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gwynSo. What a day. Busy with work (and hey, a whole day where my boss only once said something insulting to me! New record!), and being insulted here on my LJ. Always a good time. (And sending hugs to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
green_luv, I don't know what's up, but it sounds like you're feeling as low as me. If I could send you my brownies I made yesterday, I would.)
Edited to add that it took me 4 tries to get this fricking tag to work right.
I know I'm not a perfect person. Most people who know me would pretty much claim that I'm far less than perfect; pretty awful, in fact -- most of my life my family, "friends", whoever have enjoyed telling me every negative thing they could. My self esteem isn't even in the low digits, it's about at a -10, and I sometimes have a hard time dealing with confident people because I honestly don't know what it's like to be okay with yourself. There's some things I know I do well -- emotionally, I can't believe in my writing, but intellectually I understand it's something I do better than most (I mean, I can't ignore that I've won awards and sold stories -- it doesn't help me believe in myself, but I do at least recognize that it means something). Mostly I do a pretty good job as an editor. My vids seem to impress people, although I don't often know why, but they seems like something people enjoy.
I'm kind to small animals, I used to work with kids, and especially developmentally disabled children, I'm a loyal friend who's been known to drive to foreign countries at a moment's notice to pick up someone in an emergency, or zoom to Portland to help someone out of a jam (well, okay, there was that time I buttered the car of a guy who did me way wrong, but that's a different thing altogether). I try to share what I have with people -- take people to dinner when I can afford it, buy them presents, write stories for them, loan them money if they need it, make tapes, trade vids... I don't lie to folks, and I take care of my elderly dad when he's not well. Basically I'm hoping that this kind of stuff will get me into heaven if there really is a God, and overcome my lack of belief -- it's best to cover your bases, you know. I have a black Celtic temper that frequently gets the better of me, much to my chagrin, and I have a large vocabulary, especially of swear words, that when combined with said temper gets me into more trouble than I would wish, but after years of therapy trying to sort out the violent family I grew up in, I'm better about it.
And apparently because I don't use lj cut tags, I'm also evil. Now, I'd prefer that if I was going to be evil, I was sort of sexy and cool, along the lines of... oh, I dunno, Lilah on Angel, but alas, I'm trapped in my ugly body and just plain old ordinary evil. Apparently someone decided to drop by today and scream LJCUT! at me 100 times (I'm not exaggerating, you can see it if you read today's earlier entry that started it all), and the proceeded to insult me because I refused to explain myself to her upon demand.elina and morgandawn kindly stepped in and defended my right to be as rude and thoughtless as I wanted to be, and I was so busy at work I couldn't really deal with it.
But now I feel, basically, like crap, and the luster has really worn off this thing. I mean, if being an evil overlord came with total control over LJ and the internet, and I could force everyone to do what I wanted them to do, it might be worth it, but I'm stuck with the rather quotidian existence of trying to just muddle through, writing what I wanted to write, and saying what I wanted to say, where I wanted to say it. The thing is, I started this page because I just missed writing movie and tv reviews. The best two years of my life were when I was a film critic for a newspaper here in Seattle, even though I made no money at it. I just loved being able to channel my love of writing, my film studies, and my adoration of movies in general into pieces that people read. By extension, I got to use my music experience and review albums too, and those were good times. Penurious, but good. LJ came about because I was having ISP space issues, and was writing these essays and reviews about Buffy on my web page and at message boards, where I often exceeded length. A couple people suggested I set up a blog, and then it went from there.
When I first did it, I think about four people friended me, all people I knew. That was fine.merryish mentioned my page on hers one day, and next thing I knew I had about 20 friend ofs. I was kind of boggled. She warned people up front -- that it was going to be about current episodes of Buffy and Firefly and whatnot, and that I wasn't cutting away... and still those lovely people friended me. I went out and sought the people whose writing I loved to read, and whose journals interested me. I never expected or asked them to friend me in return. In fact, I have some read real friends who have never LJ friended me, because of the spoilers issue. I don't mind (well, okay, except for those people whose firstborn children I've put that unpleasant hex on, but that's neither here nor there). I mean, I know what I'm doing, and I understand.
