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 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 3 December 2011 11:10 pm (UTC)*passing through*
Date: 4 December 2011 06:08 pm (UTC)IA - I think the thing with tumblr is that it lends itself to immediate fanbabble. In terms of say, .gifs, pic spams and the lot. It's also pretty agile in terms of that feeling, whereas a journal format makes you think somehow, and for LJ you tend to need to learn code before you can engage (html linkages, for example), whereas with tumblr you just plug and pay as it were.
I pretty much migrated to DW because I was able to post over 10k of fic in one go, and then AO3 came along, and I'm pretty lazy about my fic, I just throw up stuff and forget about it. I still stick around LJ though, but I've been noticing that even people who were active on LJ (like gyzym) has taken to tumblr exclusively - and I know that she has her reasons, but she's one of those fen that's a pied piper of fandom (lovely person, no doubt) and a lot of people are hovering in her gravity, so to speak.
I hate it--Tumblr definitely doesn't work the same way.
Quoted for truth.
Re: *passing through*
Date: 4 December 2011 07:37 pm (UTC)Wow, it's funny, I really don't feel that way about tumblr! Like, I had to start hang out there for the newsletter, so that's almost a year now, and plus I created an account a few months ago - and I still have a very hard time finding out how to do something. I feel totally lost and frustrated by the basic interface and how it's supposed to work so very often. It's just... frustrating and counter intuitive for me most of the time. I never found LJ that difficult - at most sometimes the links for setting specific preferences or the like were difficult to find, but nothing as challenging as I find LJ to be.
Hehe, i've never heard of gyzym before.
Re: *passing through*
Date: 4 December 2011 08:01 pm (UTC)gyzym was a BNF in the Inception fandom, I think she's stuck her toe in X-FC and Avengers fandom - but yeah, take my word for it, she's popular.
Re: *passing through*
Date: 9 December 2011 12:18 am (UTC)and yeah, I see your point about not having to engage.
Oh, I believe you that she's popular, it was just amusing that the example you picked wasn't someone I'm familiar with. You know, you spend enough time in fandom, you start getting familiar with a lot of names you keep seeing around - like I'm familiar with your name! I'm pretty sure we were in hogwarts_elite at the same time a few years ago XD but despite that some of the BNF in some fandoms are ttly foreign to you. Heh.