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Space, Persona, Reciprocity : a rant about some of my frustrations with Livejournal as a medium
I miss old boards and forums. I miss newsnet. It's not that livejournal is a bad medium, it's an amazingly powerful, versatile a tool, that allows you to customize so many things. You don't have to bear with the clunkiness of Ezboard or the unbearable slowness of Voy. You don't even get popups, but you get lots of place for graphics, even without paying. It's incredibly rich in possibilities.
But I still miss all the other kind of boards. I miss being able to relate to a specific space where there were specific rules, a specific usual crowd, some specific moderators, and, above all that, a specific topic of interest that brought all of us together. I miss the context.
LJ is context-less. No matter where from your friends are, no matter how you relate to them (are you reading them because their close to you, because you like their fics, for the purpose of fandom, because you like their political commentary, etc. ?) they appear the same on your friend page. You can filter them (though i'm too lazy to do that) but you can't fix the fact that the paradigm of your interactions isn't structured at all. And you never quite now at what distance the people you're talking to are.
I also miss the treshold aspect of it. You get in a forum, you get in discussions with everyone, and everyone can see your post. You can answer to anyone without wondering whether they'll fill you're intruding into a private space, and even if you're totally unknown, there's a good chance you will be answered if what you say is relevant and interesting. You participate in group interactions. Along the way, you get to know people, and from conversations to conversation, you get to consider them as friends, merely interesting partners in debate, or people you don't especially like but that are part of the collective background.
With LJ, you have absolutly no clue what does it mean to friend someone. Usually if you meet someone on LJ, you find them interesting and you want to get to know them better because you wonder if maybe you could become friends.... well you friend them. Which brings you at once to the most private and intimate possible way to interact with them, and in an "official" way. (Of course, again, you can use filters to keep a gradation of how close you are to people... provided you're willing to go into friend only, which I am not) If you find out eventually that any interesting person isn't for any reasons likely to become your friend, you can only "break up" with them by unfriending them. So very awkward.
Of course, people have tried to address that in many ways. They call "friend list" "reading list"; and they use several journals for several kinds of interaction (one private journal, one fandom journal etc.) However, once more, I'm too lazy to do that (and I find logging in and logging out much too annoying too)
Fact remains that LJ remains a very twisted mix of private and public and semi public interactions. On one hand, it's a place which is your journal, YOURS to tell about your life or anything that strikes your fancy. On the other hand, you are published on the friend list of anyone who wants to read you and that you don't specificaly filter, and they might call on you for bad formatting, flaming things they like and general wank.
Not to mention that LJ are so cliquish in its very nature that you don't even notice that it's cliquish because the wild troll flaming the place doesn't even exist in your eyes unless they start flaming your own journal. Sometimes it's a good thing, because it diminishes abrasive arguments. Sometimes it's a bad things, because you don't even see the possibly legitimate criticisms addressed to a fandom. We all live in our own little world, and we never see what we don't want to see.
Now, of course, one of the value of Internet lies in its anonymousity. You can take much more liberty with revealing personnal and private things to people, because you're dealing with strangers and are likely to remain so. That makes you more free of revealing different aspects of yourself. You're not doomed to a specific identity because everyone knows you already as such. Different place, differenty space, different situations, different attitudes. Different personna (personnae ?). Why, yes, that's interactionnism.
And that's exactly the place where LJ is failing. With previous media, my attitude changed. I didn't act the same way in ATPoBtVS (mixt crowd, rather older than I, very cultured); as I did on roleplaying game Exalted forums (big male majority, about the same age as I) or as I do in the Clamp fandom (big female majority, younger than I, different lingos)
That doesn't mean that I'm lying in any of those fandoms, only that I adapted my behaviour to the context and the situation of each forum for a maximum enjoyment of the interactions.
No such possibility with LJ. Entries that are serious and reflexive in tone sit next to the ones where I'm making rant or laughing silly about a private joke. Parts of my flist (as an audience) will always miss part of the context of everything I will say. And many times I'm afraid i'm going to bore them to tears / freak them out / disapoint them because of it.
And likewise, I have nothing to say in answer to part of what people on my flist (as performers) are saying.