The thing is, I hate the cut tags thing. I have a dialup connection that's amazingly slow because of dirty phone line issues, and clicking through 50 reviews of Buffy or whatever means I can basically not read most of what I want to read. If I could just call up my friends list, wait five minutes for it to load and pray that it won't disconnect, I'd be happy. I read the headlines, and if people warned about spoilers in the headers, I'd pay attention. But I have to pare down my reading because of cut tags. I can't read most of the fic snippets because the time it takes to load them means more time away from my own writing or my freelance work, what have you. I hate that it's become the predominant form of communication here. When I first thought of making a review page, I poked around LJ all over, and I found that this fannish community of media fans use cut tags far more than anyone else. I saw tons of movie review personal pages that didn't do it. When I was reviewing movies, the thought of spoiler warnings never even crossed people's minds -- you just printed the review. Now I notice EW uses big spoiler warnings on many reviews, because people are such shrieking weenies over even the most basic and non-spoilery of reviews. I don't get it, frankly. I've never gotten it. I am avoiding spoilers for the rest of Buffy, but if I see something, I'm not going to shriek and weep and bang my fists on the table and tear my hair out and go insult someone about it.
I also hate the way spoilerphobes have killed my lists. On one list I'm on, we never discuss eps anymore, because even something like "buffy last night!" was spoilery to someone, or saying that an episode was a musical resulted in wailing and gnashing of teeth. You can't even say "buffy casting news spoilers" because then you're excoriated for saying there's something happening with the cast, but if you don't say it's about the cast, you get ripped because someone didn't read important cast info since they thought it was a plot spoiler. At this point, no one knows what will set someone off, so I feel as if it's just a no win situation, and I hate it. I really, really hate it. I get together with some local fans occasionally, and we're tyrannized by the few who refuse to keep up with current airings -- we're expected to go freeze outside if we want to talk about last week's ep, not them leave the room because they didn't watch it. There' s simply no way to make people happy, and I frankly am just weary of it all.
I'm not a BNF. I don't have minions or fans, I don't have people following me places and reading whatever I write and telling me I'm fabu. I never expected in a million years that anyone would want to read this -- I figured my pals would friend me, never read my page, and I could be happy just writing away to no one, satisfying only myself. That people enjoyed reading my reviews bewilders me and makes me feel good and sniffly -- but it was never what I expected. So far 68 people seem to have felt it was worth my no cut tags to friend me -- maybe they did so out of obligation (or it could have been that spell... hmmm...), maybe they did so out of interest (or the blackmail), I don't know. Once in a while, people even write and tell me they like the reviews. Oddly, a number of them have mentioned their relief that I don't use cut tags, so they don't have to keep clicking all over hell and high water. I just want to read what I want to read, I don't want to have to hunt, either, so I get that. Somewhere along the line, some nebulous unnamed group of fans decided that it was the polite thing to do, and everyone fell in line and agreed that yes, this was what we should, as fans, all do. That's okay if people want to and they believe it is polite and easy, but is it really evil if someone doesn't want to and doesn't actually find it easy? If someone just wants to write what they write, and not fuss with crap all over the place to satisfy people they don't even know, following a standard they didn't agree to set? I mean, I don't know anymore. Apparently, it is evil, if I learned anything today.
