Your DW blather of the day
cimorene has the simplest, clearest, most straightforward and right post about why Dreamwidth is a better for fandom than LJ or any of its prior "alternatives."
Also you should love her for her plebefic headers and sneakers-of-the-day posts.
I don't identify strongly with fandom, and yet LJ's offenses against fandom, which she lines up so clearly, really irritate me. I think, in a way, that fandom is like a - I don't know, a user interface or an operating system, for me. Not for my computer, but for the Internet. Fandom's a way of being in the public sphere on a manageable scale. To step out on stage in the form of a journal entry. To connect with people to whom I was connected in potentia but whom I never heard or thought of. I've actually met a couple of people I'm really close to this way, including my girlfriend, and there are many more I consider genuine friends. And I also enjoy having a little platform, where I might occasionally write or do something that a few hundred people might see, but with low stakes and a sense that we all live in the same small town and attend one of 3 or 4 churches or bowling leagues, that I'm not just stepping blindly out in front of the world at large. It's not so much "semiprivate" as "semipublic."
I adore amateurism. People have sometimes said I could cook professionally, and I'm all ha ha ha bite your tongue. (Also, they're wrong.)
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I linked yesterday to
pauraque's post on LJ about the gender drop-down menu on the profile page. Since then, I have removed my gender ID. I don't mind being counted as a female user, in fact I would in a way actively prefer DW to know that the majority of its users are female, but it is bothering me that a close online friend feels understandably offended by being classed as "other." Interestingly, on the DW Stats Page, use of the site by gender is broken down into percentages, but these percentages do not include those who answered "I'd rather not say." This group (alluringly titled "Unspecified") numbers 6046, the second largest after "female" (9305). So, don't mean much.
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I used to have a pet rat named "I'd rather not say." His brother was named "None of your business." I still have medicine bottles with their names printed on. "For: None of your business." Awesome. I wish I could see them again.
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I actively want to continue using some of the terminology that grew up around eljay, such as "eljay," "my LJ," "flist/flock." To me it's like when a brand name reaches the point where property rights and advertising drop away and you use it as a common noun, like "kleenex" or "google." It's an index of the fact that "LJ" was not just the company that could be owned, but the culture and the community. These words belong to us -- hands off, The Man! However, I am also trying to collect some of the new terminology, and mentally making up more ("accessorize.") If you have suggestions or heard terms - you know, like "circling" - to share, please do! I will post a list.
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I have a couple more invite codes, if you need one.
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Edited to Pimp: 2 new comms, created by
laughingrat -
classicfilm and
spinning. I know there are some spinners reading this.
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