I agree with Shelley Jackson’s arguments in some cases, but her kind of hypertext writing can really overwhelm me because I feel obligated to read everything. An example of a site I’ve come across lately that is exactly the kind of hypertext writing Jackson discusses is betcheslovethissite.com. The site pokes fun at a certain demographic.
The website is full of links and does not need to be read in any particular order. I had a friend email me a link and then browsed how I saw fit. Sometimes I clicked the links, sometimes I didn’t. The writers had to keep me engaged in every blog post; they didn’t have the opportunity to make up for a boring chapter with an interesting one. If something was boring, I would simply move on to something more interesting because the web is endless. The website contains no “thrust towards the end” that is imperative in novels. I enjoy each word choice, each sentence and each paragraph as much as the next one. There is no beginning, middle and end, just funny content that keeps me reading.