Oddly, I was planning to use the cut tags for the final Buffy and this season's final Angel, because they're so fraught with import and emotion, I figured it was safest. Now I feel like digging in my heels and not doing it, but frankly, if UPN here in Seattle keeps preempting Buffy for baseball, I may not have to worry about it, since we may not see it for days after everyone else. And to be honest, I don't know if I even want to anymore. The fun kind of went out of it today. I thought this was my personal space. I'm honored and flattered that anyone ever wanted to friend me despite my lack of cut tags. I'm touched that people thought I had something interesting to say, because all my life I was told that I was not interesting, and my parents often paid me to stop talking. But I feel like if I continue to post without the tags, then I'm going to be upsetting folks, and if I give in and bow down to pressure from nastyass people I don't know, then I feel crappy and cheap. I don't know what to do, really. And if anyone wants to defriend me because of the spoiler issue, I want to be clear -- I have no hard feelings. I totally understand (okay, except those of you who I will curse with Xander's syphillis, but really, you shouldn't worry), and would never defriend in retaliation.
And now I've wasted my entire night on this, when I wanted to finish the Willow's eye view of Spike and Buffy, which I have no appetite for now. Sigh. Time to hit the Bailey's, I think.
green_luv, I don't know what's up, but it sounds like you're feeling as low as me. If I could send you my brownies I made yesterday, I would.)Edited to add that it took me 4 tries to get this fricking tag to work right.
I know I'm not a perfect person. Most people who know me would pretty much claim that I'm far less than perfect; pretty awful, in fact -- most of my life my family, "friends", whoever have enjoyed telling me every negative thing they could. My self esteem isn't even in the low digits, it's about at a -10, and I sometimes have a hard time dealing with confident people because I honestly don't know what it's like to be okay with yourself. There's some things I know I do well -- emotionally, I can't believe in my writing, but intellectually I understand it's something I do better than most (I mean, I can't ignore that I've won awards and sold stories -- it doesn't help me believe in myself, but I do at least recognize that it means something). Mostly I do a pretty good job as an editor. My vids seem to impress people, although I don't often know why, but they seems like something people enjoy.
I'm kind to small animals, I used to work with kids, and especially developmentally disabled children, I'm a loyal friend who's been known to drive to foreign countries at a moment's notice to pick up someone in an emergency, or zoom to Portland to help someone out of a jam (well, okay, there was that time I buttered the car of a guy who did me way wrong, but that's a different thing altogether). I try to share what I have with people -- take people to dinner when I can afford it, buy them presents, write stories for them, loan them money if they need it, make tapes, trade vids... I don't lie to folks, and I take care of my elderly dad when he's not well. Basically I'm hoping that this kind of stuff will get me into heaven if there really is a God, and overcome my lack of belief -- it's best to cover your bases, you know. I have a black Celtic temper that frequently gets the better of me, much to my chagrin, and I have a large vocabulary, especially of swear words, that when combined with said temper gets me into more trouble than I would wish, but after years of therapy trying to sort out the violent family I grew up in, I'm better about it.
And apparently because I don't use lj cut tags, I'm also evil. Now, I'd prefer that if I was going to be evil, I was sort of sexy and cool, along the lines of... oh, I dunno, Lilah on Angel, but alas, I'm trapped in my ugly body and just plain old ordinary evil. Apparently someone decided to drop by today and scream LJCUT! at me 100 times (I'm not exaggerating, you can see it if you read today's earlier entry that started it all), and the proceeded to insult me because I refused to explain myself to her upon demand.
elina and morgandawn kindly stepped in and defended my right to be as rude and thoughtless as I wanted to be, and I was so busy at work I couldn't really deal with it. But now I feel, basically, like crap, and the luster has really worn off this thing. I mean, if being an evil overlord came with total control over LJ and the internet, and I could force everyone to do what I wanted them to do, it might be worth it, but I'm stuck with the rather quotidian existence of trying to just muddle through, writing what I wanted to write, and saying what I wanted to say, where I wanted to say it. The thing is, I started this page because I just missed writing movie and tv reviews. The best two years of my life were when I was a film critic for a newspaper here in Seattle, even though I made no money at it. I just loved being able to channel my love of writing, my film studies, and my adoration of movies in general into pieces that people read. By extension, I got to use my music experience and review albums too, and those were good times. Penurious, but good. LJ came about because I was having ISP space issues, and was writing these essays and reviews about Buffy on my web page and at message boards, where I often exceeded length. A couple people suggested I set up a blog, and then it went from there.
