Make Fic, Not War: Self-Contained Fandom or How LJ is a Winnebago
reccea has been after me for a while to make a post explaining my Winnebago Theory of LJ and since miss_porcupine is compiling meta for Devoid of Con.txt, now seemed like a good time.
I've pretty much gone through three evolutions of fanfic distribution: the newsgroup (alt.comics.fanfic or rec.alt.comic whatever that I used to read through Deja News), the mailing list (remember when yahoo groups was onelist?) and now LJ. I'm pretty sure many people have weighed the pros and cons of mailing list vs. LJ but I look on it as an extended metaphor. And everyone who knows me knows how I love my extended metaphor.
Mailing lists were sort of like concert halls. Concert halls, you pay for your ticket, you sit down, you listen to all the music. Mailing lists, you join the list, you get the emails, and you get everything that comes through. (Unless you were successful at filtering out exactly what you didn't want and then more power to you.) Sure, mailing lists have that no-mail option or the digests, but that's pretty much like scanning the program and going in to listen to just one or two things you like. It works but you're at risk of missing something good just because it's new or you didn't recognize it. In concert halls, you sometimes have to sit next to that person wearing too much perfume and sometimes you have to get emails from annoying people or endless feedback for a story you didn't read or didn't like.
LJ, though, is like Woodstock. All the music is outside and available for the most part and you have your own little spot to personalize as you like. LJ issues you your journal/Winnebago and you can decorate it as you like, share what you like, and lock up what you like. You can personalize it with exactly the content you're interested in, be it comics, CSI: NY, and SGA, or baseball, cooking, and the X-Files. You can find people who talk about these things, and communities for discussing those things and finding other people who might be interested in that stuff and that's your equivalent to going around, finding a tailgate party or a band you like. Every time you post, it's a little like holding a wienie roast outside. Anyone can come visit, have a wienie, join in the discussion. It's pretty much a public forum so you can say what you want, but hey, if you're eating someone's wienies in front of their Winnebago, you're not going to start up something or cut them down. You don't like the wienies, you go elsewhere. Your favorite wienie-griller hasn't posted made wienies in a while? Don't go knocking on their door asking when they're going to feed you again. I mean you wouldn't do it in real life, why would you do it online?
Also, as miss_porcupine points out, you still have the stoned people wandering through, making no sense, and moving on with your wondering, "Huh, what?" ;)
Locked posts are a little like private parties. You've invited your friendslist or your filter to a little get-together. It's not an open invite, it's not quite as casual, or maybe it's more casual because you can relax and not have to play host quite so attentively. There's nothing wrong with a little disagreement or debate, but on the whole you're looking at another level of civil conversation. Sometimes it's about more personal things and sometimes the topic's a little inflammatory, and sometimes it's just something you want to keep under wraps for reasons known entirely to you. And that's okay. Sometimes you just need a little quiet time with your buddies.
Either way, as a host, you can choose the level of interaction. If you have a lot of visitors you may choose to spend more time making wienies and less time mingling. It might be harder for you to do make that personal connection. Depending on the time available to you, friending everyone back or responding to every comment may not be feasible for you but some guests prefer a higher level of interaction for their social activities and if you're too busy to mingle as much as they like, you may have to reconcile the disappointment of a guest with the ability to continue to produce wienies. (The irony is that if you lose enough guests to inattention, you may wind up with a manageable number again and you'll be able to pay a higher level of attention to the remaining guests...who didn't need quite so much to start with. It's not such a terribly easy decision to make.)
Some LJs work more as a bulletin board and are meant to put out stories or news with a minimal level of interaction. They're a little less of a wienie roast and a little more of a condiment station. But you can still choose whether to be informed by them or not with the understanding that they are less of an interactive set-up than others. Those are better compared to the performers on stage, rather than the people sitting in the grass with their guitars.
So, um. Wienies anyone?
I've pretty much gone through three evolutions of fanfic distribution: the newsgroup (alt.comics.fanfic or rec.alt.comic whatever that I used to read through Deja News), the mailing list (remember when yahoo groups was onelist?) and now LJ. I'm pretty sure many people have weighed the pros and cons of mailing list vs. LJ but I look on it as an extended metaphor. And everyone who knows me knows how I love my extended metaphor.
Mailing lists were sort of like concert halls. Concert halls, you pay for your ticket, you sit down, you listen to all the music. Mailing lists, you join the list, you get the emails, and you get everything that comes through. (Unless you were successful at filtering out exactly what you didn't want and then more power to you.) Sure, mailing lists have that no-mail option or the digests, but that's pretty much like scanning the program and going in to listen to just one or two things you like. It works but you're at risk of missing something good just because it's new or you didn't recognize it. In concert halls, you sometimes have to sit next to that person wearing too much perfume and sometimes you have to get emails from annoying people or endless feedback for a story you didn't read or didn't like.
LJ, though, is like Woodstock. All the music is outside and available for the most part and you have your own little spot to personalize as you like. LJ issues you your journal/Winnebago and you can decorate it as you like, share what you like, and lock up what you like. You can personalize it with exactly the content you're interested in, be it comics, CSI: NY, and SGA, or baseball, cooking, and the X-Files. You can find people who talk about these things, and communities for discussing those things and finding other people who might be interested in that stuff and that's your equivalent to going around, finding a tailgate party or a band you like. Every time you post, it's a little like holding a wienie roast outside. Anyone can come visit, have a wienie, join in the discussion. It's pretty much a public forum so you can say what you want, but hey, if you're eating someone's wienies in front of their Winnebago, you're not going to start up something or cut them down. You don't like the wienies, you go elsewhere. Your favorite wienie-griller hasn't posted made wienies in a while? Don't go knocking on their door asking when they're going to feed you again. I mean you wouldn't do it in real life, why would you do it online?
Also, as miss_porcupine points out, you still have the stoned people wandering through, making no sense, and moving on with your wondering, "Huh, what?" ;)
Locked posts are a little like private parties. You've invited your friendslist or your filter to a little get-together. It's not an open invite, it's not quite as casual, or maybe it's more casual because you can relax and not have to play host quite so attentively. There's nothing wrong with a little disagreement or debate, but on the whole you're looking at another level of civil conversation. Sometimes it's about more personal things and sometimes the topic's a little inflammatory, and sometimes it's just something you want to keep under wraps for reasons known entirely to you. And that's okay. Sometimes you just need a little quiet time with your buddies.
Either way, as a host, you can choose the level of interaction. If you have a lot of visitors you may choose to spend more time making wienies and less time mingling. It might be harder for you to do make that personal connection. Depending on the time available to you, friending everyone back or responding to every comment may not be feasible for you but some guests prefer a higher level of interaction for their social activities and if you're too busy to mingle as much as they like, you may have to reconcile the disappointment of a guest with the ability to continue to produce wienies. (The irony is that if you lose enough guests to inattention, you may wind up with a manageable number again and you'll be able to pay a higher level of attention to the remaining guests...who didn't need quite so much to start with. It's not such a terribly easy decision to make.)
Some LJs work more as a bulletin board and are meant to put out stories or news with a minimal level of interaction. They're a little less of a wienie roast and a little more of a condiment station. But you can still choose whether to be informed by them or not with the understanding that they are less of an interactive set-up than others. Those are better compared to the performers on stage, rather than the people sitting in the grass with their guitars.
So, um. Wienies anyone?