Expanding into the realms of children with too much time on our hands

[chronarchy]

Due to a weird note into the ADF Office, I now have a Myspace Account. I honestly have no idea what the thing does or can do, but. . . yeah.

I also signed up for one of those damn Facebooks, too. *sighs* I'm feeling too old for this stuff.

But I'm probably still too young to write chants. . .

Comments

[singingwren]

Hahaha, you got a Facebook. *points and laughs*

Actually, I used it once to get a Chem lab assignment I didn't have by looking up all people in Chem 102 and randomly calling some... it was awesome. I got help right away.

Most people seem to want to use it to hit on people, though, and that's creepy. I mean, cute army boys aside, how shady is it when they find you through Facebook and try to act like they know you IRL? Don't trust anybody hot on Facebook 'cause it's probably not their picture. Same goes for LJ, lol.

I'll report back with Facebook findings after I screw around with it tonight.

[chronarchy]

No, with LJ you can tell the ugly ones by how close their face is to the camera, how many weird colour filters they use, and how many of their icons are not actual pictures :) I imagine similar rules go for facebook.

[singingwren]

Aw, not true. You just don't appreciate art. Anything 'artistic', aka filtered, coloured, or played with, you dismiss. And what about my icon, huh?! It's not a real photograph.

For some reason, I always thought of having an icon of *myself* as vain.

[chronarchy]

Vain? I suppose I could see that.

Re: "artistic" stuff? Wow, you don't know the half of it :) I realized just how much I dislike artistic stuff on Sunday.

But as for filters and stuff, they're generally used to hide imperfections and, to me, convey a low self-esteem. Which I find remarkably unattractive.

[singingwren]

*laughs* I'm not saying that all photo LJ's are vain, but I'm not a big fan of people who try to take sexy pictures of themselves for their *LJ specifically*. Generally these are contrived icons where the person doesn't smile and looks to have photographed themselves.

I personally never thought to have a picture icon because I never really had any pictures online. Plus, I loved to design artistic (uh oh!!) ones on Photoshop using Nature photography, etc. If I weren't artistic, though, I could see myself just finding a pic... which I could do now. I have enough. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Orange hat?!

I feel at this point like people would get confused if I changed my icon, though... man. I made this one on a whim and now everyone identifies me with it!

As a tangent, I guess another reason I never thought to make a photo one is because to me they are livejournal 'icons,' which suggests something representative of a person and not necessarily the person themselves.

[chronarchy]

Orange Hat!

I'm so glad I got that picture :)

As for LJ icons, people who try and look sexy in them generally just look. . . funny. They're all pouty or it's just breasts or something silly like that.

I mean, geez.

[singingwren]

Haha, you also got the "Anna makes a tortilla Zorro mask" picture that should probably not be in existence. Why did I ever let you touch my camera, again?

[chronarchy]

I took that pic with *my* camera.

I can even post it!

[singingwren]

Ahhhhh scary!!!!!!
It makes my eyes look very freaky.
I was posing to be intimidating, and unfortunately, it worked...

[gothicsquish]

Or it conveys a need for privacy and people, like co-workers, to not find us and find out things that are generally not good for co-workers to know. Its also for the ease of your friends. For instance, I have a dream filter... anyone who wants to be on it, can be. But alot of people skim dream posts, so its for their ease that I have one. That and my dreams can be very intense and sexual, and not everyone likes to read that either.

Fliters aren't just for hiding imprefections, they have a pratical value as well. =)

[chronarchy]

Ha. Not that kind of filter. I mean like lens filters on cameras :)

[gothicsquish]

*facepalm*

wow, I think i read that whole conversation to mean LJ filters.... I think I was tired. LOL.

[lillassea]

I agree re icons... I think of them as representations, of one's self and/or one's mood. That's why I have icons of women, men, art, animals, nature, art objects, scenes from films, etc. It weirds me out when people have like 20 icons and they are ALL pictures of themselves. Narcissism much?? I have only one pic of me in my myriad icons, and I trimmed it so it shows only half my face, and the leaves make it look wood-nymphy so I'm sure some people don't even realize it's me.

icons

[rfunk]

If something's going to represent me and be the image that people I've never met associate with me, it seems weird to me for it to show somebody else.

Re: icons

[lillassea]

Oh sure, I don't think having an icon of oneself is vain. I have one of me too. I'm talking mainly about the people who have like 50 oh-so-sexay photos of themselves as their icons, but no other images! Call me silly, but it strikes me as a little... oh never mind, I'm probably just being judgemental. :-)

Re: icons

[duriyah]

I find it interesting that sometimes the art that someone chooses to represent them in an icon ends up looking a bit like that person. anivair's icon, for example.

An icon also (often) represents some facet of how the user sees her- or himself, which is an interesting study. the_shampoo, for example, observed an aspect of me and how I view myself by some of the icons I have collected.