Hello LJ, my old friend...
After visiting an old primarily-LJ friend this weekend for the first time in years, I've been reminiscing about what this community used to be to me. So many things: support, intellectual stimulation, whimsy, a bastion of likemindedness in lonely times. This isn't to deprecate those who are still posting; I love hearing about your lives; I just know my own participation, and many others', has dropped off a lot in recent years.
Part of that, for me, coincided with coming to grad school and finding a community of likeminded people (not quite as much so, but enough for everyday) who I could actually see, hug, and take to the bar/coffee shop with me. My liking for folks on here didn't diminish at all, but my need for an outlet did. Also, with grad school work came a drastic shrinking of free time.
Of course this trajectory in my personal life also corresponded with the ascendancy of Facebook, and in the world of fandom, the waning of the lateral, anyone-can-post LJ discussion community (where no one gets a book deal) in favor of the hierarchical, branded blog (where the cool kids post and the rest of us "sound off below," "like," and "follow"). I still manage to hear a fair bit of what's coming down the line in sci fi, fantasy, and costume drama circles, but I miss the squee, the picspams, the polls, the icons, the recaps, even the rants!
What I find myself missing the most though, now - well, actually a distant second to the people who I truly love on here who, like me, have become LJ ghosts or close to that - but what I also miss is the venue to tell things in my own way, in more than a few lines of text. To craft anecdotes out of the events of my life or work through the things rattling around in my brain via narrative. You all know me; I'm wordy.
This isn't a promise, or a challenge to myself; things have changed, and while I'd like to (and may well) start posting more on here, the community isn't the same either. But I did just want to say... Hey, LJ. We had good times. And I miss you.
Part of that, for me, coincided with coming to grad school and finding a community of likeminded people (not quite as much so, but enough for everyday) who I could actually see, hug, and take to the bar/coffee shop with me. My liking for folks on here didn't diminish at all, but my need for an outlet did. Also, with grad school work came a drastic shrinking of free time.
Of course this trajectory in my personal life also corresponded with the ascendancy of Facebook, and in the world of fandom, the waning of the lateral, anyone-can-post LJ discussion community (where no one gets a book deal) in favor of the hierarchical, branded blog (where the cool kids post and the rest of us "sound off below," "like," and "follow"). I still manage to hear a fair bit of what's coming down the line in sci fi, fantasy, and costume drama circles, but I miss the squee, the picspams, the polls, the icons, the recaps, even the rants!
What I find myself missing the most though, now - well, actually a distant second to the people who I truly love on here who, like me, have become LJ ghosts or close to that - but what I also miss is the venue to tell things in my own way, in more than a few lines of text. To craft anecdotes out of the events of my life or work through the things rattling around in my brain via narrative. You all know me; I'm wordy.
This isn't a promise, or a challenge to myself; things have changed, and while I'd like to (and may well) start posting more on here, the community isn't the same either. But I did just want to say... Hey, LJ. We had good times. And I miss you.