When I first did it, I think about four people friended me, all people I knew. That was fine.
merryish mentioned my page on hers one day, and next thing I knew I had about 20 friend ofs. I was kind of boggled. She warned people up front -- that it was going to be about current episodes of Buffy and Firefly and whatnot, and that I wasn't cutting away... and still those lovely people friended me. I went out and sought the people whose writing I loved to read, and whose journals interested me. I never expected or asked them to friend me in return. In fact, I have some read real friends who have never LJ friended me, because of the spoilers issue. I don't mind (well, okay, except for those people whose firstborn children I've put that unpleasant hex on, but that's neither here nor there). I mean, I know what I'm doing, and I understand.The thing is, I hate the cut tags thing. I have a dialup connection that's amazingly slow because of dirty phone line issues, and clicking through 50 reviews of Buffy or whatever means I can basically not read most of what I want to read. If I could just call up my friends list, wait five minutes for it to load and pray that it won't disconnect, I'd be happy. I read the headlines, and if people warned about spoilers in the headers, I'd pay attention. But I have to pare down my reading because of cut tags. I can't read most of the fic snippets because the time it takes to load them means more time away from my own writing or my freelance work, what have you. I hate that it's become the predominant form of communication here. When I first thought of making a review page, I poked around LJ all over, and I found that this fannish community of media fans use cut tags far more than anyone else. I saw tons of movie review personal pages that didn't do it. When I was reviewing movies, the thought of spoiler warnings never even crossed people's minds -- you just printed the review. Now I notice EW uses big spoiler warnings on many reviews, because people are such shrieking weenies over even the most basic and non-spoilery of reviews. I don't get it, frankly. I've never gotten it. I am avoiding spoilers for the rest of Buffy, but if I see something, I'm not going to shriek and weep and bang my fists on the table and tear my hair out and go insult someone about it.
I also hate the way spoilerphobes have killed my lists. On one list I'm on, we never discuss eps anymore, because even something like "buffy last night!" was spoilery to someone, or saying that an episode was a musical resulted in wailing and gnashing of teeth. You can't even say "buffy casting news spoilers" because then you're excoriated for saying there's something happening with the cast, but if you don't say it's about the cast, you get ripped because someone didn't read important cast info since they thought it was a plot spoiler. At this point, no one knows what will set someone off, so I feel as if it's just a no win situation, and I hate it. I really, really hate it. I get together with some local fans occasionally, and we're tyrannized by the few who refuse to keep up with current airings -- we're expected to go freeze outside if we want to talk about last week's ep, not them leave the room because they didn't watch it. There' s simply no way to make people happy, and I frankly am just weary of it all.
I'm not a BNF. I don't have minions or fans, I don't have people following me places and reading whatever I write and telling me I'm fabu. I never expected in a million years that anyone would want to read this -- I figured my pals would friend me, never read my page, and I could be happy just writing away to no one, satisfying only myself. That people enjoyed reading my reviews bewilders me and makes me feel good and sniffly -- but it was never what I expected. So far 68 people seem to have felt it was worth my no cut tags to friend me -- maybe they did so out of obligation (or it could have been that spell... hmmm...), maybe they did so out of interest (or the blackmail), I don't know. Once in a while, people even write and tell me they like the reviews. Oddly, a number of them have mentioned their relief that I don't use cut tags, so they don't have to keep clicking all over hell and high water. I just want to read what I want to read, I don't want to have to hunt, either, so I get that. Somewhere along the line, some nebulous unnamed group of fans decided that it was the polite thing to do, and everyone fell in line and agreed that yes, this was what we should, as fans, all do. That's okay if people want to and they believe it is polite and easy, but is it really evil if someone doesn't want to and doesn't actually find it easy? If someone just wants to write what they write, and not fuss with crap all over the place to satisfy people they don't even know, following a standard they didn't agree to set? I mean, I don't know anymore. Apparently, it is evil, if I learned anything today.
