LJ: What Is It Good For?
Sep. 30th, 2002 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
coalescentIt occurs to me that livejournals - and more generally, weblogs - are strange things.
Probably their main advertised feature is the 'journal' aspect, yet in reality they are significantly different to 'traditional' diaries simply because they are always, to some extent, public. As a result, diary-type entries end up having a livejournal-unique format; in my case, this manifests most commonly as writing about things that have happened to me, rather than how I feel about those things (although oddly, I feel more predisposed to share my feelings when I'm responding to comments). And this format often eliminates what is perhaps the single most useful element of a private diary, which is the feeling of catharsis that comes from getting your feelings out onto the page.
On the other hand, if I'm writing about people I know will never read this journal because they're not big with the online life (say...oh, I don't know...Emilia), in some ways it actually works better than a regular journal because I can get feedback from my friends. You could say that I may as well just talk about it with them in real life, and that certainly has its own benefits. But to me, livejournal can sometimes just be more efficient - I can communicate with several distinct groups of people who are rarely, if ever, going to be spatially and temporally in sync.
For me personally, it's also easier because I can lay my thoughts out, edit them, and present them in a format I'm happy with before the discussion begins. That's a luxury you don't get in real-time conversations (although as I said, real-time has its compensations).
There are other types of livejournal entry, of course. For the raving egomaniac (ie, me), there's the undeniable appeal of writing reviews or opinion columns on, well, anything you feel like. It's hard to explain the appeal; I just get the urge to write things, so it's nice to have a place to put them. Alternatively, you might just want to share the fruits of your web-surfing, and produce links-heavy entries that may or may not be of interest to your friends.
And then, of course, there's the whole social aspect of livejournal. It's a distinctly different dynamic to anything else I've experienced - nothing like real life, or IRC. The closest analogue would be newsgroups, but they're obviously far more topic-oriented, and are generally weighted towards threads rather than towards source posts. And it has its own social conventions. People can end up feeling obliged to comment on their friends' posts to prove they've read them, or obliged to update to prove they're still out there. More than that, they can end up feeling obliged to write 'something interesting', or 'something personal', because...well, I'm not really sure why, but I know the feeling exists because I've experienced it myself.
I think the bottom line, though, is that livejournals don't exist for the benefit of the people reading them - they exist for the benefit of the people writing them. There should never be an obligation to write entries you think other people will want to read, only to write entries you want to write, be they complaints or celebrations, or reviews or rants. Beyond that...there are no rules.
Probably their main advertised feature is the 'journal' aspect, yet in reality they are significantly different to 'traditional' diaries simply because they are always, to some extent, public. As a result, diary-type entries end up having a livejournal-unique format; in my case, this manifests most commonly as writing about things that have happened to me, rather than how I feel about those things (although oddly, I feel more predisposed to share my feelings when I'm responding to comments). And this format often eliminates what is perhaps the single most useful element of a private diary, which is the feeling of catharsis that comes from getting your feelings out onto the page.
On the other hand, if I'm writing about people I know will never read this journal because they're not big with the online life (say...oh, I don't know...Emilia), in some ways it actually works better than a regular journal because I can get feedback from my friends. You could say that I may as well just talk about it with them in real life, and that certainly has its own benefits. But to me, livejournal can sometimes just be more efficient - I can communicate with several distinct groups of people who are rarely, if ever, going to be spatially and temporally in sync.
For me personally, it's also easier because I can lay my thoughts out, edit them, and present them in a format I'm happy with before the discussion begins. That's a luxury you don't get in real-time conversations (although as I said, real-time has its compensations).
There are other types of livejournal entry, of course. For the raving egomaniac (ie, me), there's the undeniable appeal of writing reviews or opinion columns on, well, anything you feel like. It's hard to explain the appeal; I just get the urge to write things, so it's nice to have a place to put them. Alternatively, you might just want to share the fruits of your web-surfing, and produce links-heavy entries that may or may not be of interest to your friends.
And then, of course, there's the whole social aspect of livejournal. It's a distinctly different dynamic to anything else I've experienced - nothing like real life, or IRC. The closest analogue would be newsgroups, but they're obviously far more topic-oriented, and are generally weighted towards threads rather than towards source posts. And it has its own social conventions. People can end up feeling obliged to comment on their friends' posts to prove they've read them, or obliged to update to prove they're still out there. More than that, they can end up feeling obliged to write 'something interesting', or 'something personal', because...well, I'm not really sure why, but I know the feeling exists because I've experienced it myself.
I think the bottom line, though, is that livejournals don't exist for the benefit of the people reading them - they exist for the benefit of the people writing them. There should never be an obligation to write entries you think other people will want to read, only to write entries you want to write, be they complaints or celebrations, or reviews or rants. Beyond that...there are no rules.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2002-09-30 02:58 pm (UTC)What you're basically saying is:
Nature and extent of audience changes author's register, note also Heisenberg principle.
no subject
Date: 2002-09-30 03:17 pm (UTC)the obligatory
Date: 2002-09-30 03:24 pm (UTC)uh-huh, yeah.
etc.
that's all i'm doing.
Something I have been trying to figure out for ages......
Date: 2002-09-30 10:56 pm (UTC)Blogging is an odd phenonomen, maybe it is the Bridget Jones syndrome. The minutea for people's lives laid out for the world to see, but carefully controlled so as not to give too much away. I think that everyone self censors on blogs - and to be honest I'd be rather worried about someone that didn't (I've seen similar behaviour on newsgroups - it ain't pretty). So if you aren't baring your bloody and battered soul for the world to see what are you doing? Self agrandisement? Soapboxing? Or just another outlet for random wibble (guilty as charged)? And why do we read them - are we hoping that there will be a chink in the armour and some new revelation will slip onto the page? Is blogging turning us into equal parts exhibitionist and voyeur?
Bet you wish you had't posted that now don't you Niall?
Stewart (http://www.foxbasealpha.co.uk/wibblings/journal.shtml)
no subject
Date: 2002-10-01 01:24 am (UTC)Plus there's always the private entry for something you really want to write about but don't want anyone else to see...
Re: the obligatory
Date: 2002-10-01 04:03 am (UTC)Completely. I agree, with whatever.
Mm-hmm.
Quite.
Re: Something I have been trying to figure out for ages......
Date: 2002-10-01 05:31 am (UTC)a fact which may surprise you or may not depending on how well you know me.
i can't quite put into words why i wanted an LJ.
Re: Something I have been trying to figure out for ages......
Date: 2002-10-01 08:47 am (UTC)Neither have I, but BJ is the pop-culture diarist of the moment. 15 years ago it would have been Adrian Mole.....
Stewart ()
Re: Something I have been trying to figure out for ages......
Date: 2002-10-01 10:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-10-06 03:49 pm (UTC)