meta-LJ-entry

[mamajoan]

I've been thinking about how livejournal has changed our (at least, my) ways of communicating. It's kind of interesting in light of recent developments in my LJ life.

Of course, email and the Internet itself changed things dramatically. I've been using the 'net for what, ten years now (*pauses to feel old*) and it has definitely had a dramatic effect on my life, my way of communicating, my comfort levels with people. I've met some of my best friends in the whole world on the 'net. But this post is about LJ, so I won't write a dissertation on how email changed me. ;)

With LJ, it's almost a whole new world. What got me started thinking about this was an email that my brother sent to my mom a couple days ago, that I read over mom's shoulder. See, my brother lives far away from us, and mom and I are always complaining that he never calls or emails. (He's getting better, but he's still pretty bad about it. He's especially bad with follow-through. Like, he'll email to say "I have a job interview tomorrow, I'm all excited!" and then we hear nothing for two weeks. Augh!) And then when he does call or email, he complains because stuff is happening in our lives that he doesn't know about. Sillyhead. ;)

Anyway, all that started to change when his fiancee sandykidd found my LJ and we friended each other. Suddenly she and my brother can keep up to date on my (and chickpea's) life, and I can follow them to a certain extent by reading sandykidd's journal (plus learn stuff about her that I didn't know). This much is cool. Where it starts to get weird is when, on the one hand, I become a bizarre sort of expert on my brother's status (Mom: "I haven't heard from your brother in weeks. I don't even know if he's working now." Me: "Oh, he got a job at a movie theater. And sandykidd just got promoted. Oh, and they got their cat fixed.") and, on the other hand, my brother can learn stuff about my life and then reply to mom's emails saying, "Yeah, I already knew that, I read it in Joan's livejournal."

It's still cool, but it's damn weird.

And, you know, it's just one example. The weirdness of LJ is the simultaneous dual feeling of confidentiality and complete exposure. It's like, sure, you know that anyone *could* be reading your LJ, but you also have assumptions about who actually *is* reading it. And it can be very jarring when those assumptions get challenged. (I learned this lesson the hard way last year, with the whole getting fired because I dissed the company on LJ thing. I still kind of cringe when I see y'all on my friend-list bitching about your jobs in non-friends-locked posts.)

So it's weird the sort of mental gymnastics that you -- I should say I -- do when deciding what to post and which posts to lock. On the one hand I go, "well, anyone who's reading this obviously sought out my journal, so they're probably interested in what I have to say." On the other hand, I try to imagine what a stranger would think of me if s/he stumbled across my journal. And on the third hand I'm racking my brain trying to remember who's on my friend-list and whether they know such-and-such about me or whether they're going to be shocked if I mention it offhand. Sometimes I write a whole post about something deep and meaningful just because I want people on my friend-list, or random strangers stumbling by, to think that I'm a deep and meaningful person. Other times I just ramble about whatever fluff is on my brain at the time, like one would in a private pen-and-paper diary. Sometimes I talk about a particular person, and I try to be conscious of that person's likelihood to come along and read what I wrote; like above where I wrote about my brother and his *ahem* lack of communication skills. I know he'll read that, but I also know that he knows mom and I think of him that way, so he's not going to be shocked. Maybe it'll embarrass him into changing his ways. ;) But the point is that LJ is, in some ways, all things to all people, and how you use it is up to you, but if you're like me you're just not sure *which* way you want to use it. So you do different things on different days according to mood and your personal comfort level on that particular day. The result can be pretty schizophrenic.

And then there's the whole commenting thing. This is actually a big part of why I prefer LJ over blogging or other forms of journal-keeping. Knowing that others can not only read but respond to what I write -- and that their responses, and my responses to their responses, are just as visible -- takes it to a whole new level. One's previously-private thoughts are now common territory to be discussed, dissected, opined about at length by anyone, whether they know one or not. And since you can't post in LJ without being conscious of that, your journal becomes a cross between just-for-yourself journaling, public discussion, and performance art. In some ways, it can force you to think about yourself, about how you express yourself, about what's happening in your life, about your opinions on things, in new ways.

And LJ changes the way big discussions, or flamewars, happen too. I'm always fascinated when a big argument/flamewar spills over from one of the fandom lists onto LJ. I see this happen sort of from a remove since I'm not actually on any of the lists, but it's interesting to observe when/why people feel compelled to move the discussion onto LJ. On the list you have to stay focused and address the points of the argument, because you're arguing toward a purpose, i.e., you're taking a side and advocating for it, whereas on LJ you can be more free-form, just sort of talk about what you think and why you think it, without feeling compelled to be making any actual persuasive points. It's like, even though you know that people are reading and can comment on LJ the same way they are reading and can reply on a list, you still feel freer to express yourself on LJ. And when people reply, they can reply as if they were having a one-on-one with you about the topic, rather than on an email list where although they're replying to you they're actually addressing the list at large.

I don't necessarily explain this terribly well, but most of y'all are probably getting what I mean anyway.

Also, look at the way memes or icon themes or even slang terms propagate across LJ. One person asks, perhaps even rhetorically, "Here's what I think about Y. What do you think?" and the next thing you know people all across LJ are discussing Y, even people who don't know the original asker and who don't know that she started it. When you see someone on your friend-list discussing a particular topic, you don't know how it started; sometimes you don't even know whether she just randomly decided to post about it, is responding to something she saw in someone else's LJ, or what. But that gets you thinking about it, so you muse about it in *your* LJ, and then another of your friends starts thinking about it, and so forth....

I guess it might sound a little like hyperbole to put it this way, but I really do think that LJ is going to change the way many of us communicate -- not just the way we carry on discussions, but the way we *think* about communication and private vs. public thoughts. To use a vastly overused buzzword, it's a whole new paradigm.

(Plus, it could definitely revolutionize soap-opera plots. Now instead of lurking outside conveniently ajar windows and around corners, villains just have to figure out their enemies' LJ usernames!

"Amanda! Gasp! What are you doing here?"
"You can't hide from me any more, Brad! I know all about your little affair with Samantha! I read about it in her LJ!"
"Sob! Samantha! You talked about our forbidden love on livejournal? How could you?!"
"I'm sorry, Brad darling! How was I to know Amanda would find out what I had so carefully hidden behind an lj-cut?!"

OK, maybe not. ;) )