Oddly, I was planning to use the cut tags for the final Buffy and this season's final Angel, because they're so fraught with import and emotion, I figured it was safest. Now I feel like digging in my heels and not doing it, but frankly, if UPN here in Seattle keeps preempting Buffy for baseball, I may not have to worry about it, since we may not see it for days after everyone else. And to be honest, I don't know if I even want to anymore. The fun kind of went out of it today. I thought this was my personal space. I'm honored and flattered that anyone ever wanted to friend me despite my lack of cut tags. I'm touched that people thought I had something interesting to say, because all my life I was told that I was not interesting, and my parents often paid me to stop talking. But I feel like if I continue to post without the tags, then I'm going to be upsetting folks, and if I give in and bow down to pressure from nastyass people I don't know, then I feel crappy and cheap. I don't know what to do, really. And if anyone wants to defriend me because of the spoiler issue, I want to be clear -- I have no hard feelings. I totally understand (okay, except those of you who I will curse with Xander's syphillis, but really, you shouldn't worry), and would never defriend in retaliation.
And now I've wasted my entire night on this, when I wanted to finish the Willow's eye view of Spike and Buffy, which I have no appetite for now. Sigh. Time to hit the Bailey's, I think.
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no subject
Date: 2003-04-10 09:47 pm (UTC)I don't mind cut tags, but I have a cable modem. I do think that some people seem to be obsessed with them--the LJ panel at Connexions was one place where the moderators, I thought, went overboard in their demands that everyone use cut tags if their posts were going to be longer than a couple paragraphs, which I thought was just plain fucking stupid. I do use them occasionally, but only when I'm posting something I think a sizeable proportion of my readers might not be interested in, like story snippets and con reports and detailed descriptions of Buddhist stuff. Or for quizzes, because they *do* take forever to load when you're on dial up.
Anyway, I have to admit I didn't read your comments earlier, so I had no idea people were dissing you for not using cut tags. Shame on them. I hope you don't take the out of control ranting of one person too seriously--I never knew you before I started reading your LJ, and I don't even watch all the same shows, but I like you muchly and wish for you to continue being you.
*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2003-04-10 10:23 pm (UTC)Damn, I love your icon, it just cracks me up. I don't ever even remember seeing something like that on the show, but it seems sort of appropos for the two of them. Heee.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-10 10:10 pm (UTC)Not!! :-) I was wondering why Morgan asked the question in her LJ about tags today. Yours is the one journal I never expect to see cut tags in, because - it's all about talkin' the shows, man! That's what your journal is for! *g* I was really surprised to see a cut tag in here today, and to see your thoughts about this, and to see what had happened. This makes me sad. If I knew you better, I'd virtual-hug you. It's the thought that counts, I guess.
And also - now that I've gone and read the original posts, I can edit this to be less grumpy about it *g* - I must say, don't feel you have to do anything to protect people who read friendsfriends. It's their choice to click over that extra link and read journals other than those they have specifically friended, yes? They should respect your choices, and make their own accordingly.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-10 10:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-10 10:11 pm (UTC)Ooh, does that mean I can be your first minion? *g*
I like the fact that you don't use cut tags - in the end, even with a faster connection, I probably spend more time opening cut-tag links than I would going to the next page of my friends list. And I'm firmly on the side of "it's your journal - do what you want with it." It seems especially presumptuous to make demands of someone else who isn't even on your friends list, by the way - if someone's breaking etiquette, I don't think it's you.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-10 10:39 pm (UTC)Thank you for being supportive. Everyone's so nice, it's a great antidote to earlier.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-10 10:12 pm (UTC)Just my humble opinion.
Personally, I love your episode reviews. I love your fanfic. You surprised me when you wrote that you don't have "groupies" within the fandom because I would have expected you to, if for no other reason than the quality of your fanfiction. I can't tell you how many times I've understood an episode in a new light after reading your LJ. It's something I look forward to.
