quigonejinn | (no subject)

(no subject)

Apropos of nothing but five (!) years on Tumblr, I have to say that it's kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinda delightful to come back to a more journal-y format. Tumblr feels a lot like San Diego Comic Con in all of its glory and all of its misery.

Like, there are so many pretty things to look at! So many text posts to read! A never-ending torrent of multimedia content, along thousands and thousands of strangers, with hundreds of people at any given time standing and holding forth and waving their arms and loudly expressing themselves, and sure you can meet your friends behind the Marvel booth, and it's so so so nice to see all these people who are also interested in something similar, but oh God, it's so loud, and most of these people are so wrong, and is it really worth fighting through all those crowds????

In contrast, when I posted to DW yesterday, old fandom friends, some of whom I haven't connected with in years, showed up to drop me a kind comment and welcome me back around. Some people that I had an acquaintanceship with on Tumblr came by, too. People talked to each other. People talked to me. It was kinda like propping the garden gate open, y'know? So that anybody who wanted to could come by for a cup of tea and a chat in the nice, cozy kitchen. It was so nice, too, going and looking at the recent posts page and being able to catch up on what people that I liked and knew had been doing since the last time we talked -- and not just doing, of course, but also what they had been thinking and reading and doing and feeling. You can pick that up from reblogs, and there were always tags and the occasional personal text posts, but reading people's DW posts really feels like getting to hear one-on-one from them.

It's a very different way of being in fandom, I think. God knows we managed to make it wanky back in the day, and I'm sure things'll change if more fandom people end up on DW, but for now, I'm really glad to back on DW. The garden gate is open! I have thoughts on meatballs!

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I always knew that tumblr was a disaster, but until making a (rather half assed) attempt at journaling on DW, I'm not sure I realized just how bad it was.

Actual human interaction. What a mind boggling concept.

The ability to express a thought with some kind of permanence?!?! Of course, now the performance anxiety will set in. LOL.

I mean, the other side of DW not having a reblog function is that you don't have to polish everything as if it's gonna be reblogged and seen by every single person who follows you/who the algorithims choose to show your post to. Like, before you post that meta, you don't have to check it SEVENTEEN TIMES to make sure that you caught all the typos, or made all the points that you needed to. Because hey, you can always go back and fix it. Because it's your blog! And you don't have to e-mail people to be like UH WHOOPS SORRY CAN YOU REBLOG THE VERSION WITH THE TYPO CORRECTED.

So my #1 performance anxiety thing is less, though yeah, I do get the pressure of WHAT DO I SAY? The nice part, though, about DW is that I feel like I can talk about just my personal life or some rando thought I have without needing to phrase it so that it will be reblogged by as MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE and that I HAVE SOMEHOW FAILED IF I DO NOT GET PEOPLE TO REBLOG IT.

It's so nice to talk to people, though, and feel like there is another human actually on the other side.

Total randomness, but I must know, and it's been bugging me on MULTIPLE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS NOW: who is that in your icon?

As, excellent points re: the performance anxiety. I hadn't thought of it quite like that.

The icon is Tom Hiddleston in a crash helmet ;)

NOW I CAN SEE IT. I didn't know he wore glasses! And, you know, nobody looks like themselves in a ridiculous crash helmet. Is that from his appearance on Top Gear?

Yeah, from Top Gear. When he was singing to himself as he was driving in the rain.

what.

that man is so ludicrously charming. not even my low-grade resentment that idris elba isn't going to be the next bond, and that it might be hiddles, can overcome the charming-ness of that.

thanks. THANKS.

I'm crashing this thread to note that after watching The Night Manager I can kinnnnnda see Hiddles as Bond, in a way I could not before that.

The scene when he beats the shit out of the dude who helped him set up the faux-napping, and then it all goes south? Yeah, I could see it in that moment, too. Though it'll be a very different Bond than Craig, who will always be the definitive Bond-as-a-wounded-animal to me.

(I ended up crashing out of The Night Manager even though it was SO pretty and I wanted to like ti SO much. It might have been a fault of the underlying story, but the writing just seemed flat as hell. Plus, if I'm promised a Whitehall beaurocratic knife fight, I want an actual beaurocratic spy knife fight!

