On being a ghost in light of the "no dead people" rule
With the Welcome Wagon’s recent decision, I obviously became very worried about my journal and how it would be received from here out. I emailed Linda the Welcome Lady since I am, comparatively, new. She told me to have no fear because I was a ghost, not a dead person reincarnated, and because, basically, I wasn’t Hitler. I'm sure there are people blaming me for the fact that he showed up, but really now, I doubt my presence caused this.
I do though understand why some people would want to be purists and de-friend me now. And that’s fine with me, go ahead. Although, the true purists probably never friended me in the first place, which was largely fine with me. But if I don’t de-friend you right back (which largely I probably won’t do unless you have a locked journal, but I’ll get to that in a minute), it is because I’ve come to care about you and what is going on in your life, and even if you don’t want to see my posts anymore, I’d still love to see yours.
Why a ghost? Why Freud? No one has asked me outright why on earth I decided a ghost would be a good character, but I want to share now because maybe it will make people understand why I’m here, why I added people, and why I’m not deleting. I’m really not a fan of any actor or singer or athlete or anyone - I may read an article or something about someone once in a while, but I would have no idea how to get the information that makes the character believable. I mean, it seems like you would have to be fairly on top of what your character is doing - and I don’t have the will to look up the information about the person. Sure, some people are more on top of what their characters are doing than others - some people basically don’t care what their person is doing in real life. But I’d care, and I’d have a hard time being a character where I couldn’t bring a lot of detail.
So then why did I pick Freud? Because I’m a psych student, and I want to be a psychoanalyst, and because I think Freud is cool. Misunderstood, and yes, he was misguided at times, but that’s neither here nor there right now. I’ve read enough Freud that I could probably analyze someone’s character if they asked me (no one has asked, and it is generally a bad idea to analyze without permission, so as much as I would like to, I don’t). And besides, having a shrink around never hurt anyone right?
Why then did I pick a ghost, and not a famous living therapist? Well, there aren’t any living famous therapists that I like (see the point about not knowing where to get info even if I did like them). What I’m about to say may sound bad to some people, but just read through and allow me to finish before you judge. I don’t think I could effectively play a character having a relationship with another character. I love the fact that other people can, and it is one of the things that attracted me to this game - I just don’t think I could do it well. And I’m not sure I could deal with the relationship drama, more than anything else. I like being detached from the drama - being able to just offer advice here and there.
The second part of why a ghost was good for me was that I never really wanted to have a live journal - I’ve had issues with them in the past, I have issues with them now. But I really wanted to be able to comment to people and follow a small group of people and their journals (another thing I will talk about in a few lines). Ghosts are, according to Freud, basically the unconscious - they tell you what you have repressed - so they really lend themselves to just commenting. Have I necessarily been good at being that ghost? No, but I’m new, and two and a half months into a role other people probably weren’t necessarily good at being a skater, an actor, a member of a royal family - you work into it, and I am trying to comment more and be a better ghost and a better Freudian - I’ve been preoccupied, but again, that’s beside the point.
So then, the next question is probably why did a get a journal at all? If I don’t know/don’t care about following a living person, and if I didn’t want to write a journal, what was the point? I stumbled onto the entire concept of celebrity journals in October, and read more and more of them, and got to a point where I would simply enter a bunch of URLs everyday and read them and go about my merry way. There were problems though, mostly that people started to go friends-only journal (a concept I would love to ask about, but never see anyone online and don’t know anyone well enough to ask about). I left well enough alone for a while, and just stopped thinking about the people who were doing friends only, although I still missed them. But then the people that I really wanted to read about went friends only or threatened to go friends only. And I was tired of going to a dozen different journals every day. And sometimes I really wanted comment, usually relatively unimportant things, but occasionally something of substance. So I made a journal where no one could ever ask me to be in a relationship, and where largely, I would just be commenting.
For the most part I added people I’d been reading before I had a journal. I loved to read about the lives that people had created. I’ve read a lot of bad fanfic over the years, and the people I kept reading were people who were basically writing good fanfic - which is a rare and wonderful find. And then some people added me, some people I’d never heard of, and some people I just assumed were content with their current friends list. Of all the people who told me what a horrible character I had when I first came, there was only one person who I wanted to add (and so I’d read my friends page, and then read her journal, but now she’s gone friends only so I suppose it really doesn’t matter now), so I didn’t care that a group of the Backstreet Boys or NSync didn’t like me - I didn’t really care about reading their journals, and I don’t recall rules saying that everyone had to read everyone else’s journals.
That was the long and complicated way of saying that I added people because I thought they were good writers and I got caught up in the storyline. And then people added me, and I started reading their journal, and got caught up in new storylines I would never had read about if I didn’t have a journal, which I appreciated. So if you take me off your friends list, and I don’t take you off, in a strange way, it is my complement to you, since the game doesn’t lend itself to sending feedback the way fanfic does. I’d like to keep reading about all of you, and I suppose it doesn’t hurt to have me on your friends-of list (I can see not wanting to have me show up on your friends list everyday). I won’t comment if you don’t think of me as a friend.
So basically, I’m not deleting because I’ve been told I don’t have to by one person with more clout. I’m largely not editing my friends list because I like all of you, and your stories, too much to let you go right now.
