me rambling about LJ

[hermionesviolin]

Monday, sk8eeyore linked to this article about technology and community (chaplaincy bent).  She mentioned how we had once tried to explain LJ etc. to an adult she knew [and looking at this entry now I realize that lots of the people I know on LJ came to LJ as adults, but I'm not really sure how to work that into all the stuff I've already written, so I'm just leaving it as is and people can point out problematics, holes, etc. in the comments], which prompted me remembering the arguments I had used.  I did a lot of pen palling in my teens, so that's my instinctual analogy.  And then there are the arguments about finding individuals/communities with shared interests and how valuable that can be for people who feel marginalized in their physical communities.  And having a safe space in which to articulate oneself can be an empowering growth-aiding thing.  Plus of course there's the fact that lots of time people who first "met" each other online end up arranging to meet in meatspace (because yes, we do still value meatspace interaction, even if we don't necessarily privilege it) so it's not like the two are mutually exclusive.

I wonder how much worry is a holdover from the early days when people were forever faking AOL profiles and participating in AOL chats as someone other than themselves.  It's really difficult to maintain a false persona on an online journal (and in fact I know more about a lot of my LJ "friends" than I do about a lot of people I went to school with) and also on LJ there's a lot of meeting people via other people, so these are not complete strangers with no character references.  Also: LJ has a function whereby you can post things filtered only to a select group of people, so in many ways you control how private you remain.

Tuesday, alixtii linked to this Chronicle article about Facebook.  And then on fanthropology someone's "doing a Psychology study on the differences between how people interact with other online (specifically fandom) versus how they interact with those in real life" and was seeking past research (formal or informal) on this.

I've seen a bunch of posts recently about conceptualizing one's LJ flist as a list of friends or as a reading list, and then Friday's metafandom linked to southernbangel's post which opens: "So I've been thinking a lot lately about LJ and the nature of friendships that develop through LJ and other forms of internet interaction (email, YIM/AIM, etc.). To be frank, LJ has warped my sense of intimacy and friendship."  On Saturday, escritoireazul posted about fabu's post (from this past Sunday) on how we conceptualize LJ space -- coming out of an earlier post on the recurrent metafandom wank about linking to public posts -- which I realized I'd read back when metafandom linked it on Monday.  [Obsessive about linking/citing/etc., me? O:-) ]

hedy sent me a link to this article about a Harvard employee who was fired due to her blog, which reminds me to be somewhat cautious about what/how I post about work.  I use abbreviations for some people, but I interact regularly with so many people and am really not inclined to use abbreviations for all of them, plus if you know anything about the place I work it would probably be not all that hard to figure out identities anyway.  One major reason I got an LJ back in my first year of college was for ease of keeping in touch with people (namely my parents) but even then I knew I wouldn't give the address to the people I had worked with (though I did give it to various high school friends, whom I doubt read this) and LJ is now my main way of keeping in touch with friends from college but I wouldn't give the address to the people I work with now.

I post about anything and everything, often at great length, though I also tailor content/style due to my knowledge of audience (though you probably wouldn't guess it to look at this ;) ).

I was gonna talk about how I don't flock anything (though I sometimes private lock stuff) and how I get stubborn around my principles and it's sometimes problematic because it means I can't post anything I don't want anybody I know to be reading this to read (like if I wanted to plan a surprise party for someone, for example, I couldn't do it via LJ) and how I totally understand why a lot of people flock and I was gonna talk about compartmentalizing and complications, but my brain is just not up for that at the moment.

Oh, and today missambs posted about defriending amnesty etc.  I'm usually very hesitant to friend people (I have a plethora of issues) though I did a bunch of immediate friendbacks recently (which has at least one problematic -- namely trying to keep all those people straight).  I think it was lunabee34 I was talking about this with recently, about friending "people" versus "journals."  [Edit: Yup, it was.] There are some people I knew as people first and I'm interested in reading about their lives, and there are other people I "met" via LJ and I'm primarily interested in what they post.  And then there are people in between, and sometimes I grow into friendships with LJ people and sometimes I grow apart from "RL" people, and I am forever coming back to questions of how I use my own LJ.  I use it to record stuff for my own reference and I also use it to disseminate information and house discussion.  Work sucks up most of my time/energy recently and I often find myself wondering why people continue to read my LJ 'cause I think, "I wouldn't friend this LJ."  People talk about the pressure to perform, and in a lot of ways I want to perform -- in the sense that I want to produce stuff of value, but on the other hand this is first and foremost a tool for me.  And of course at the same time I whine silently when I make posts that I do think of as having value and I feel like "Wah, why does no one comment?" and I get bitter when I see long comment threads on random stuff in other people's LJs -- and this post is really devolving, so I'm shutting up now.  But oh yeah, my point when I started this paragraph was gonna be that I'll probably be a little hurt if you defriend me, but if you're not interested in reading me, please don't feel beholden like you have to keep me around.  I would probably rather be defriended than filtered out (oh me and my honesty issues).  [I say "probably" because it gets weirder when people flock all/most of their journals because then there is direct effect on me if they defriend me rather than just filtering me out of their reading.]

Comments

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

This is a really interesting post that covers a lot of topics. I find that the way I use lj has steadily evolved and I see no indication that it will not continue to change for the duration that I use it. At first, I used lj primarily to post my own fic and to squee over fandom and to feedback other people's fic and get to know other members of fandom better by commenting on their posts. I also used it secondarily in more of the Journal sense of lj. As time has gone on, I have done much less personal posting. I very rarely post about events in my life that aren't fannish (I saw this movie, I read this book, I'm going to writercon) and the ones I do post about now are usually huge in nature: family death, etc. I also do much less fic writing, so I'm using it less as a vehicle for my own writing. However, I do much more of the writing I would consider meta-ish. The main function of my journal currently (besides the using it to comment/create friendships with other people, which has never changed and is the one function of my journal that I don't think ever will change) is to create a handy list for me of the fic/meta I've read lately that I enjoyed. It seems a kind of limited way to use lj, actually, and I'm not altogether pleased with the way I currently use lj, but *shrugs*

Oooh, and this might be the place to articulate a worry I've been having lately. I don't know a way to say this really without sounding like, well, a bitch, LOL, but I'm going to writercon this summer. I am so excited. I think it will be amazing to finally meet a lot of people that I've only interacted with virtually. A lot of the people I will be meeting there are already on my flist, but my worry is this. I know everybody will be insanely cool, and I'll come away from it really wanting to get to know a ton of these people better, and before I know it, I've got this huge flist. LOL And then I'll get all cranky about lj because I can't keep up, etc. Am I just insane to worry about something like that?

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

A lot of the people I will be meeting there are already on my flist, but my worry is this. I know everybody will be insanely cool, and I'll come away from it really wanting to get to know a ton of these people better, and before I know it, I've got this huge flist. LOL And then I'll get all cranky about lj because I can't keep up, etc. Am I just insane to worry about something like that?

I totally feel you on that conflict. [Which I have with LJ and plenty of other things as well.] Like, on the one hand I want to cultivate friendships with more people (and cultivate deeper friendships with the people I already know) but on the other hand I don't have enough time to do all the reading/writing/etc. I wanna do already.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Glad it's not just me.

And I'm about to go against what I just said here and do a personal post. LOL

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Hey, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. (*Foolish* consistency, mind you. I seethe when people claim that *consistency* is the hobgoblin of small minds.)