Do not go gentle
3 Dec 2011 09:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
salineaLately it feels like more and more people are leaving LJ. It's been getting to me a lot. I really hate this. I hate people saying they're leaving and deleting their journals, I hate realising that people have just vanished out and not updated their journals for months or years, too. It feels like most of the life out of LJ (or DW for that matter) has been extinguished, I don't think I see enthusiasm much anymore elsewhere than in kink memes and other forms of anonymous memes (which frankly, I was never very fond of). I think a big part of it is, fandom has spread itself in other places, across different dimensions. Tumblr is great for fanart, gifs and more stream of consciousness squeeing (despite how much I hate the tumblr interface as well as the way people socialize on it and that is A WHOLE FUCKING LOT, and the more I use tumblr - I made an account a couple of months ago - the more I hate it :p); more in depth text based meta, reviews etc. are on various blogs, I guess. Fics are more simple to post on archives. Recs are handled via delicious (yes, despite the last debacle). And - what I miss most - the networking and befriending people based upon fandom, I guess maybe it's happening elsewhere too, on facebook or twitter or somewhere else I don't know about. But, and it's funny, that was one thing I used to criticise LJ for - the way it was mixing a whole lot of different things in the same place, the way it made us have to jungle all those things at the same time, the intersection of those spheres - which was sometimes unwieldy - but in retrospect feels like it was very productive in social interaction. Conversations bouncing from one journal to another, filled with ideas and joy and depth and silliness and resonance - when's the last I've seen that?
These days it doesn't feel like we get much into great conversations anymore. I dunno, maybe it happens elsewhere that what I pay attention to. I've been through a lot of fandoms - maybe too many - and at the same time I've always refused to follow the bandwagon of the next Big Fandom everyone else was following unless I was, you know, genuinely interesting in that big fandom (and most often I wasn't so much, instead I was more into skipping to another media/genre altogether!), which doesn't help keeping ties. And the biggest problem, I've really sucked about keeping my journal lively either, and I've deeply sucked at keeping lively conversation with others on their journals as well. Oh, I've done a lot of perfunctionary updating, so to speak, quick, shallow comments; and silly memes and I've tried to keep talking about fannish stuff - but... I haven't put in it a lot of myself into it. Big part of that was just depression, and not knowing how to deal with situation in life. I don't want to talk about this much. I don't like talking about it. It feels too shameful, and too vulnerable, and too embarrassing all at the same time. And as far as commenting, I have felt way too out of my depth as well as too numb often enough to have anything to say to people. And I always try to escape spirals of self loathing the same way, with avoidance and escapism; which hasn't ended very profitable for social interaction.
But I still treasure all those things. The friendships I have here - brittle and narrow though some of them may be - and the potential for fannish interactions. I depend on it so much. Maybe that is where I err wrong. Of course, things fall apart. Of course, people drift apart - that's not even a specifically fannish thing. Of course, people jump into the newest thing, and sometimes the newest thing isn't the newest fandom, or the newest kind of fanwork exchange, or the newest meme - sometimes it's the newest platform. What do you gonna do. Heh, it's not like I'm unlikely to jump onto the newest thing when it is to my taste, either.
Not sure where I am going with that. I guess I'd just like to have a reason to be hopeful about fannish networking, here or elsewhere, in a way that isn't just about clinging after past glories. Tell me there is some?
These days it doesn't feel like we get much into great conversations anymore. I dunno, maybe it happens elsewhere that what I pay attention to. I've been through a lot of fandoms - maybe too many - and at the same time I've always refused to follow the bandwagon of the next Big Fandom everyone else was following unless I was, you know, genuinely interesting in that big fandom (and most often I wasn't so much, instead I was more into skipping to another media/genre altogether!), which doesn't help keeping ties. And the biggest problem, I've really sucked about keeping my journal lively either, and I've deeply sucked at keeping lively conversation with others on their journals as well. Oh, I've done a lot of perfunctionary updating, so to speak, quick, shallow comments; and silly memes and I've tried to keep talking about fannish stuff - but... I haven't put in it a lot of myself into it. Big part of that was just depression, and not knowing how to deal with situation in life. I don't want to talk about this much. I don't like talking about it. It feels too shameful, and too vulnerable, and too embarrassing all at the same time. And as far as commenting, I have felt way too out of my depth as well as too numb often enough to have anything to say to people. And I always try to escape spirals of self loathing the same way, with avoidance and escapism; which hasn't ended very profitable for social interaction.
