Note: This post was not written from inside Mengus' asshole.
Validation died summer of '05
Everybody needs validation. In some form or another, everybody wants it. A craving that every person needs to satiate. And you won't ever be satisfied, because once you achieve some form of it -- you only want more. Anyone who denies they attempts at validation, is a liar.
Hell, I wanted all the validation in the world for the words I wrote on this site. I wanted to top my six hundred friends of, I wanted people to think I was hilarious (which I can be, which anyone can be if they mix the right letters together). I wanted to prove I was different from the triviality of livejournal, that my day to day occurings were always riveting or hilarious.
But the real crave for validation was present in communities. Am I pretty? Do I write elegantly? Validate me! Tell me what I want to hear, so I can come away from this with something more. I participated in several livejournal communities that "rated" people on their journal's merit. It was fun, in a slight elitist way. An even bigger validation is when people seek it out from you.
What spawned my thoughts on this was coming across a community called Uncensored LJ. A quick scroll through proved interesting until my attention span would allow no more. But then I begin to see something, posts by users on my friends list noting particularly "well written" livejournal entries. The same users that were part of the am I pretty/do I write elegantly communities.
At first I thought nothing of it, coincidence. People who care about writing in a writing community. So what? But then, I noticed that the posts people were making mostly glorified their own friends. It was a "you mention me, I'll mention you" sort of thing. Nothing new, nothing outside, but the same people within the rating clique doing the same thing all over again.
Wow, when does this circle jerk get old? If you want to write, write. Fuck validation. Fuck what people care. Do what you want to do. And I'm sure their whole mantra is, they want to find amazing journals to read. That's the same thing I said when I was involved. If you're looking for something interesting to read, why don't you go to a bookstore? Getting it from a site full of inanity and narcissim doesn't seem to add up.
Why search the pawn shop for a diamond, when you can go to a jeweler's and take your pick of the best?
Everybody needs validation. In some form or another, everybody wants it. A craving that every person needs to satiate. And you won't ever be satisfied, because once you achieve some form of it -- you only want more. Anyone who denies they attempts at validation, is a liar.
Hell, I wanted all the validation in the world for the words I wrote on this site. I wanted to top my six hundred friends of, I wanted people to think I was hilarious (which I can be, which anyone can be if they mix the right letters together). I wanted to prove I was different from the triviality of livejournal, that my day to day occurings were always riveting or hilarious.
But the real crave for validation was present in communities. Am I pretty? Do I write elegantly? Validate me! Tell me what I want to hear, so I can come away from this with something more. I participated in several livejournal communities that "rated" people on their journal's merit. It was fun, in a slight elitist way. An even bigger validation is when people seek it out from you.
What spawned my thoughts on this was coming across a community called Uncensored LJ. A quick scroll through proved interesting until my attention span would allow no more. But then I begin to see something, posts by users on my friends list noting particularly "well written" livejournal entries. The same users that were part of the am I pretty/do I write elegantly communities.
At first I thought nothing of it, coincidence. People who care about writing in a writing community. So what? But then, I noticed that the posts people were making mostly glorified their own friends. It was a "you mention me, I'll mention you" sort of thing. Nothing new, nothing outside, but the same people within the rating clique doing the same thing all over again.
Wow, when does this circle jerk get old? If you want to write, write. Fuck validation. Fuck what people care. Do what you want to do. And I'm sure their whole mantra is, they want to find amazing journals to read. That's the same thing I said when I was involved. If you're looking for something interesting to read, why don't you go to a bookstore? Getting it from a site full of inanity and narcissim doesn't seem to add up.
Why search the pawn shop for a diamond, when you can go to a jeweler's and take your pick of the best?