leaving Lj and other things
Friday, October 2nd, 2009 07:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charmianHmm, still no Google Wave account. I wonder just how many people did bother to even sign up for it? (There's a page where you can go sign up for an invite, if you're interested, and they'll get around to you sooner or later, although right now, more like the later)
There are also so many annoying scammers on Twitter, convincing people to retweet, and falsely claiming to have invites. I guess this is the downside of closed betas, all the frustration from people who want in and can't.
Anyway, as previously noted, am closing down the main LJ account. For people who are interested in Ravages of Time, I have started up a new account here. However, it will not make any sense to friend it unless you like that series. Otherwise, you're going to be really bored/confused, as I make post after post about "and in the novel X happened, so how will it happen in RoT?" and "lol, have some pics of character Z." See, would be cool if we had something like Wave for blogging, so that we could start talking about something and then have people be able to subscribe to it separately without going through the trouble of creating a whole new blog for it.
The biggest reason is probably that I want to start over with a cleaner slate. The idea simply appeals to me. So therefore, no one will be hanging around reading me because of inertia, and they'll be doing it because they like the current content. Which is nowadays about social media sites and blogging, mostly. XD
Also, as time goes on, I become increasingly paranoid about my privacy. I do not reveal my age or birthdate, or geographical location. However I'm increasingly thinking these days that I can't trust people simply because they want to friend me on LJ or whatever. These days I don't feel like I 'trust' people on the internet unless I've talked to them for awhile one-on-one. That of course is not 100% foolproof either, though. Also, the glitch on LJ where private entries were revealed makes me wonder about LJ security. Not that I know anything at ALL about the topic, though. There's also the social dimension where on LJ there's a mixture between the private and the public on one "space." I think this sometimes leads to more blurring than people really want; both on the blogger's side and the reader's side.
[Example, I friend Louise because I am interested in what she has to say about fishing lures, but instead, she friends me back and I find out that on lock she posts incessantly about her devotion to Car Talk, which I have no interest in. The fear of appearing to exclude people on LJ also prompts people to friend everyone back, which is potentially a dangerous practice because you never know who lurkers really are. Basically I don't really agree with the practice of making the data of who friends whom so public. IRL our social networks are not that transparent, and showing who you are connected with is arguably a form of like, meta-privacy or something. tl;dr to say that I think my Access list is none of the public's business.]
Now, whether you think this is a bug or a feature depends on you and your needs. For some people, perhaps this is exactly what they need. However, sometimes I think that services like Posterous and Tumblr which have an account structure where an ID is allowed to create multiple blogs, some of which can be entirely private, with features designed towards privacy, do it a better way.
Another thing was, that I found myself kind of ambivalent about the LJ focused fanfic fandom. I used to be interested in it on a meta level, but as time went on, I was kind of like "been there, blogged about that." Then, I got into even less popular anime fandoms, where sometimes the best place for info/discussion was outside of LJ. I guess also, I don't subscribe to the view of "fandom as haven" (which is not to judge those who do), which LJ kind of lends itself to. I'm the sort (as listed in previous entries) who wants to share things they like with everyone else. I began to also feel the walled-garden nature of LJ led to effects on fandom which made it less appealing to me.
Also, while I have no problem with people creating or enjoying erotic content, the way that a lot of fandoms had that at the center was not interesting to me. People who go "fandom is for pr0n!" Well, certainly that is valid for them, but it's not what I'm here for, you know? I'm all for erotic self-exploration/expression, and such, but increasingly I was like "can we talk about what happened last chapter instead of the pr0n?" I found myself identifying increasingly as a "gen" fan, and thus finding a lot of what happened in LJ fandom was increasingly irrelevant to me.
I also began to feel increasingly irritable about the way that works which were mediocre were elevated by fans, which is probably irrational, but it annoyed me when a series which wouldn't have remained popular without fanworks turned into a big fandom. (In other words, if you like Twilight and believe it is a great work of literature, ok. But if you think Twilight sucks ass yet are contributing to its popularity, that's kind of annoying.) In other words, in popular culture, why should we honor those who don't produce high quality works (or what we believe to be high quality works)? Why do we spend so much time watching what we believe is crap when there are five other things which are potentially quality works? Something should stand up without its fandom. If something is not worth reading without people posting tons of fanfic about it, is it worth reading? Rationally or irrationally, it began to annoy me. (Possibly I am not postmodern enough.)