But I still treasure all those things. The friendships I have here - brittle and narrow though some of them may be - and the potential for fannish interactions. I depend on it so much. Maybe that is where I err wrong. Of course, things fall apart. Of course, people drift apart - that's not even a specifically fannish thing. Of course, people jump into the newest thing, and sometimes the newest thing isn't the newest fandom, or the newest kind of fanwork exchange, or the newest meme - sometimes it's the newest platform. What do you gonna do. Heh, it's not like I'm unlikely to jump onto the newest thing when it is to my taste, either.
Not sure where I am going with that. I guess I'd just like to have a reason to be hopeful about fannish networking, here or elsewhere, in a way that isn't just about clinging after past glories. Tell me there is some?
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no subject
Date: 3 December 2011 09:21 pm (UTC)And honestly, half of fandom going to Dreamwidth for Moral Reasons didn't help. The LJ format was kind of on its way out in the English-speaking world as it is (in Russia it's like Facebook...maybe I should learn Russian) and I don't think it could really survive being split. Neither LJ or DW seems to be as active as LJ was before DW. I know DW isn't the only factor, but it is a factor.
(And blah blah blah crossposting you're not really taking content ~away~ except you are because of communities, and friendslocking being completely borked, and comments being split into two places so commenters can't interact with one another easily, or commenting being disabled on LJ and surprise you're not even authorized to go on that person's DW page so fuck you I guess I won't comment then. *ahem* Not you personally, I have just...run into this. And more than one friend who is all on DW now who just does not read me anymore, or says they crosspost but then I find more posts of theirs on DW than they had on LJ and like what gives I thought we were tight.)
/drama
As for tumblr, I do occasionally get into moods and like, read an entire tumblr just because there's awesome on it, but I somehow just never get the urge to make an account, watch other people's tumblrs, or certainly not post my own content. (For a certain value of "own content," considering, tumblr.) For me it's like lolcats--I occasionally binge on it, then it's out of my system. If I did it too much, it wouldn't amuse me as much. I know that's weird, but there's like, a saturation point of macros where after a while they stop being remarkable.
LJ is really one of the few sites I just check regularly. And like checking. I don't know.
A little while ago, I read a post from an old-school fan (on her private website) about why she will never like Livejournal. She just hated the whole format of it, period. What she liked? Mailing lists. She waxed poetic about the joys of mailing lists. And I realized that every culture has its day. Back in her day, mailing lists were the best thing out there, and the relationship she had with them is a relationship she couldn't replicate with Livejournal. Just as the relationship I have with Livejournal is one I can't replicate with Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, et al. And the kids just discovering the joys of Tumblr, won't they be sad five or ten years from now when fandom moves on to something new and exciting. Nothing can compare to your first fandom, to the days of your youth.
And yet...here I am. I can't give up fandom, but I can't adapt to the changes. I can't keep up and I won't go away, so what does that make me? A relic, maybe, or just in denial. Maybe I'll cave when LJ really does feel empty, wander into Tumblr and just feel...old and misplaced and lost.
If I have moved anywhere, it's been partially into silence, and partially into IM. I tend to just pour out my feelings to my buddies on AIM and MSN and so forth, rather than posting them to my journal. I guess part of it is my very open friending policy, where I would just friend anyone and everyone...and somehow, my flist came to be a bunch of strangers. Maybe I should do something about that. In some ways it's a betrayal of the enthusiasm of my younger self. But I've already betrayed most of the things my younger self was.
Maybe LJ has changed because we've changed, and we don't even realize it.
no subject
Date: 3 December 2011 10:01 pm (UTC)This! I just don't understand why they do it. I guess you could always send them a PM, but it feels like the other person doesn't care what you think any more anyway...
no subject
Date: 4 December 2011 04:14 am (UTC)So you just take your business elsewhere. It's silly, and maybe a bit petty, I know.
