stupid elno

[tielan]

Sure, the-app-formerly-known-as-Twitter was a dumpster fire, but there were so many things in that dumpster, and not all of them were on fire!

Anyway, right now it's a mad scramble of people going here, there, and everywhere right now, and I sincerely dislike it all.

Threads isn't navigable by communities - not really. I want to see the people I've followed not what the algorithm thinks I should see.

Mastodon is complicated and maybe it's just on the servers where I've landed but it feels very political real-world. Maybe that's just the accounts/servers I was following at the start. Which is okay, sometimes, but also not necessarily how I want to interact all the time. Also, although several people I know have made accounts on it, nobody I knew from before is actually *using* it.

I kind of miss activity on DW - yes, there's some lovely little community on here, but I don't really feel like I can participate in most of it because I'm not terribly fannish anymore except on my specific topics - which I suspect has gotten me blackballed in several areas. It's just me and the people who post about their RL stuff and comment on my RL stuff. (Thanks, my peeps, I loves youse.)

Also, where else am I going to find the broad range of topics and interests that is so much of my internet existence? A nice broad variety of thingage! (Thinkage? Thingengage?)

Stupid elno.

Comments

[aome]

I miss the heyday of LJ/DW, too.

[tielan]

I mean, it was mad crazy busy, and also a little Wild West, but also so much fun.

Or maybe that's just how I remember it?

[kore]

It was super busy! And the most interesting, complex, fun conversations would just fall into your lap. And some comments sections got huge and were almost like parties. And some went on for days. Tons of fandom meta, fic, episode watchalongs, discussions.

[kore]

I really, really miss early-mid LJ, and DW after that too. (So many people fled LJ for Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, badmouthing DW all along the way, it bummed me out.)

[tielan]

Yes, I had a few people who really didn't like DW's founders.

But also, a lot of my earliest LJ friends weren't using their LJs all that much anyway, and the series for the fandoms we were in ended (mostly the Stargates) and it just kind of quietly dribbled away. Many of them just went to FB and never really made the jump to any of the fannish social media.

[kore]

I actually found LJ looking for Buffy analysis and fic! (And boy, did I get it.) Then I was in that whole Buffy-Angel-Firefly wing, altho I arrived just a little too late/wasn't in the right circles for Farscape my beloved, and I just could not get into SPN at all, and kind of gently drifted away....like, I loved Force Awakens but the fandom was a real mess. Loved Fury Road, but I didn't feel super-fannish about it (and I was never in online fandom for some of my first big fandoms, like X-Files, Law & Order, original Trek, etc., altho I was on Usenet for B5). I didn't see BBC Sherlock until looong after it aired. Blah blah, my point, did I have one.

-- I used to say the personal aspect of LJ went to Facebook/Twitter and the fannish one went to Tumblr, which is oversimplified (and there's still lots of personal blogging on DW), but it's different than that....What got me back into fandom in the first place was MCU, and it wasn't even Iron Man or the Avengers, but I heard people talking about the Winter Soldier and I still saw that like a year after everybody else. But it felt like there was a lot more for me to enjoy in that fandom, even while trying to bulldoze through the college AUs and omegaverse series and so on, lol. But users hadn't fled Tumblr for Twitter and Discord yet, and there was still a lot of discussion on DW.

Whereas with The Old Guard, I adored that movie but AO3 (understandably!) went with the canon slash couple and Tumblr went for a LOT of sociopolitical and historical analysis of the freaking Crusades, and I was just like, no, no no no, I don't want Tumblr "insights" about religious wars, thank you. I still felt part of the fandom after Fury Road came out, in 2015, but by the time Old Guard did -- only five years later! -- I was like, okay, if I spend a lot of time and create very elaborate filters on AO3 I can find a handful of fics I really like, and there's pretty gifsets and even some meta now and then I like on Tumblr, but either I'm 180 degrees out of synch with everyone or they're all on Discord or both. And that's kind of a crummy feeling. And Google does NOT work anymore, so even if people are doing meta or fic just on the web without the social network sites, so it's not even like when I went looking for Buffy fic and stumbled on peoples' personal archives and that led me to LJ.

[tielan]

Stargate SG1, briefly Buffy/Angel, a touch of Firefly, some Battlestar Galactica.

I was really into Justice League (the animated series), and then got into Stargate Atlantis which lasted me pretty much until it finished in 2009 and a few years beyond.

Merlin (mostly Gwen/Arthur) in the early seasons, then a few stories for Harry Potter nextgen, and then the MCU came along with Avengers... Well, that ended in ashes. Somewhat literally, unfortunately. *sigh* I have a gift for picking as favourites characters whom the showrunners and majority of the fandom simply don't think are interesting.

Anyway, I got a tumblr around 2011, I think, and an AO3 account about the same time. Can't remember exactly when I transferred to DW, but it was probably around 2013-2014? Once DW had the cross-post facility, it was easier to post to DW, and the last few friends I was following on LJ kind of slipped away so...

But even on DW, the prospects have thinned - a lot of people who journalled through the 2010s have kind of vanished - one part real life, one part moved on - and I'm only posting a couple of times a week anymore. Which I don't mind; I use journalling as somewhere to dump my thoughts and feelings about life, otherwise it bottles up. But it feels a bit quiet, having known the heyday of LJ. That said, quiet is not terrible, and if it was busy I probably couldn't actually keep up, so maybe quiet is preferable!

