conceptualizing livejournal space and Livejournal Cultures

[escritoireazul]

fabu wrote an excellent post about how we conceptualize livejournal space, which is an extension of the debate about whether to ask permission/comment before linking to a public post, but for me the interest is really in the comments to this post (not that fabu's post itself isn't interesting) and especially linaelyn's comment about the divisions between Livejournal Cultures and how each of those Cultures decide what information should be locked and what should be left open.

She says:

In fandom, the tendency is to lock mundane, personal daily life issues, and to leave public the outré, fannish extremes, because that's what the LJ playground is for, for fans -- the meeting place where we find folks who share our edge-case extremes, our kinks and our quirks. For the less-fannish social-interaction circles of LJ-land, it is more typical to leave public the mundanities of laundry, dinner menus other things you'd speak of to your grandmother, and hide under deep friendslock the excellent sexual position you and your partner discovered the night before.

The differing conventions between which posts should be public and what should be carefully filtered to those one trusts make crossover between the two Livejournal Cultures difficult thing.


This is exactly the problem I face in my journal entries (and which I realize I could easily change by combining the two journals, but I don't know if that's the best solution either, even though having two journals also isn't the best solution for me). I want to have both those Livejournal Cultures in both of my journals, and the two do not work together well (at least not for me).

I have this journal, what I call my fandom journal, because I wanted to have open fandom discourse (and mindless squee) without worrying about people using the personal information I (sometimes inadvertantly) slip into it for negative purposes. I've had this happen before on the other journal, which is part of why I changed its name and why I have this one and include few of the identifying details of the other one.

However, the more I exist in each journal, the more I want to post personal details here as well. When I started on livejournal, years ago (when it was free the first time 'round), the other journal was mostly friended by people I knew from fandom. As livejournal gained popularity, more people from my non-fandom life joined and friended it, and then some of the negative, stalker occurances happened, and it was locked down tight. I feel fandom interaction is at its best when it is open to anyone to come talk (at its worst, too, unfortunately), but I didn't want to only publically post fandom squee and stories on what had become a flocked personal journal. So I created this fandom-friendly journal.

Now I feel I'm only putting part of myself into either journal (well, even more than normal, because I don't think there is any way to put all of the self into a strictly written format, whether the person in question is actually trying to hide aspects of the self or not), and I dislike it. I want to share more of my non-fandom self here, but I don't want to start flocking. I don't know.

The simple answer would be to either join both journals again or to just start using flocked posts here, too, but I don't know. There's no real point to this rambling, except to link to the things I found so interesting.



On another note (or two), my winamp playlist does not do random so well; it keeps playing the same songs over and over again, despite the wide variety on it. Also I am posty today (spammy, even), and you can blame thestalkycop. When she leaves me to my own devices, I ramble at you instead of at her.

Comments

[apathocles.livejournal.com]

Hi! You friended me ages ago, and I... um... forgot to friend you back. I'm so sorry! *is absent-minded like whoa*

Anyway, I totally hear where you're coming from. This isn't my first journal; it was created for unlocked fannishness. Now... it's locked, as well. *sigh* The personal totally crossed over into the fannish, and now I find myself abandoning one journal for weeks at a time, because all the personal stuff keeps on slipping into the fannish journal. Not exactly fair on my old friends from my personal journal, especially since this is precisely what the personal journal is supposed to be for.

Plus, all the fannishness has been locked down. Too many RL issues. The world is a small, small place. *sigh*

[escritoireazul.livejournal.com]

Oh that's okay, I'm very absent-minded and I know not everyone friends back right away, or at all, or notices right away. So all is good.

It really is a small place, and while that can be a good thing, way too often it's a bad thing. I'm sorry outside issues have made you have to lock down so tight, I know how frustrated I felt when I had to do so on the other journal.

I do that too, abandon one journal for the other in spurts. Normally it's this one I abandon, but I can feel the personal creeping into this journal all the time. I edit myself a lot, and I kind of hate it.