(no subject)

[noahgibbs]

The problem with having a LiveJournal that a reasonable number of friends actually read is that it limits what I can post. I'd noticed that on one topic recently, and I now have at least one more it applies to :-)

It's really time for me to stop adding stuff to my schedule. Not that that'll stop me.

Maus, by Art Spiegelman, is incredible.

Comments

[safya.livejournal.com]

i've noticed that myself, actually. on the other hand, it's kind of an interesting means of communication in that sense...you can say things about people that you don't necessarily want to say _to_ them, but that it's ok for them to know about if they are going out of their ways to read what you think about in your journal. i was noticing the other day that my journal has changed a lot from back when nobody i knew was reading it, but i'm kinda trying to fix that and make it more journally and less mass emaily. or both, maybe, that would be ok.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

The question there is just "what kind of stuff is appropriate to tell people who dig for it, but only them?" The obvious answer is trivia -- stuff that most people probably just don't care about.

There are other possibilities that are more personal, but there seem to be many less of them. Or perhaps I'm just not seeing something obvious.

[stephtoth.livejournal.com]

I have the same problem myself. I just end up keeping a paper journal in a book for that sort of thing. Prime case in point, Jesse has made it very clear to me that he does not want me talkin' bad about him in my livejournal (for obvious reasons. Don't want people thinking he's an asshole where he can't defend himself, when It's just me expressing temporary frustrations when I'm pissed at him. Makes sense. but does not make for a perfectly useful journal. oh well.
I've only read the first Maus book. Always meant to track down the next one and never have. Good stuff though.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

I can understand that. I'm never sure how I feel about Diana talking about me in hers, but it's not my call to make.

You can also mark the entries "private" (as opposed to "friends only").

I'd read a chunk of the second one, and just got the first one. Now I need to get my own copy of the second one again.

[skamille.livejournal.com]

I just never let my boyfriends know about my journals. I mean, if they know about it before we start dating, well, that sucks, but if not no way in hell am I going to tell them. And ruin the perfect bitching forum? Never never never.

[happysteve.livejournal.com]

I view LiveJournal as a public forum, even with the "protected" feature.
Don't post anything that you don't want known by everybody.
This IS the web, after all, and word travels pretty fast around here.

Maybe it's just my paranoia, but I have seen someone get EXTREMELY upset after discovering that someone outside of their "friends circle" is also reading their posts.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

I have seen someone get EXTREMELY upset after discovering that someone outside of their "friends circle" is also reading their posts

Makes sense. If you don't take that into account, you may not have thought about what exactly you were writing for the edification of the entire world. I was shocked to discover a guy at work had read my LiveJournal, though that might have only occurred 'round about the time I left, I'm not sure.

[safya.livejournal.com]

well, trivia is one thing, but it's not the first thing that occurs to me. the first thing that occurs to me is RAMPANT EGOTISM. this comes in three forms:

1. look at me, look at all the cool things i'm doing and how cool i am, that i'm not going to brag about to you in person, but hey, if you're reading my journal you must not mind

2. look at me, look at my pain and angst, which fill my soul with black despair. if i told you about these things in person very much you wouldn't like hanging out with me, but by posting them in my journal i can feel that i'm expressing them, and you can feel that you're assisting me by posting pithy comments. don't people browse the internet because they want to read about and comment on other people's misery anyway?

3. look at me, talking about things no one cares at all about. this is a lot like trivia. if i post them to my journal and people read it because they're bored, i can pretend that they're interested.

then there's also, sort of, 4, which does have its problems but basically goes something like: look at me, i'm comlaining about you, not directly to you because i don't really want to criticize you but i want to make it abundantly clear to myself and the world at large that i disagree. if you happen to read about it, hopefully you'll understand that i didn't intend to hurt your feelings (if i had i would have told you directly), but hey, you were reading my journal, so now you know what i think. of course, this is trickier and more potentially objectionable than options one through three, and i can see why some people might not like for it to happen.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Hm. Not sure if this made it last time.

Wow! So LJ is a less socially toxic way to be goth! That explains a lot about DeadJournal, too...

It's that fourth one that can get me in trouble. Unfortunately, it tends to be the most useful of the four.

[queen-elvis.livejournal.com]

Not to say that there aren't people like that, but that's an awfully pessimistic view of human beings.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Thoughts:

There are certainly a vast number of teenagers on LJ doing just that.

Diary entries in a public forum are sort of, by their nature, rampant egotism.

So I'd say maybe it's not so much a pessimistic view of human beings as a view that's most applicable to immature human beings. Rampant egotism without being willing to do so in public could be considered hypocritical, but mainly it's just human and civilized. Being full of yourself is one of those activities that comes naturally to a lot of the population (I admit nothing!), but it needs to be suppressed to some extent in company.