There are also so many annoying scammers on Twitter, convincing people to retweet, and falsely claiming to have invites. I guess this is the downside of closed betas, all the frustration from people who want in and can't.
Anyway, as previously noted, am closing down the main LJ account. For people who are interested in Ravages of Time, I have started up a new account here. However, it will not make any sense to friend it unless you like that series. Otherwise, you're going to be really bored/confused, as I make post after post about "and in the novel X happened, so how will it happen in RoT?" and "lol, have some pics of character Z." See, would be cool if we had something like Wave for blogging, so that we could start talking about something and then have people be able to subscribe to it separately without going through the trouble of creating a whole new blog for it.
The biggest reason is probably that I want to start over with a cleaner slate. The idea simply appeals to me. So therefore, no one will be hanging around reading me because of inertia, and they'll be doing it because they like the current content. Which is nowadays about social media sites and blogging, mostly. XD
Also, as time goes on, I become increasingly paranoid about my privacy. I do not reveal my age or birthdate, or geographical location. However I'm increasingly thinking these days that I can't trust people simply because they want to friend me on LJ or whatever. These days I don't feel like I 'trust' people on the internet unless I've talked to them for awhile one-on-one. That of course is not 100% foolproof either, though. Also, the glitch on LJ where private entries were revealed makes me wonder about LJ security. Not that I know anything at ALL about the topic, though. There's also the social dimension where on LJ there's a mixture between the private and the public on one "space." I think this sometimes leads to more blurring than people really want; both on the blogger's side and the reader's side.
[Example, I friend Louise because I am interested in what she has to say about fishing lures, but instead, she friends me back and I find out that on lock she posts incessantly about her devotion to Car Talk, which I have no interest in. The fear of appearing to exclude people on LJ also prompts people to friend everyone back, which is potentially a dangerous practice because you never know who lurkers really are. Basically I don't really agree with the practice of making the data of who friends whom so public. IRL our social networks are not that transparent, and showing who you are connected with is arguably a form of like, meta-privacy or something. tl;dr to say that I think my Access list is none of the public's business.]
Now, whether you think this is a bug or a feature depends on you and your needs. For some people, perhaps this is exactly what they need. However, sometimes I think that services like Posterous and Tumblr which have an account structure where an ID is allowed to create multiple blogs, some of which can be entirely private, with features designed towards privacy, do it a better way.
Another thing was, that I found myself kind of ambivalent about the LJ focused fanfic fandom. I used to be interested in it on a meta level, but as time went on, I was kind of like "been there, blogged about that." Then, I got into even less popular anime fandoms, where sometimes the best place for info/discussion was outside of LJ. I guess also, I don't subscribe to the view of "fandom as haven" (which is not to judge those who do), which LJ kind of lends itself to. I'm the sort (as listed in previous entries) who wants to share things they like with everyone else. I began to also feel the walled-garden nature of LJ led to effects on fandom which made it less appealing to me.
Also, while I have no problem with people creating or enjoying erotic content, the way that a lot of fandoms had that at the center was not interesting to me. People who go "fandom is for pr0n!" Well, certainly that is valid for them, but it's not what I'm here for, you know? I'm all for erotic self-exploration/expression, and such, but increasingly I was like "can we talk about what happened last chapter instead of the pr0n?" I found myself identifying increasingly as a "gen" fan, and thus finding a lot of what happened in LJ fandom was increasingly irrelevant to me.
I also began to feel increasingly irritable about the way that works which were mediocre were elevated by fans, which is probably irrational, but it annoyed me when a series which wouldn't have remained popular without fanworks turned into a big fandom. (In other words, if you like Twilight and believe it is a great work of literature, ok. But if you think Twilight sucks ass yet are contributing to its popularity, that's kind of annoying.) In other words, in popular culture, why should we honor those who don't produce high quality works (or what we believe to be high quality works)? Why do we spend so much time watching what we believe is crap when there are five other things which are potentially quality works? Something should stand up without its fandom. If something is not worth reading without people posting tons of fanfic about it, is it worth reading? Rationally or irrationally, it began to annoy me. (Possibly I am not postmodern enough.)
no subject
Date: 2009-10-03 12:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-03 01:27 am (UTC)I guess the point for me is not to be "in a fandom," but "have people to talk to about this."
no subject
Date: 2009-10-04 08:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-04 09:12 pm (UTC)