒体上分享生活与写日记是对立的。
The journal is “an attempt to be honest with yourself”.
写日记是“尝试对自己以诚相待”。
It is “an internal territory, which you are mapping onto the page”, inseparable from privacy.
它是“内心的疆域，被你映射到纸页上”，与隐私密不可分。
Even Sylvia Plath, a “theatrical individual”, Dr Bayley notes, wrote a diary in order to “generate a voice in private”.
贝利博士指出，即使是西尔维娅·普拉斯这样的“个性夸张的人”，写日记也是为了“在私下发出声音”。
Yet diaries have also long been shared, if more discreetly than on TikTok.
然而，人们很早就开始分享日记了，只是比TikTok上的做法更谨慎一些。
Keeping a journal rose in popularity in the 19th century, especially among women.
在19世纪，写日记变得流行起来，尤其是在女性中。
According to Cynthia Huff, an academic specialist in Victorian culture, diary-sharing then was “extremely common”.
专门研究维多利亚时代文化的学者辛西娅·赫夫表示，当时分享日记“非常普遍”。
Diaries were read aloud, sent to friends or left open for visitors to peruse.
日记被大声朗读出来、送给朋友、翻开供访客细读。
“That distinction between public and private really doesn’t hold at all,” says Professor Huff.
赫夫教授说：“这种公开与私密之间的区别根本站不住脚。”
Some diaries served practical uses, sharing advice on self-improvement, pregnancy or childbirth.
因为一些日记有实际用途，分享了关于自我提升、怀孕或分娩的建议。
British women in the colonies often sent diaries back home.
在殖民地的英国妇女经常把日记寄回家乡。
They were “creating an extended family through these diaries” and fostering an ocean-spanning sense of Englishness.
她们“通过这些日记创造了延伸的家庭”，并培养了一种跨越海洋的英国氛围。
Many journal videos also create a sense of community.
许多日记视频也创造了一种社群氛围。
They share stories of isolation: of suffering homophobia, struggles with body image or early romantic obsessions.
他们分享自己曾感到孤立无援的故事：对同性恋感到恐惧，因为身材外形而苦恼不堪，或早些时候对某人的狂热迷恋。
They poke fun at the distorted expectations of youth and the disappointments of adulthood, with the ear of sympathetic strangers.
他们对青春期时扭曲的期望和成年后的失望进行自嘲，观看视频的陌生人对此抱以同情态度。
Some diary-sharers go further.
一些日记分享者走得更远。
At Queer Diary, a series of events across Britain begun in 2020 by Beth Watson, a performer, LGBTQ adults read their old diaries to a live audience.
演员贝丝·沃森于2020年开始在英国各地举办"酷儿日记"活动，让LGBTQ成年人向现场观众朗读他们以前写的日记。
The drama, confusion and mayhem of teenage life are performed to a sympathetic crowd.
将青春期生活中的戏剧性、困惑和混乱演绎给具有同情心的人们。
The celebration, Ms Watson says, is as important as the reflection.
沃森表示，这种庆祝和回忆一样重要。
The symbiosis of secrecy and celebration was perhaps best understood by Anais Nin, a 20th-century French-born American whose diary was an unapologetic exercise in self-creation.
20世纪出生于法国的美国人阿奈伊·宁或许最能理解这种私密故事与公开庆祝的共生关系，她的日记就是毫不让步的自我创造活动。
“I am in my Journal, and in my Journal only, nowhere else.
“我存在于我的日记里，而且只存在于日记里，不存在于任何其他地方。
Nothing shows on the outside.
日记之外并不显示任何的我。
Perhaps I do not exist except as a fantastic character in this story.”
也许除了作为这个故事中的奇妙角色之外，我并不存在。”
Nin’s mix of fantasy and truth included an illegal abortion, extramarital affairs and, most notoriously, an incestuous relationship with her father.
宁的幻想和现实交织在一起，产生的故事包括非法堕胎、婚外情，最臭名昭著的是她与父亲的乱伦关系。
Her assertions of confidentiality—“you won’t say anything, will you”; “only my Journal knows it” —treat the reader as the sole listener.
她坚决要求保密的话语--“你什么都不会说，好吗？”“只有我的日记知道”--把读者当作唯一的听众。
And yet, of course, Nin published her journal.
但是，当然，宁还是出版了她的日记。
Its scandalous content won her fame that her fiction had not.
其中的丑闻般的内容让她赢得了写小说所没有带来的知名度。
Her confessional texts penetrated the thin veil between public and private.
她的忏悔文字穿透了公开与私密之间的薄薄面纱。
The diaries are a masterclass in broadcast secrecy, a megaphoned whisper.
这些日记是教人把秘密广而告之的大师课，是用扩音机讲出来的窃窃私语。
“We write to taste life twice,” Nin wrote, “in the moment and in retrospection.”
“我们写作是为了品味生活两次，”宁写道，“一次是在当下，一次是在回顾往事时。”
She spent her last years reading her diaries to worshipping crowds.
她在生命的最后几年里一直在给她的崇拜者们朗读日记。
Like today’s influencers, she knew that retrospection tastes much sweeter in company.
像如今的网红一样，她知道比起独自追忆，众人相聚品尝的回忆味道要甜美得多。