Which leads me to the third part of my rant, reciprocity. In away, recriprocity is made an even bigger part of relationships between people on the internet. In fandom, your status is directly relevant to how much you contribute to the fandom, be it in the form of discussions, admnistration, essays, fanfics, graphics, programs, ressources and of course, reviews. (I'm not going to mention the clientelist relationship between a BFN and their worshippers :p)
By making comments so much easier and simpler to give, LJ welcomes much more direct interaction. And indeed, the duty of readers to provide feedback to a writer they like has become almost seen as a civil duty (at least in ideal, obviously in fact many many people don't bother), and lurking has become a habit looked down upon. (Or at least it seems to me that such a shift has occured, but it could be only because I moved to different fandoms that worked in a different way) That's globally a good thing. But it does have some less nice consequences. I have not waited to be on LJ to start posting because I wanted people to answer what I said. However what gets me the most comments on LJ is unfailingly the post to which I wanted the least. Such as personnal entries where i talk about problems in my life and general moodiness, or memes where I offer to say things to the people answering the comment. In a way, it's sweet : one case shows that people care for me (despite the fact that I hate when people worry for me and that I'm generally very uncomfortable with dealing with people as person and not around some random kind of abstract subject); and the other is one of the perks of LJ : you give people things by answering memes, and they give you the same in exchange. That's how you form bonds isn't it. However, it leaves me craving for other kind of interactions, more topic centered or abstract, the ones that are less emotionnaly based (regardless of the fact I adore people from my flist) and I don't really know how to find them on LJ (and participate to them).
But there's people on my flist, actually, lots of them, which I read because I'm interested in what they post (be it commentary, recs, essays, fics or random quotes) and not at all in them as a person, and I usually do without warning them. How can those people know what i want when I friend them ? What does it mean what they reciprocate (still as wordlessly). What kind of relationship is it that we have ? I'm not either against eventually considering them as friends, however lots of people did that with me, and we still have the same lack of interaction.
In a different fashion, I have lots of people on my flist which I have friended because we were close pals in fandom a long time ago. However, as iour nterests diverged, I hardly ever finds anything interesting in their entries, but I still care for them as a person. However, I have nothing to say to them, they have nothing to say to me.... and at some point i'm getting sad/angry at the whole situation because in the absence of mutual commenting there is no more relationship, and I start to wonder why they keep me on their flist, and why I keep them in mine, no matter the fact that they're people I genuinely like.
Of course, LJ has got Communities which are closer to classical forms of boards. However due to the linnear nature of LJ, I've seldom seen the kind of collective atmosphere on any LJ similar to that of any forum. Posts get burried under other posts pretty quickly and seldom get digged back. They don't get back up like a threads where a new answer has just been posted. And more often than not the interaction between the poster and a serie of people who answer them, and seldom between groups of people all participating to one discussion. (Indeed, when two commentors start discussing between each other in answer to another post, they will often appologize and start a new post somewhere else to continue it if they're polite)
So, those are most of the things bothering me with Live journal. That's why I'm missing the old boards, even though LJ spoils us with some many good tools and possibilities that i might never bear going back to their clunkiness.
But I still miss all the other kind of boards. I miss being able to relate to a specific space where there were specific rules, a specific usual crowd, some specific moderators, and, above all that, a specific topic of interest that brought all of us together. I miss the context.
LJ is context-less. No matter where from your friends are, no matter how you relate to them (are you reading them because their close to you, because you like their fics, for the purpose of fandom, because you like their political commentary, etc. ?) they appear the same on your friend page. You can filter them (though i'm too lazy to do that) but you can't fix the fact that the paradigm of your interactions isn't structured at all. And you never quite now at what distance the people you're talking to are.
I also miss the treshold aspect of it. You get in a forum, you get in discussions with everyone, and everyone can see your post. You can answer to anyone without wondering whether they'll fill you're intruding into a private space, and even if you're totally unknown, there's a good chance you will be answered if what you say is relevant and interesting. You participate in group interactions. Along the way, you get to know people, and from conversations to conversation, you get to consider them as friends, merely interesting partners in debate, or people you don't especially like but that are part of the collective background.