There you go. I've rambled just as much, if it makes you feel better. :)

[kore]

OMFG sorry for BLABBLING the wall o'text and I need to go the fuck to sleep! //SLJ

[kore]

I forgot to finish my PROFOUND THOUGHT, lol. I'm not as tight with my twitter circle as with DW, but I kept in touch there with a lot of people no longer on DW and who weren't on LJ/DW at all (imagine!!). I used it a LOT during the first year of the pandemic for health news, and during the terrible smoke seasons too. It was great for breaking news -- I followed so many reporters and news stations, and felt like I got a practically blow-by-blow account of January 6th. (Which really upset -- terrified -- me, but oh well....) Now all that information, archived history, is going to be gone, along with groups like Black Twitter where people got a lot of support (disability Twitter, long covid Twitter, &c &c)....and he's just....destroying it. Just because he's rich from VERY ill gotten gains Just because he's filthy rich and white and he can. It's just. So much I hate about capitalism.

I like hearing about friends' IRL stuff (I love your quilts! and chooks!) but often feel like my own life is so dull/unpleasant (do people really want to hear about us medicating th eterminally ill cat like four times a day) and my life is so small and I don't really do anything, blah, blah, I have nothing to offer on that front really.

[tielan]

So much that's hateable about capitalism, though!

Also, losing those old spaces of Twitter? Losing the "groupness" of it, the all-over-the-worldness and spread-outness of it? I'm not even in the specialist spaces (eg. black twitter) and I can imagine the terrible loss it's going to be - of history, of connection, of context. A number of black theologians I follow have gone to a new site that is specifically for black users, which I absolutely understand and support. I'm still going to miss reading their thoughts.

I admit, I like hearing about the cat - at least she's still alive, and I hope that being able to type up what's going on with her is a way of downloading or brain-dumping for you. *hugs*

[kore]

Yes exactly, the far-flung community that also manages to be tightly connected over this social network! And that's huge especially for marginalized communities and alienated/disadvantaged people. I can totally understand if Black twitter wants to silo itself off from journalists looking for hot clickbait and white dudebros and white Nice Ladies. Altho like you point out, that is a loss for the greater community, but if vulnerable populations can't protect themselves from hate speech or super-capitalism why should they stay around? Kind of like the secret "Pantsuit Nation" group on Facebook that grew because women got sick of taking shit about just talking about Hillary. From my memories of the Old West Usenet et al you were just supposed to be able to suck up anything ranging from insults to death threats and if you couldn't, well, bye too bad. (Old Usenet was also fiercely protective of personal privacy, tho, while Modern Twitter seems often to gleefully trash IRL nobodies who had screwed up as the "Character of the Day." But ANYWAY.)

Kitty is still here! Kitty is doing a LOT better after a string of fucking 80F days which probably don't sound like much to people outside the Puget Sound, where it's really humid and there is almost NO A/C, not even in the newer houses! (After the horrible heat wave a couple of years ago, installers got booked out for six months in advance by nouveau riche hastily installing central air.) We have a grumpy window unit which makes this apartment bearable -- otherwise it's regularly 5+F degrees hotter than outside. Today she ate a LOT, demanded pets loudly, bounced around with her tail up, and she otherwise had a good day so we did too. We still have at least a month of summer to go, tho....I just hope it doesn't get above 80F. She absolutely cannot be dipped in cool water in the bathtub.

[tielan]

For the heat: if your a/c fails, damp cloths hung up anywhere it might catch a breeze on the way in. Also, if you have west or south-facing windows, if you can cover them up from the outside with a towel so the sun never gets inside your place, that will keep some of the heat from transferring in. (External blinds are best. We're going to have to reinstall ours - took them down for the windows installation, not sure I want to put these ones back up again. But more money... *grimace*)

So glad to hear kitty is keeping on. I guess for her it's mostly making sure she has water and is drinking it.

[velithya]

I find there's only so much interaction in capable of keeping up with on a daily basis and I would probably be even worse at interacting on DW if it was busier than it is now. I tend to be pretty monofandomish myself so aside from the fandom community I'm a part of, everything else is basically RL stuff too.

Honestly I think the deepest blow was when LJ splintered way back when... I don't think we ever really recovered.

[tielan]

I do recall it being tricky because one couldn't spend ALL day on LJ. Still, I wouldn't mind having more slow conversations with people over shared fandoms. Doesn't seem to happen so much anymore.

[velithya]

It feels like a lot of people have less time / brain energy for longer conversations, too.

[tielan]

Yeah, you're not wrong. Everything is a lot of effort in the last few years.

[timespirt]

Everything was great on LJ until the Russians took over.

[tielan]

I mean, you're not wrong!

[kore]

I remember LJ was pretty great until Brad sold us out to what was it, 6A? And they tried some weird stuff (including their own 6A blogs) and then gave up or went broke or both and the Russian government was like, oooh, now we can grab all those dissident blogs. :-/

[hiddencait]

Yeah I'm so bummed about it - that was where the VAST majority of my networking/audience building happened for the professional writing career. It's still possible to manage it via FB groups and newsletters, but it's going to be a challenge for sure with my debut finally coming out next year.

And yeah, as far as fannish communities, I really miss Livejournal more than anything else. Le sigh.

[tielan]

It was just so nicely central to everything! Dumpster fire and all that, but still good in parts...

*sigh*

[kass]

Stupid elno indeed.

[tielan]

Lord, grant me the audacity of mediocre white millionaires.

[facethestrange]

"there were so many things in that dumpster, and not all of them were on fire!"
I've never even actually used twitter but I love this metaphor. xD

As fannish as I am (quite a lot), I honestly enjoy writing, reading and commenting on RL posts - it feels like catching up with neighbors, which is something that I don't actually get to do in person and I really miss it, so dw it is. :)