And I know you didn't write this to hear people compliment you but I couldn't seem to resist. I'm just really sorry someone made you feel like you can't be candid here because this is the place for it, if any place is, because that's what LJ is for, and because LJ is a better place for what you offer.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-10 10:29 pm (UTC)I think that's one thing that's been so hard for me to figure on -- I'm mostly pretty low profile, I have never really had much of a "presence" on my own in fandom, which was fine, it's just that it's a shock sometimes when you find out people are actually paying attention. When I went to see how many people I was listed as a friend of, I was totally dumbfounded to see it was 68. I was like, 68? I never even got picked for the baseball team in school (and I was a badass ball player, too!) because I wasn't popular! That's a puny number to some people, but it was a shock to me, and that those people did it knowing (or I hope they know) that I wasn't doing something "agreed upon" by everyone... it was very nice. I just hadn't expected what happened today coming out of left field -- it seemed like it was kind of going along of its own accord, then blammo.
And Giles in a toga? YES, PLEASE.
Re:
Date: 2003-04-10 10:35 pm (UTC)Yummy, huh? Chose that one to bring some cheer to your night. ;)
Please do email, i'd love to meet for coffee. I'm going out of town in a week and I'll be gone 'till May but it'd be fun and of course I want to show off my pic. :D
People are just... people. They're just like that. They're bored or small or whatever. Don't let it get you down. Easy for me to say, I know, but just remember all the people who friended you did it knowing what you've got to offer. Trust that. :)
Well, I beg to differ...
Date: 2003-04-12 05:50 am (UTC)Yeah, this whole discussion fascinates me. In my inevitable quest to make it seem Something More is going on here, the idea that somebody can demand that you keep your journal so that it's conveniant for them just amazes me.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-10 10:38 pm (UTC)I'm really sorry this has messed with your day, your evening and your sense of self. That person was wrong. Not you.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-11 09:37 am (UTC)Somehow, my Spike icon with "I've always been bad" feels oddly appropriate for me now. My friends who think I'm miss goody two shoes must be laughing like drains.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-11 01:19 am (UTC)I do use lj-cut tags because I was always under the impression that it was easier on everyone...you know, they could scan through their list, get an overview, then dip in to the lj-cut entries as they felt like it. I have a weenie dial-up connection, too, so I assumed I was like the lowest common denominator and since it's never slowed me down, I didn't realize that it causes other people some real problems. I guess them thar Dirty Phone Line Issues are something I've been spared.
In any case, the relative anonymity of the internet causes some people to feel entitled to rudeness they'd never deploy face to face. It's like having some tagger run up and scribble graffiti on your face, except you never see the tagger.
Anyway, try to let it go, gwyn. Heaven or hell is so not going to be decided by lj-cuts or spoilers.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-11 09:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-11 02:24 am (UTC)Don't let one idiot get you down. Seriously. Do what you want to do, and if someone else doesn't like it, big fucking deal. It's your journal.
I greatly enjoy reading your fic, your reviews, and your LJ, so I very much hope you'll continue to post.
the proper repsonse...
Date: 2003-04-11 05:14 am (UTC)"Oh dear, well, fuck you, you twit and, if you would be so kind as to stop reading my journal if it distress you so, and would you mind unfriending my friends too, since that will only distress you more...thank you. Oh, and by the way. Bite me."
You know, said as politely as you possibly can, and most sincerely.
I *hate* cut tags. They make me insane, mostly. I'm also on a dial up, which actually isn't a problem for me as it is for you. But since your journal is given to doing exactly what you love, and those of us who love what you do would prefer to keep reading it...
The rest of them can just get over it.
Jeez, Gwyn, I don't even watch Buffy or Angel and I read your reviews because you have such fun with them and you think in terms I don't ever come close to approaching about themes and arc and all the cool little details.
Cut yourself a break or if it's really bugging you, friends lock them and then the die hards among us will be smug, sastisfied and content and hopefully you won't get spammed.
oh, but look....
