What I'm *not* doing about "The Great Strikethrough of '07"
For starters - I'm not going to be getting a GreatestJournal account[1]. I'm not going to be quitting this LJ account. I'm not going to be stomping off in high dudgeon to another site, and playing the whole game all over again.
Yes, I have reasons for this. The primary one of them is that every person who picks up and leaves LJ as a result of this *weakens the case for the rest of us*. We have more of a voice if we make our case as a group - and if we make our case as current users. My second reason is that picking up and leaving LJ for such a reason is a *win* for the wingnuts who set the whole thing off in the first place. They get to say that they "caused" the great purge of '07, and look how powerful they are, and see, they must be right because so many people wound up leaving for fear of them.
The third reason for not leaving is that bugger it, I've been here about four or five years, and I am *NOT* going to go to all the bother of setting up a whole new account, as well as trying to carry across community links that I've built up over that time, just because some bunch of w*nkers decide that they want to ensure that the world is built in their image. Feck the lot of 'em.
I'm also not going to be treating this like it's the end of the world. It isn't. Trust me, there is a difference, and one big part of it is that the seas aren't turning to blood (I've checked - one of the advantages of living near the beach) and there have been no reports of the four horsemen of the apocalypse riding out. It's possible they may have been caught in traffic. Alternatively, we may be looking at the four horsemen of the Internet Panic - Over-Reaction, Exaggeration, Misinformation and Decontextualisation.
Yes, my ox has not been gored. None of the communities to which I am subscribed have been bahleeted, and I don't have a very personal reason to get angry. I am annoyed that the threat by a small group of crackpots to contact their advertisers was enough to get LJ/SA into full on "kill them all and let god sort it all out" mode, but I figure there was presumably something happening in the background (such as a contract in re-negotiation) which may have made this a plausible threat to them. However, I'd be raising the following counterpoint: the people who are moving away from LJ at this point are largely the creative core of a very loyal following. They are people who create content which brings others to LJ (and therefore brings people to the point where they can view the advertising), and which keeps people who already have LJ accounts *reading* LiveJournal (and, incidentally, seeing the advertising). Maybe it would be worth *our* while to point this out to their advertisers, as well?
Or maybe we should threaten to do what the Worriers for Idiocy did - tell their advertisers about the naughty things that Six Apart are doing to their precious revenue base.
I suppose it also helps that there's a certain amount of paranoid conspiracy theorist in me, asking silly questions like "who benefits if this goes fruit-shaped the way it's threatening to?" or "what am I being distracted from at this point?" Maybe it's a result of too many years living with the demonic garden gnome in the Lodge, but I tend to look at moral panics and massive sensations as a very effective smokescreen while the Man behind the curtain takes away some more of my civil liberties. I'm hoping that in this case, I'm wrong. But I can't shake the feeling that one can't really be paranoid if they *are* out to get you.
[1] GJ are entirely funded by advertising revenue. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this likely to make them *more* vulnerable to the sorts of tactics used by the Worriers for Idiocy rather than less?
Yes, I have reasons for this. The primary one of them is that every person who picks up and leaves LJ as a result of this *weakens the case for the rest of us*. We have more of a voice if we make our case as a group - and if we make our case as current users. My second reason is that picking up and leaving LJ for such a reason is a *win* for the wingnuts who set the whole thing off in the first place. They get to say that they "caused" the great purge of '07, and look how powerful they are, and see, they must be right because so many people wound up leaving for fear of them.
The third reason for not leaving is that bugger it, I've been here about four or five years, and I am *NOT* going to go to all the bother of setting up a whole new account, as well as trying to carry across community links that I've built up over that time, just because some bunch of w*nkers decide that they want to ensure that the world is built in their image. Feck the lot of 'em.
I'm also not going to be treating this like it's the end of the world. It isn't. Trust me, there is a difference, and one big part of it is that the seas aren't turning to blood (I've checked - one of the advantages of living near the beach) and there have been no reports of the four horsemen of the apocalypse riding out. It's possible they may have been caught in traffic. Alternatively, we may be looking at the four horsemen of the Internet Panic - Over-Reaction, Exaggeration, Misinformation and Decontextualisation.
Yes, my ox has not been gored. None of the communities to which I am subscribed have been bahleeted, and I don't have a very personal reason to get angry. I am annoyed that the threat by a small group of crackpots to contact their advertisers was enough to get LJ/SA into full on "kill them all and let god sort it all out" mode, but I figure there was presumably something happening in the background (such as a contract in re-negotiation) which may have made this a plausible threat to them. However, I'd be raising the following counterpoint: the people who are moving away from LJ at this point are largely the creative core of a very loyal following. They are people who create content which brings others to LJ (and therefore brings people to the point where they can view the advertising), and which keeps people who already have LJ accounts *reading* LiveJournal (and, incidentally, seeing the advertising). Maybe it would be worth *our* while to point this out to their advertisers, as well?
Or maybe we should threaten to do what the Worriers for Idiocy did - tell their advertisers about the naughty things that Six Apart are doing to their precious revenue base.
I suppose it also helps that there's a certain amount of paranoid conspiracy theorist in me, asking silly questions like "who benefits if this goes fruit-shaped the way it's threatening to?" or "what am I being distracted from at this point?" Maybe it's a result of too many years living with the demonic garden gnome in the Lodge, but I tend to look at moral panics and massive sensations as a very effective smokescreen while the Man behind the curtain takes away some more of my civil liberties. I'm hoping that in this case, I'm wrong. But I can't shake the feeling that one can't really be paranoid if they *are* out to get you.
[1] GJ are entirely funded by advertising revenue. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this likely to make them *more* vulnerable to the sorts of tactics used by the Worriers for Idiocy rather than less?