permanent chrysalis

[beesknees]

It’s odd being back on DW. Retro. Never really got a foothold here; not through any fault of DW, but because my real-life/LJ friends had already shifted to FB as LJ declined and I wasn’t in a good zone to reach out and make new friends here. My extended family infested FB and had found my first and then second LJ blog (shakes fist at that one cousin, unwisely trusted); privacy was my priority, even if that meant I stopped connecting with anyone new, being findable to anyone who’d want to reconnect.

Don’t really remember my set-up here. It’s still very, eh, 2002? Whenever I started off with deadjournal in my goth days, before I even had an invite to LJ. Before tags had any use beyond your own categorisation, certainly not for others to search through, and thus were individualised, silly, and opaque to the point of meaningless outside your little circle. Sure, I could organise them en masse, change them to something sensible, but this is also kind of a museum of my brain’s shape in 2006.

And my icons are moody! The 2000s were so grimdark! And I, eh, not sure how to express the little box I was crammed in that I couldn’t present myself as functional and even consistently cheerful. Anyway, they don’t represent the giant goofball weirdo I am most of the time now.

And yup, I miss “likes”. Got low spoons, massive commenting anxiety…I’m reading, y’all! I assume you are too. Still miss the little ticks of solidarity, giving and getting.

None of this is meant to put down DW. I’m glad it’s here. It’s a nice space. Just weird that blogging and its digital-life descendants have existed so long that getting even this close to my roots in it feels alien.

Comments

[speccygeekgrrl42]

my real-people-finding-my-LJ horror story was going to grab something from my friend/crush in his dorm room and catching sight of my own journal, where I had extensively agonized over my love for him and lack of love for my current partner, on his laptop screen.

However, he did apologize for invading my privacy like a week later (!!) and I did get to date him even after he saw what a mess I was on the inside, so it worked out, after a while and for a while.

[beesknees]

Oh no! I'm glad it worked out, more or less, but can so feel that initial wave of mortification and anger.

A valuable thing about livejournal for me was that I could start to be more honest about how messy I felt, as it was just a blog post people could read or not and I wasn't taking up anyone's time. And the friendships I made through that were much less exhausting and more connected because of that.

There wasn't anything specifically horrifying about family reading the public entries or my cousin passing on the friendslocked ones; a lot of it was just "pinched my finger unjamming the copier again, when are they fixing that stupid thing?" or "annoying coworker is soooo annoying today!". But that was all just grist for their "beesknees is a disaster person who fails at everything" gossip, which rather poisoned that well as a place I could take a break from image maintenance.

[kara_mckay]

I tried DW very briefly after deleting my LJ in the wake of strikethrough, but at that time, DW felt very much like acafan space. Maybe it was just the corner I blundered into, but it felt like you needed to have something intellectual to say to post here, and while I did used to write meta and fandom observations back then, that sort of writing has never made up the bulk of my journaling. I drifted onto FB, which I hated with a passion, and didn't try DW again until trying out Tumblr in 2017. My experience of Tumblr is that it's a toxic garbage fire, and falling into DW from there felt a whole lot better than anyplace I'd been since LJ. That said, I'd been away long enough to get used to the like button, and I simply cannot adjust again to using a site that won't let me know whether anyone is reading my posts.

[beesknees]

DW doesn't have a "shitposts welcome" kinda vibe! I do remember when I started on here I also had the feeling it was more aimed at quality content - maybe just those who were first really invested here, or me importing my lj-circle culture expectations (you will post once (1) per day during East Coast working hours, and it will be under a cut and worth reading).

I do kinda feel like I'm scuttling in here with my trash self, hoping not to be noticed, but it's much more comfortable now with pf friends who have, uh, the right level of expectations on me.

Oh god, facebook, tumblr, twitter...agree. Really not my places. They replicate far too well the RL unhealthy culture I've tried to wrench my brain out of.

[kara_mckay]

When I first gave DW a try, it felt like everyone was trying to write for an academic journal. And, I don't have a problem with that -- I do understand that that's one way of having fun in fandom, and it's something I used to enjoy to a certain extent, too -- but at that time, I was really getting away from that sort of writing. I don't get that vibe from DW anymore. As far as it goes, there are still acafans doing their thing, which is great, but there are also plenty of us regular folks who just want to talk about the things we like or don't like, or just talk about our days.

[kuroiyousei]

♥

[beesknees]

<3

[b0batea]

I miss likes too :( But trying to engage via commenting more, now. x

[beesknees]

Me too, dusting off those old-school commenting habits :D