Essay rec: LJ as a medium

[teasel]

Essay rec: double_helix has a fascinating post here on the effect of LJ on fannish communication. Well worth checking out; she considers the effect of the switch from Usenet and mailing lists (technologies which basically filtered content by subject and encouraged threaded discussion) to LJ (a technology which basically filters by person and in which

Comments

[mollyringle]

I'm with Cara on liking LJ better. I'm finding it easier to live with, in general, than the old discussion lists and chat rooms I used to be involved with. Not only does LJ allow for more individual preferences (we each get our own totally exclusive soapbox! Whee!), but it feels like you can do it on your own time more than the other methods allowed. If you answer an old thread on a mailing list, people will either ignore it or get annoyed. If you answer an old post or comment on LJ, people usually don't mind, because only the person who posted will get the message. You're not bothering the group at large.

And chat rooms, of course, are in real time, and thus suck down a lot of hours in impulsive discussions and arguments. After exhausting myself with those for a few years in my early 20s, it was a huge relief to come to LJ and realize: "Hey, I can answer these people whenever I feel like it! It doesn't have to be right now. Neat!"

It's also vital to one's sanity, I think, to keep back certain personal details of one's choosing, as you say, Teasel. Otherwise you make your life the subject of other people's reverie a bit too much--similar to how a story takes on a separate life in the reader's mind once it's out there, and in some sense can no longer be said to belong entirely to the writer.

[teasel]

it feels like you can do it on your own time more than the other methods allowed.

Oh, my yes. There's an advantage to having a soapbox of one's own. On the other hand the funny thing about the technology is that our readers don't experience our soapbox as ours but as theirs -- our posts are chopped off from the rest of our LJs and concatenated in someone's friends list. So the post is on our time, yes, but also weirdly on theirs, or on the scrap or fragment of theirs that the technology allows.

Totally OT, and perhaps I'm contradicting myself here, but you know what LJ reminds me of? Have you ever seen Wings of Desire (the original German version, there's a remake I haven't seen.) -- It's a movie about angels watching over Berlin. The angels kind of drift over the city (in trench coats; I'm not sure why) and listen to bits and scraps of people's disconnected thoughts. In a way this contact is peculiarly intimate (the angels are hearing thoughts after all) but in a way it's strangely impersonal -- the thoughts all kind of merge on the soundtrack into this distant murmuring chorus. That's what LJ can be like, I think, for me as a reader. It's an autobiographical chorus, which is, when you think about it, an incredibly odd and perhaps self-contradictory concept.

Which brings me to your other point --

otherwise you make your life the subject of other people's reverie a bit too much--similar to how a story takes on a separate life in the reader's mind once it's out there, and in some sense can no longer be said to belong entirely to the writer.

Very true -- but isn't it also necessarily true of other forms of autobiography? I suppose the question here is whether or to what extent LJ is a form of autobiography or a form of public communication. The form is so new that I don't think there's yet any one answer to that question, which may be why people occasionally find themselves wondering what the hell the rules are or arguing about whether a particular post has violated them.

[mollyringle]

you know what LJ reminds me of? Have you ever seen Wings of Desire

Oh yes! It does resemble that, now you mention it. Especially when you read someone else's friends list. Personal random stuff from total strangers, each in their own voice.
(Btw, I liked that film until the climax, where it suddenly warped into a 15-minute monologue of European Artistic Deepness. Blech. Way to kill a great setup.)

isn't it also necessarily true of other forms of autobiography?

Hmm, yes - probably the reason why autobiographies are best published posthumously. ;)

whether or to what extent LJ is a form of autobiography or a form of public communication.

That seems to be a constant debate, and probably will have produced a thousand Master's theses in Communication and/or Psychology by the end of the decade. My own answer remains that it's definitely communication, since if it were really truly "just for me," I'd mark every entry "private." Knowing people are reading it changes the tone. Then people try to tell me it shouldn't change the tone; I should say whatever I feel; etc. But that's no more true than it is in real life. Yes, you can say whatever you want, but be prepared to live with the consequences if anyone's listening to you. :)