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On Livejournal and personal space
I stumbled across this by accident -- a very interesting essay about the way that Livejournal is co-opting the online fan community and, by extension, changing the face of online interaction: http://www.trickster.org/arduinna/ljs.html (presenting the "con" side of the argument, incidentally). It's written from a fan's perspective but, really, it's interesting even if you aren't involved in online fandom.
The essay touches upon something that I had noticed, in a vague sort of way, about the Internet during the decade-plus that I've been online. The social face of the Internet definitely goes in cycles. Once upon a time, it was Usenet and mailing lists; then it was bulletin boards; now, it seems, there's a strong trend for blogs to be the new face of online interaction, co-opting the roles that these other methods once played. Not to say that there aren't still plenty of bulletin boards and mailing lists in existance, but my general experience has been that they're much quieter and more niche-oriented than they used to be, while the bulk of online interaction is now shifting over to blogs. Livejournal is *huge*. So is Myspace (a site which, incidentally, I've never liked much, and although many of my younger co-workers are Myspace junkies, it just makes me feel old and slightly out of touch). Most people who have large, well-maintained websites include some sort of blog on their site. Basically, as everybody gets online, the Internet is fragmenting. Instead of one or a handful of mailing lists and bulletin board where everybody goes to talk about, say, Buffy, or growing violets, or shoes, there are thousands upon thousands of blogs where people talk about Buffy in between talking about their cats and their plumbing problems.
And what I hadn't really thought about is that it's a very different, much more chaotic form of social interaction than the more orderly models that were used online in the past. Mailing lists, bulletin boards ... they're organized, they're moderated, they're mostly on topic. Blogs *can* be, and I think the essayist is negative enough about blogs that she hasn't really explored all the options that are out there, but generally I think she's right that blog-style social interaction is creating a generation that tolerates a much greater invasion of personal space than used to be the case in the past. (Online, at least. I really don't think it extends to real life at all.)
Drat, got more to say, but gotta go. I'll get back to this later.
The essay touches upon something that I had noticed, in a vague sort of way, about the Internet during the decade-plus that I've been online. The social face of the Internet definitely goes in cycles. Once upon a time, it was Usenet and mailing lists; then it was bulletin boards; now, it seems, there's a strong trend for blogs to be the new face of online interaction, co-opting the roles that these other methods once played. Not to say that there aren't still plenty of bulletin boards and mailing lists in existance, but my general experience has been that they're much quieter and more niche-oriented than they used to be, while the bulk of online interaction is now shifting over to blogs. Livejournal is *huge*. So is Myspace (a site which, incidentally, I've never liked much, and although many of my younger co-workers are Myspace junkies, it just makes me feel old and slightly out of touch). Most people who have large, well-maintained websites include some sort of blog on their site. Basically, as everybody gets online, the Internet is fragmenting. Instead of one or a handful of mailing lists and bulletin board where everybody goes to talk about, say, Buffy, or growing violets, or shoes, there are thousands upon thousands of blogs where people talk about Buffy in between talking about their cats and their plumbing problems.
And what I hadn't really thought about is that it's a very different, much more chaotic form of social interaction than the more orderly models that were used online in the past. Mailing lists, bulletin boards ... they're organized, they're moderated, they're mostly on topic. Blogs *can* be, and I think the essayist is negative enough about blogs that she hasn't really explored all the options that are out there, but generally I think she's right that blog-style social interaction is creating a generation that tolerates a much greater invasion of personal space than used to be the case in the past. (Online, at least. I really don't think it extends to real life at all.)
Drat, got more to say, but gotta go. I'll get back to this later.
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I guess that a lot of her gripes with LJ, are gripes that I personally have with Myspace and some of the newer blog/connect sites, and I could never really figure out *why* I felt that way about them, but I think I might have a slightly better idea now. I remember that I used to have a much more frustrating time reading stories and such in Livejournals than I do now -- I appear to have adjusted to the issues that used to bug me (such as the navigation -- chapters of a story going backwards in time, with unrelated posts in between).
I actually enjoy the slightly voyeuristic nature of blogging -- I mean, I really don't think that I *am* a voyeur, but I do like reading about the daily details of other people's lives. I think I can see how it might really bother somebody who's a private person, though. Certain personality types can probably adjust a lot better than others.
I just feel like I've gotten an insight into a point of view that I hadn't really appreciated before.
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