In some cases, I just like being part of the talk. Right now that's Hacker News and Something Awful, because Reddit people frustrate me and the idea of losing days to Metafilter scares me. I'm also a little obsessive re:design. I like clicking every link on every web site to see where it takes me.

In a lot of cases, I like going through a site's history, reading up on its culture. I've spent a day or two going through the YTMND wiki, for instance, and right now I'm looking through the Let's Play Archive, which has quite a lot of fascinating stuff. My favorite moment there so far is http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/OregonTrail/Update%2021/index...., an Oregon Trail run where, to decide a single action at a river, people wrote a hundred or so poems stating their opinions.