Lament.
Previous post, or two posts ago, saw Yama (threepunchstuff) and I discuss the decline of LJ, in which I admit I've participated by dropping off in posting myself. He said the following:
LJ is definitely a beautifully designed social networking platform. The simultaneous sense of community and privacy hasn't been duplicated.
But I think the idea that defection is LJ's only problem needs to be examined. It seems to me more likely that defection is the consequence of structural failings. The purpose of all of these platforms is instrumental, not aesthetic. An abacus that no one wants to use probably isn't the best abacus. Popularity alone doesn't validate art, but I think usage does validate tools.
I also don't think it's true that LJ lends itself to better writing than Facebook or Twitter. I was especially skeptical of the latter for a long time, but now I think my Twitter feed is the most consistently engrossing thing I read.
What I do think is true is that LJ lends itself to particular kinds of content and community that are falling out of favor, for various reasons. It's not just the perceived laziness or faddishness of Twitter. There's something about brevity, immediacy, and transparency that make for a good social networking tool. And there's something about halfway-cloaked identity and an emphasis on self-analytical writing over other types of content that attracts cobwebs and little else right now.
I'm not too sad about the dwindling of this space, because it served its purpose. And I won't assume that there's never going to be another place where people can comfortably confess, solicit sympathy, or think out loud about themselves. Maybe that place won't be online. And maybe it shouldn't be. I'm going to keep using it, happily, for now.
Generally, I see the sense in this. However, the thing that troubles me about this trend is that, like virtually every other internet shift in the past decade, it's a move toward saying less. When I began moving to messageboards from usenet about ten years ago, what weirded me out then was how short every post was expected to be, and how people were ridiculed for trying to say things that were complicated or took any explanation at all. In time, I followed friends to messageboards as the same friends drifted away from usenet, and a while later I ended up here, the same way I ended up on friendster, myspace, facebook, etc.
Each of these platforms offers something interesting enough to me that it inspires me to sign up, so obviously there's something of draw in each. And, as Yama says of himself, I will also eventually most likely drift away from LJ as other people defect, and my behaviour over the last year is probably an indicator of that. However what troubles me is that the decline of this platform is a decline in what I see as communication-- far more so than straight blogging, or Twitter, both of which are much more about speaking into the void of the perceived public. Facebook is more about the presentation of the self as a character punctuated again by short, pithy remarks (and as such limits responses to posted items, etc.). It provides the option of allowing users to post longer notes, but doesn't allow long responses to them. And Twitter, of course, is an exercise in sloganeering that's amusing for its pith but depressing to those who want to see a thought sustained on into a paragraph.
What I like about LJ, and what I have liked about it, is that it's always been a platform through which I could communicate with a large group of people keep up with them, argue with them, agree angrily with them, see what's catching their attention these days, and so on. Despite its public accessibility, I've never imagined anyone reading this whom I hadn't invited to read it or who was otherwise not a friend of a friend or some such thing. That way, it's always seemed to me like a large dinner party with a variety of ongoing conversations, some of which were very involved, others more succinct and amusing. That coupling of variety and community has always been a great thing and I feel that we'll suffer for the loss of it.
It's true that we need to take these things off the internet and out into the world, but at the same time I don't feel that the internet should be for flash video games and viral marketing alone. It has the power to provide people with deep, comfortable communication-- as LJ has done-- and I feel like in losing this particular platform, we'll lose some of the best of what the internet has offered groups of friends in far-away places.
But then again, when enough people leave, I'll leave too. So it's hardly my place to judge.
LJ is definitely a beautifully designed social networking platform. The simultaneous sense of community and privacy hasn't been duplicated.
But I think the idea that defection is LJ's only problem needs to be examined. It seems to me more likely that defection is the consequence of structural failings. The purpose of all of these platforms is instrumental, not aesthetic. An abacus that no one wants to use probably isn't the best abacus. Popularity alone doesn't validate art, but I think usage does validate tools.
I also don't think it's true that LJ lends itself to better writing than Facebook or Twitter. I was especially skeptical of the latter for a long time, but now I think my Twitter feed is the most consistently engrossing thing I read.
What I do think is true is that LJ lends itself to particular kinds of content and community that are falling out of favor, for various reasons. It's not just the perceived laziness or faddishness of Twitter. There's something about brevity, immediacy, and transparency that make for a good social networking tool. And there's something about halfway-cloaked identity and an emphasis on self-analytical writing over other types of content that attracts cobwebs and little else right now.
I'm not too sad about the dwindling of this space, because it served its purpose. And I won't assume that there's never going to be another place where people can comfortably confess, solicit sympathy, or think out loud about themselves. Maybe that place won't be online. And maybe it shouldn't be. I'm going to keep using it, happily, for now.
Generally, I see the sense in this. However, the thing that troubles me about this trend is that, like virtually every other internet shift in the past decade, it's a move toward saying less. When I began moving to messageboards from usenet about ten years ago, what weirded me out then was how short every post was expected to be, and how people were ridiculed for trying to say things that were complicated or took any explanation at all. In time, I followed friends to messageboards as the same friends drifted away from usenet, and a while later I ended up here, the same way I ended up on friendster, myspace, facebook, etc.
Each of these platforms offers something interesting enough to me that it inspires me to sign up, so obviously there's something of draw in each. And, as Yama says of himself, I will also eventually most likely drift away from LJ as other people defect, and my behaviour over the last year is probably an indicator of that. However what troubles me is that the decline of this platform is a decline in what I see as communication-- far more so than straight blogging, or Twitter, both of which are much more about speaking into the void of the perceived public. Facebook is more about the presentation of the self as a character punctuated again by short, pithy remarks (and as such limits responses to posted items, etc.). It provides the option of allowing users to post longer notes, but doesn't allow long responses to them. And Twitter, of course, is an exercise in sloganeering that's amusing for its pith but depressing to those who want to see a thought sustained on into a paragraph.
What I like about LJ, and what I have liked about it, is that it's always been a platform through which I could communicate with a large group of people keep up with them, argue with them, agree angrily with them, see what's catching their attention these days, and so on. Despite its public accessibility, I've never imagined anyone reading this whom I hadn't invited to read it or who was otherwise not a friend of a friend or some such thing. That way, it's always seemed to me like a large dinner party with a variety of ongoing conversations, some of which were very involved, others more succinct and amusing. That coupling of variety and community has always been a great thing and I feel that we'll suffer for the loss of it.
It's true that we need to take these things off the internet and out into the world, but at the same time I don't feel that the internet should be for flash video games and viral marketing alone. It has the power to provide people with deep, comfortable communication-- as LJ has done-- and I feel like in losing this particular platform, we'll lose some of the best of what the internet has offered groups of friends in far-away places.
But then again, when enough people leave, I'll leave too. So it's hardly my place to judge.