Also, it's deeply amusing to me that so many of my icons that I uploaded, like, FIVE YEARS AGO are still applicable to conversations in 2017.)

Daniel Craig has so much to recommend him as Bond, especially after the super slick Roger Moore/Pierce Brosnan years. I am all over it.

It's funny you should say that! Indie also peaced out of TNM. I can see how it would be a bit of a slog. I think part of the reason I stuck with it was that I was on the couch with the flu and it was winter, so all of that posh seaside travel porn was super appealing to me. :P

The only thing I have yet to figure out about (once again) using this format is how to shitpost.

On DW, I think it's less the shitpost and more the derailing shitcomment. But I have FAITH in our collective ability to find a new avenue for shitposting.

DW is absolutely shining a light on how reliant I've become on the "like" buttons on facebook and tumblr as a generic way of communicating that I have read, enjoyed, and acknowledge a post even when I have nothing noteworthy to say about it!

Because I read this and thought "hmm yes good words" and went right for that non-existent button.

IT'S HARD. IT'S WEIRD. There's also, for me, the additional overlay of AO3 and the kudos button -- like, that's the main way people give and receive validation for fic nowadays, and I think it's all of a piece.

Sigh. We're all just rats pushing buttons now. :(

Despite all my rage I am still just a rat on a page. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

YOU'RE A TERRIBLE HUMAN

*like*

I want to hear your thoughts on meatballs.....

HELLO HELLO HELLO I AM SO GLAD TO SEE YOU I WAS JUST ABOUT TO GO AND LOOK IN GMAIL AND E-MAIL YOU ON THE OFF CHANCE THAT YOU MIGHT STILL BE CHECKING THAT E-MAIL AND

[insert gratuitous comment about the big ol' meatballs of one Wm. Bush]

I'M HERE. Lurking about. And yes, that gmail still works.

AND ..... :)

1) We are having meatballs for dinner tonight, although not inspired by your post but instead inspired by my kids wanted to read "Bread and Jam for Francis" as a bedtime story last night.

2) Okay so as you know I wasn't in fandom during the heydey of LJ, but I am definitely open to being in fandom on DW! Except for I don't know anyone or how to do it and I'm firmly enmeshed in tumblr and can't keep up with a million social media forums.

3) ....related to the above, I have a personal DW and a fandom DW and I don't know how to keep them separate or if keeping them separate is even really useful/necessary in this environment.

4) I miss chatting with you! We should talk sometime, whether through actual chat or through DW comments.

5) For some reason it won't let me post this comment using my fandom account because it says my message "looks like spam," so let's see if I can post it with my other account. (Edit: it worked, which means that I suppose there is no utility in trying to keep my personal account separate.)

Edited 2017-04-19 21:05 (UTC)

So weird! I wonder why it thinks your other account is spam. I just went and friended and followed and whatevered your fandom account is, so maybe that'll fix it?

AND YOUR KIDS ARE OLD ENOUGH TO HAVE IDEAS ABOUT WHAT TO HAVE FOR DINNER. Mine just eats milk and mash and puffs every night. Also, likes to chew on shoes. Yes, actual shoes.

True story: you were actually my introduction to LJ, all the way back in the day. I remember you linking to it maybe back in college, and me being like PHHHT WHO WANTS TO READ PERSONAL UPDATES FROM PEOPLE??? THIS IS THE INTERNET!!!!

My kids are turning FOUR in less than two weeks(!!). Not only do they request things for dinner, but they also know how to use the remote to navigate through the Roku to access Octonauts on Netflix, Doc McStuffins on Hulu, and Dora the Explorer on Amazon Prime. It's kind of crazy.

Also ahahahahahahh I had the same reaction to hearing about LJ for the first time, but joined because everyone was doing it (it was still invite only!). It was the recipient of a lot of college roommate drama and a lot of grad school angst. My college friends still use it for their most drama-y moments that are not appropriate for Facebook.

YES, one of the things I missed about blogging/LJ/DW was that you got to read more about how people were doing.

I agree with what thez said about being so used to pressing a button. I don't write much in the first place, but Tumblr and, even to an extent, Twitter have made me even MORE prone to consume and lurk instead of engaging.

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