Date: 2003-04-11 05:22 am (UTC)I could be your minion too, and maybe I'd learn a thing or two about how to deal with people who annoy me...since my usual response is to splutter and squawk and get amazingly tongue tied...
and then be really rude.
I'm sorry
Date: 2003-04-11 06:37 am (UTC)I feel slightly stalkerish doing this at all, because by this time you probably hate the sight of my username, but I wanted to say that again:
I am sorry I yelled at you. For a whole bunch of reasons. I feel bad about doing it: I feel bad that I upset you so much: I feel bad that I let spoilers for Angel upset me so much. I feel bad that because I upset you it distracted you from doing something you really want to do.
I apologise.
Nothing excuses rudeness, but we were operating (and still are, I fear) on different frames of reference (http://www.livejournal.com/users/yonmei/55384.html) - I'm accustomed to the fact that livejournals are not private. It's like having a conversation at a very large public party: you may be surrounded by friends, but you never know who can overhear you.
Re: I'm sorry
Date: 2003-04-11 09:23 am (UTC)I realize that it's difficult -- as a user, I have an expectation of this being personal space, but the friends pages change the equation drastically, and other people are going to feel *their* spaces are invaded if they see spoilers. I will try to, if I keep reviewing, find a way to enlarge the type of the spoiler warning, maybe use red or something... I don't know. I really don't want to cause other people distress, it was never my intention. As I said, I was surprised that anyone ever wanted to include me on their friends page, and I'm not entirely certain how to appease both myself, with my dislike of how everything, even non spoilers, are behind cut tags, and other people who will stumble on my reviews and hate me.
I think the phrase happy medium is one of the world's bigger lies.;-)
Re: I'm sorry
Date: 2003-04-11 01:32 pm (UTC)Thank you.
I realize that it's difficult -- as a user, I have an expectation of this being personal space, but the friends pages change the equation drastically, and other people are going to feel *their* spaces are invaded if they see spoilers.
Yeah. The trouble is, livejournal isn't personal space - not really. If you post something friends-only, then it is private to your circle of friends; if you post something as a private post, then it's for you only. But if you just post it as a public post, you really are posting it for anyone with access to the Internet who wants to read it. The one thing that can be said is that somehow google doesn't seem to access livejournal posts - possibly because google works via links, and not many people link into livejournal. I don't know. A public post is really more like making a speech at a crowded party that having a quiet personal conversation.
I think the phrase happy medium is one of the world's bigger lies.;-)
I fear so!
Re: I'm sorry
Date: 2003-04-11 01:41 pm (UTC)I really think it's difficult to assume that LiveJournal journals are personal space. I've had both a blog and an LJ and they are very different creatures. LJ has evolved into community space and there are all sorts of ways this is encouraged -- you have the friendsfriends feature, the "random" feature and now they've reimplemented their "latest updated journals" feature. So really, it is community space and not personal space.
However...I find many spoilerphobes have put a huge damper on discussion in community spaces, not only on LJ, but on message lists, etc. In fact, I think they've stifled it altogether when it's gotten to the point where they bitch about someone writing "OMG That was so great!" outside a cut-tag or complaining that Canadians are spoiling everyone in America and therefore everyone else in the world should operate by the American airing schedule. And just...wow, I could go on and on. Basically though, while I believe in some courtesy regarding spoiler warnings, I don't think our entire fannish experience should be controlled by someone else's obsession with remaining "spoiler free" because seriously, the only way to stay spoiler free about everything in our culture is to not read anything and not watch tv.