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Date: 4 December 2011 12:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 3 December 2011 10:03 pm (UTC)LOL. Yeah, i don't think it helped. I mean, I don't think it's a real cause of it, but it's probably made it a little bit worse/ more apparent earlier.
(btw, I didn't really go there for moral reasons, what made me actually move was liking the interface a bit better)
*ahem* Not you personally, I have just...run into this. And more than one friend who is all on DW now who just does not read me anymore, or says they crosspost but then I find more posts of theirs on DW than they had on LJ and like what gives I thought we were tight.
Yes, well, yes. :( It's easy feeling betrayed when we lose track of people because of something silly like that. Even though, it's not really how things work for people when they go to shinier places in fandom.
LJ is really one of the few sites I just check regularly. And like checking. I don't know.
I'm compulsive about checking :D
And I realized that every culture has its day. Back in her day, mailing lists were the best thing out there, and the relationship she had with them is a relationship she couldn't replicate with Livejournal. Just as the relationship I have with Livejournal is one I can't replicate with Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, et al
Yes! Very true and very wise. I think in a large amount this is a generation thing. The generation of people who got into fandom with LJ.... well a lot of them aren't so much into fandom anymore, because they're busying themselves with their real life more, and for them fandom was a childish/early adulthood thing. There are, as always, also a lot of people who are into fandom for life, so they're the one who will follow fandom where ever it may go, or if they can't, be sad about the way their favourite platform slowly diminishes and eventually vanishes, the way of geocities websites and egroups. And we tend to imprint our first fandom (or at least the first fandom we got in a big way - I remember mailing lists and usenet, but I remember hating mailing list as far as getting fanfics for them, and I guess they were already dying out by the time I got there). And that's pretty damn terrible :(
Interesting. I haven't been into AIM in a very long time. Actually the time I was most active on I!M was in the late nineties, when ICQ was the big new thing and... yeah, that's been a while XD
I guess part of it is my very open friending policy, where I would just friend anyone and everyone...and somehow, my flist came to be a bunch of strangers. Maybe I should do something about that. In some ways it's a betrayal of the enthusiasm of my younger self. But I've already betrayed most of the things my younger self was.
Yes! I can relate with so much of what you say here. I used to want my journal to be very open, and I've always been very open about friending new people, and I like that. But little by little I've found myself using flocking functions more because you have to, and then having a hard time dealing with... whether or not the people I'm friend with on LJ are people I'm intimate with or mere acquaintances, and it can get difficult and complicated. But as a result of it, I really miss the enthusiasm, not just mine, others too. It feels like people are much more shy about just... answering one another or talking to one another than they used to be. Grrr.
no subject
Date: 11 December 2011 09:57 pm (UTC)I never know how to approach people in real life or internet life, so it is all tangled and awkward and on the web it becomes so much easier to fall out of touch as your interests split in differing directions. The relationships are harder to define and seem to just dissolve without constant upkeep.
no subject
Date: 4 December 2011 01:50 am (UTC)out my feelings to my buddies on AIM and MSN and so forth, rather than posting them to my journal.
This is my greatest fear! Because LJ has been down so much, and people are changing platforms, I do worry (selfishly, I know) that more and more fan interactions are taking place privately in real-time. That means that the chance of a random stranger finding your ideas interesting and being able to talk to you are non-existent, and it also means that people from inconvenient time-zones or who have difficult schedules will be disadvantaged. (when I say 'you', I mean 'you-of-everyone-in-fandom', I'm not accusing you personally!)
These days, most of my fannish interaction is on anonmemes, because that's where people want to talk about fannish things.
no subject
Date: 9 December 2011 12:14 am (UTC)These days, most of my fannish interaction is on anonmemes, because that's where people want to talk about fannish things.
That's one of the thing I'm very afraid of myself (the whole real life private thing aspect hadn't even crossed my mind before!!) - I can't stand those anon meme, not for any particular ethical reasons so much as I find them way too difficult to follow. Not to mention not understanding the social rules for those. It's frustrating. It's like between those and private conversation people like to move to platforms which make the discussions impossible for random interested passer by to get into. I guess it's the point.