ebb and flow

[flaviomatani]

Funny old livejournal -or at least my f-page, which of course I do not know whether representative of LJ in general or not.

In the last couple of weeks there had been a lot of posts, including a flurry of 'is anybody still here' ones from people who'd been away and, for various reasons, came back at least that one time. And then.... nothing much for the last couple of days; two posts yesterday apart from my own (and my alter ego, flavio_matani). And one was from grrm promoting his new cinema. Quiet quiet indeed. Not quite as dead as dreamwidth.org, mind. DW just came too late to the game, when people were worried about the Russian owners of LJ but were already moving tent to Facebook. Or maybe I just haven't found the right people over there?

One little thing about terminology of these things: I much prefer the Twitter use, 'following' rather than 'befriending', which invests it with connotations that make it harder when people (especially people you know) ignore you or don't 'befriend' you back. By 'you' I mean of course 'me..'.

Comments

[flavius-m.livejournal.com]

I kind of disagree in one point: a lot of communication takes place sort of under the surface. When I say 'Hullo, mate, how's it going, aw'iright?' the words may be trite and not have much intrinsic meaning (and it would sound a bit funny if I used such a phrase with my forren funi accent) but underneath that there is the 'hello, fellow human being, I know where you are and I care' or some such. This also happens in written communication. Livejournal is better at it than FB, for some reason I can't be bothered to examine just now (may do later:) and also curiously Twitter is slightly better at it, in spite of the brevity mandated by the system. it is not necessarily gossip or art and I don't think it is unimportant. Creativity comes later, I don't think most communication by ordinary people in these media is about that, it is rather about that sort of exchange (and similar) of meta-meaning with other human beings.

Reading your comment again as I write this, it is not that different from what I'm saying, really ;) One little thing, though -I have known enough people who lived in barrios on hillsides around Caracas for whom verbal or written communication (I'm thinking of days long before internet, when I was living there) can be perhaps gossip but can also be a sort of art, full of pressure as their economically very precarious lives might have been.

Better discussed in person over a pint, so it doesn't become gossip or art :) :)

[beluosus]

I know nothing of Twitter, so I can't comment on that. But LJ definitely beats FB for communication; there's just so much more room to get your thoughts down. Plus, the interface doesn't randomly hide things from you.

On FB it's far too easy to make an endless series of brief and meaningless posts. No one will evennotice the brevity or vacuity, since every other post there is pretty similar. On LJ, if you post a one liner, it really stands out, so most people tend to say more (unless the one-liner is actually worth its own entry).

LJ gives you the space to actually explore your ideas. You also have to at least come up with one word to reply -- none of this 'liking' bullshit.