With LJ, you have absolutly no clue what does it mean to friend someone. Usually if you meet someone on LJ, you find them interesting and you want to get to know them better because you wonder if maybe you could become friends.... well you friend them. Which brings you at once to the most private and intimate possible way to interact with them, and in an "official" way. (Of course, again, you can use filters to keep a gradation of how close you are to people... provided you're willing to go into friend only, which I am not) If you find out eventually that any interesting person isn't for any reasons likely to become your friend, you can only "break up" with them by unfriending them. So very awkward.
Of course, people have tried to address that in many ways. They call "friend list" "reading list"; and they use several journals for several kinds of interaction (one private journal, one fandom journal etc.) However, once more, I'm too lazy to do that (and I find logging in and logging out much too annoying too)
Fact remains that LJ remains a very twisted mix of private and public and semi public interactions. On one hand, it's a place which is your journal, YOURS to tell about your life or anything that strikes your fancy. On the other hand, you are published on the friend list of anyone who wants to read you and that you don't specificaly filter, and they might call on you for bad formatting, flaming things they like and general wank.
Not to mention that LJ are so cliquish in its very nature that you don't even notice that it's cliquish because the wild troll flaming the place doesn't even exist in your eyes unless they start flaming your own journal. Sometimes it's a good thing, because it diminishes abrasive arguments. Sometimes it's a bad things, because you don't even see the possibly legitimate criticisms addressed to a fandom. We all live in our own little world, and we never see what we don't want to see.
Now, of course, one of the value of Internet lies in its anonymousity. You can take much more liberty with revealing personnal and private things to people, because you're dealing with strangers and are likely to remain so. That makes you more free of revealing different aspects of yourself. You're not doomed to a specific identity because everyone knows you already as such. Different place, differenty space, different situations, different attitudes. Different personna (personnae ?). Why, yes, that's interactionnism.
And that's exactly the place where LJ is failing. With previous media, my attitude changed. I didn't act the same way in ATPoBtVS (mixt crowd, rather older than I, very cultured); as I did on roleplaying game Exalted forums (big male majority, about the same age as I) or as I do in the Clamp fandom (big female majority, younger than I, different lingos)
That doesn't mean that I'm lying in any of those fandoms, only that I adapted my behaviour to the context and the situation of each forum for a maximum enjoyment of the interactions.
No such possibility with LJ. Entries that are serious and reflexive in tone sit next to the ones where I'm making rant or laughing silly about a private joke. Parts of my flist (as an audience) will always miss part of the context of everything I will say. And many times I'm afraid i'm going to bore them to tears / freak them out / disapoint them because of it.
And likewise, I have nothing to say in answer to part of what people on my flist (as performers) are saying.
Which leads me to the third part of my rant, reciprocity. In away, recriprocity is made an even bigger part of relationships between people on the internet. In fandom, your status is directly relevant to how much you contribute to the fandom, be it in the form of discussions, admnistration, essays, fanfics, graphics, programs, ressources and of course, reviews. (I'm not going to mention the clientelist relationship between a BFN and their worshippers :p)
By making comments so much easier and simpler to give, LJ welcomes much more direct interaction. And indeed, the duty of readers to provide feedback to a writer they like has become almost seen as a civil duty (at least in ideal, obviously in fact many many people don't bother), and lurking has become a habit looked down upon. (Or at least it seems to me that such a shift has occured, but it could be only because I moved to different fandoms that worked in a different way) That's globally a good thing. But it does have some less nice consequences. I have not waited to be on LJ to start posting because I wanted people to answer what I said. However what gets me the most comments on LJ is unfailingly the post to which I wanted the least. Such as personnal entries where i talk about problems in my life and general moodiness, or memes where I offer to say things to the people answering the comment. In a way, it's sweet : one case shows that people care for me (despite the fact that I hate when people worry for me and that I'm generally very uncomfortable with dealing with people as person and not around some random kind of abstract subject); and the other is one of the perks of LJ : you give people things by answering memes, and they give you the same in exchange. That's how you form bonds isn't it. However, it leaves me craving for other kind of interactions, more topic centered or abstract, the ones that are less emotionnaly based (regardless of the fact I adore people from my flist) and I don't really know how to find them on LJ (and participate to them).
