A post in 1999 demonstrates that LiveJournal processes Cyrillic encoding, sparking the Russian internet's most pervasive and influential early social media site. LiveJournal, soon known simply as ZhZh in Russian (for “Zhivoi zhurnal”), became a platform for poets, writers, political activists, essayists—and graphomaniacs. It launched or catalyzed several literary and political careers, and fed the budding market for conspiratorial thinking in late 1990s-era Russia.