I really hope that no one decides to go friends only, and then block me from reading. I mean, you have to know that there are people not in the game reading your journal as a diversion from reality, right? And maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see how that could really be a problem (if someone wants to clue in the far too curious person, let me know - drop me a comment or an email, and if you want I can give you my RL screen name).
I do though understand why some people would want to be purists and de-friend me now. And that’s fine with me, go ahead. Although, the true purists probably never friended me in the first place, which was largely fine with me. But if I don’t de-friend you right back (which largely I probably won’t do unless you have a locked journal, but I’ll get to that in a minute), it is because I’ve come to care about you and what is going on in your life, and even if you don’t want to see my posts anymore, I’d still love to see yours.
Why a ghost? Why Freud? No one has asked me outright why on earth I decided a ghost would be a good character, but I want to share now because maybe it will make people understand why I’m here, why I added people, and why I’m not deleting. I’m really not a fan of any actor or singer or athlete or anyone - I may read an article or something about someone once in a while, but I would have no idea how to get the information that makes the character believable. I mean, it seems like you would have to be fairly on top of what your character is doing - and I don’t have the will to look up the information about the person. Sure, some people are more on top of what their characters are doing than others - some people basically don’t care what their person is doing in real life. But I’d care, and I’d have a hard time being a character where I couldn’t bring a lot of detail.
So then why did I pick Freud? Because I’m a psych student, and I want to be a psychoanalyst, and because I think Freud is cool. Misunderstood, and yes, he was misguided at times, but that’s neither here nor there right now. I’ve read enough Freud that I could probably analyze someone’s character if they asked me (no one has asked, and it is generally a bad idea to analyze without permission, so as much as I would like to, I don’t). And besides, having a shrink around never hurt anyone right?
Why then did I pick a ghost, and not a famous living therapist? Well, there aren’t any living famous therapists that I like (see the point about not knowing where to get info even if I did like them). What I’m about to say may sound bad to some people, but just read through and allow me to finish before you judge. I don’t think I could effectively play a character having a relationship with another character. I love the fact that other people can, and it is one of the things that attracted me to this game - I just don’t think I could do it well. And I’m not sure I could deal with the relationship drama, more than anything else. I like being detached from the drama - being able to just offer advice here and there.
The second part of why a ghost was good for me was that I never really wanted to have a live journal - I’ve had issues with them in the past, I have issues with them now. But I really wanted to be able to comment to people and follow a small group of people and their journals (another thing I will talk about in a few lines). Ghosts are, according to Freud, basically the unconscious - they tell you what you have repressed - so they really lend themselves to just commenting. Have I necessarily been good at being that ghost? No, but I’m new, and two and a half months into a role other people probably weren’t necessarily good at being a skater, an actor, a member of a royal family - you work into it, and I am trying to comment more and be a better ghost and a better Freudian - I’ve been preoccupied, but again, that’s beside the point.
So then, the next question is probably why did a get a journal at all? If I don’t know/don’t care about following a living person, and if I didn’t want to write a journal, what was the point? I stumbled onto the entire concept of celebrity journals in October, and read more and more of them, and got to a point where I would simply enter a bunch of URLs everyday and read them and go about my merry way. There were problems though, mostly that people started to go friends-only journal (a concept I would love to ask about, but never see anyone online and don’t know anyone well enough to ask about). I left well enough alone for a while, and just stopped thinking about the people who were doing friends only, although I still missed them. But then the people that I really wanted to read about went friends only or threatened to go friends only. And I was tired of going to a dozen different journals every day. And sometimes I really wanted comment, usually relatively unimportant things, but occasionally something of substance. So I made a journal where no one could ever ask me to be in a relationship, and where largely, I would just be commenting.
For the most part I added people I’d been reading before I had a journal. I loved to read about the lives that people had created. I’ve read a lot of bad fanfic over the years, and the people I kept reading were people who were basically writing good fanfic - which is a rare and wonderful find. And then some people added me, some people I’d never heard of, and some people I just assumed were content with their current friends list. Of all the people who told me what a horrible character I had when I first came, there was only one person who I wanted to add (and so I’d read my friends page, and then read her journal, but now she’s gone friends only so I suppose it really doesn’t matter now), so I didn’t care that a group of the Backstreet Boys or NSync didn’t like me - I didn’t really care about reading their journals, and I don’t recall rules saying that everyone had to read everyone else’s journals.
That was the long and complicated way of saying that I added people because I thought they were good writers and I got caught up in the storyline. And then people added me, and I started reading their journal, and got caught up in new storylines I would never had read about if I didn’t have a journal, which I appreciated. So if you take me off your friends list, and I don’t take you off, in a strange way, it is my complement to you, since the game doesn’t lend itself to sending feedback the way fanfic does. I’d like to keep reading about all of you, and I suppose it doesn’t hurt to have me on your friends-of list (I can see not wanting to have me show up on your friends list everyday). I won’t comment if you don’t think of me as a friend.
So basically, I’m not deleting because I’ve been told I don’t have to by one person with more clout. I’m largely not editing my friends list because I like all of you, and your stories, too much to let you go right now.
I really hope that no one decides to go friends only, and then block me from reading. I mean, you have to know that there are people not in the game reading your journal as a diversion from reality, right? And maybe it’s just me, but I don’t see how that could really be a problem (if someone wants to clue in the far too curious person, let me know - drop me a comment or an email, and if you want I can give you my RL screen name).