But there's people on my flist, actually, lots of them, which I read because I'm interested in what they post (be it commentary, recs, essays, fics or random quotes) and not at all in them as a person, and I usually do without warning them. How can those people know what i want when I friend them ? What does it mean what they reciprocate (still as wordlessly). What kind of relationship is it that we have ? I'm not either against eventually considering them as friends, however lots of people did that with me, and we still have the same lack of interaction.
In a different fashion, I have lots of people on my flist which I have friended because we were close pals in fandom a long time ago. However, as iour nterests diverged, I hardly ever finds anything interesting in their entries, but I still care for them as a person. However, I have nothing to say to them, they have nothing to say to me.... and at some point i'm getting sad/angry at the whole situation because in the absence of mutual commenting there is no more relationship, and I start to wonder why they keep me on their flist, and why I keep them in mine, no matter the fact that they're people I genuinely like.
Of course, LJ has got Communities which are closer to classical forms of boards. However due to the linnear nature of LJ, I've seldom seen the kind of collective atmosphere on any LJ similar to that of any forum. Posts get burried under other posts pretty quickly and seldom get digged back. They don't get back up like a threads where a new answer has just been posted. And more often than not the interaction between the poster and a serie of people who answer them, and seldom between groups of people all participating to one discussion. (Indeed, when two commentors start discussing between each other in answer to another post, they will often appologize and start a new post somewhere else to continue it if they're polite)
So, those are most of the things bothering me with Live journal. That's why I'm missing the old boards, even though LJ spoils us with some many good tools and possibilities that i might never bear going back to their clunkiness.
no subject
I suppose being territorial helps me escape any feelings of obligation towards my f-list, beyond the basic courtesy of lj-cutting memes and hugely long entries. My journal, my posts, mixed up between RL and various fandoms and just general rambling. And as much as I admit to considering "Is this LJ post annoying?" or "Will anyone care about this?" the notion of censorship in my own space irks me so much that I have a hard time quite understanding why other people would worry about such a thing, or feel obligated to perform. I am stubborn and more inclined to just say whatever the hell I want after hearing about how someone feels that he or she can't speak anymore--maybe to prove that they're wrong if only they can cast off what's holding them back, I dunno. But my method of resisting any so-called "need" for conformity won't work for most people, I guess. *G*
I know what you mean about people you are personally interested in even though you've gone in separate fandom directions. I know many people like that, and sometimes I am concerned about losing contact, but I find if the friendship is concrete enough, than everything will work out in the end unless there is some gross neglect on either (or both) sides. I'm pretty good at finding kindred spirits and if the connection fades... then it just wasn't meant to be. Which isn't to say I abandon people as soon as we no longer gush about Subaru or whatever. ^^;
I dunno, I just have the impression that if people friend my journal, they enjoy reading most of the content if not all of it, which means they like reading what I, not a persona, write. After all, if they only like my fanfiction, that's what my ficlog is for. If they only like my icons, that's what my icon LJ is for. There are the occasional weirdoes who crop up with "I love your icons SO MUCH LET'S BE FRIENDS" but they're few and far between. Or I'm just living in my own little bubble that hasn't yet burst.
I know it's not always a case of taking LJ too seriously, but a lot of the time it seems like that to me. When it gets to the point where you're writing posts only for other people rather than yourself (regardless of whether or not you wrote a post designed to be replied to, if you wanted to write it it's still your post), it's either time to drop LJ or rebel against your perceived restrictions. Guess what I do! *G*
(I enjoy rambly sentences, let us hope they make sense.)
no subject
I'm pretty good at finding kindred spirits and if the connection fades... then it just wasn't meant to be. Which isn't to say I abandon people as soon as we no longer gush about Subaru or whatever. ^^;
I'm glad to hear that XD
After all, if they only like my fanfiction, that's what my ficlog is for. If they only like my icons, that's what my icon LJ is for.
Yes, that's a good point.
But then that's why BNF worship is so disturbing.
Thanks for your comment, that was very enjoyable to read ^^