The Heartbreak Haiku site invited visitors to condense their tragic, failed-relationship stories into three line haiku. While many internet communities spring up around common interests or obsessions, Heartbreak Haiku attempted to create a community of users organized around a particular set of emotions:
“Your best pals are happy to listen to your rambling, romantic sob stories once, maybe twice. But don’t be tempted to go on and on… Channel your obsessive thoughts, weepiest self-pitying moments, and bouts of vengeful fury into the concise, elegant Japanese poem form HAIKU. Submit your haiku here, your comrades in frustration and devastation and misery and rage will read them… and you might even feel better.”