And now I'm rambling. But back to the "personal space" issue -- there is one way to make LJ more about being your "personal space". It's called friends-locking. It's very handy :)
Re: I'm sorry
Date: 2003-04-11 03:21 pm (UTC)I guess, to clarify by what I mean by personal space, is just that I have a place to write my thoughts and feelings. I could, if I understand correctly, have prevented people from friending me, but to be honest, I never expected anyone to have friended me. I tend to think of my web site as personal space, too -- for me, what LJ and my site mean is that they're my page with my name, and anyone can wander in and see what's there, but they have to realize they are wandering into my space, cyber that it is. It's like open house, only with stories and rants and stuff. Of course, for someone like me, who's disinclined towards hiding spoilers and things (and I don't use warnings or ratings on my stories, either), this makes my space more like a public minefield, I guess, but... I'd rather have people defriend me than to feel like I didn't have some kind of ownership over what I could say or do. I know I'm very fussy about this -- I mean, I'm hyperaware of what a loon I probably look like.
That said, I realize that I'm not part of the community because I'm stepping outside the boundaries a lot of people have willingly agreed to. I do try to warn people -- I say it on my info page, so that if someone wants to friend me, they can look up and see, oh wow, she's a total bitch, she refuses to use cut tags AND she reviews American-airing eps! Fuck her, no way am I subjecting others to that! And in a way, that was what I'd expected all along. Plus I try to state in bold at the beginning what I'm reviewing and spoilerin'. So I mean... oh, I don't know what I mean anymore. I think at this point I don't got no brain left in me.
I did think about the friends-lock thing. The reason I didn't do it was because most of the people who've written to me privately over the months I've had this weren't on LJ, and probably won't get on. They were so kind and they gave me such an egoboo, that I'm reluctant to eliminate them from this stupid little intellectual masturbation of mine. ;-) And weirdly, in the past day? More people have friended me. I have NO idea what this means.
My only solution if I do write anything reviewy again and I don't succumb to the tyranny of cut tags is to learn how to make the spoiler warning text at top bigger and like red or something. I don't know if it'll help but... we'll see. Thanks, though. I'm glad I'm not the only person who's a little wary of the spoilerphobias.
Re: I'm sorry
Date: 2003-04-11 11:40 am (UTC)Shutting up now.
Re: I'm sorry
Date: 2003-04-11 01:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-11 09:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-04-11 09:46 am (UTC)It is, and if lj-cut obsessives don't like the way you do things, they can read someone else's LJ. Me, I'll be happily reading your reviews and your fic and your LJ.
Coming from someone who wishes to remain unspoiled, but doesn't have entitlement issues...
Date: 2003-04-12 07:39 am (UTC)When one uses friendsfriends, it is the equivalent of walking from room to room, looking for conversations. You have initiated that contact, not the person speaking. Therefore, it is not encumbent upon them to conform to your desired topics of conversation. If you don't want to listen to what they're talking about, then don't go to that journal. Simple as pie.
She's unfriended someone till June so she won't get spoiled. It's called dealing with it.
Also:
Say what you want, when you want, babe. It's your journal, and screw the folks that have entitlement issues.
I couldn't concur more, except she didn't say 'bloody fuck' at all. Not even once.
Re: Coming from someone who wishes to remain unspoiled, but doesn't have entitlement issues...
Date: 2003-04-12 10:23 am (UTC)The one thing I would never ever do is what I always considered a real spoiler -- telling people about upcoming eps. That, I wil lnever do. I very vaguely in my Angel review that started this mentioned something from the teaser, but it was vague, because the teaser was vague. I had nothing spoilery to say about it, really.
I've been thinking about this a lot, based on the responses here, and my own expectation that LJ was, while providing the opportunity for community, still a place where we could lone-wolfly set up a page and do or say what we wanted while not harming anyone. I see a lot of people outside fandom use LJ that way, and I've been in fandom a LONG time, and have learned that fans are funny about gratification -- we expect it our way, now, and then we often don't say thank you when we get it. But a lot of the nonfan LJs I saw used it as a journal, as a diary or a place to muse and have essays and whatever. But there are also other blog machines and blog spaces for that, I guess.
I joined here for a lot of reasons -- I'm no coder, and my incompetence at having my own blog would blow up on me. I knew people here, and it was free. And I wanted to meet and greet others in the Buffy community, because after being gafiated for quite some time, I was excited about fandom again and was enjoying writing reviews about this thing I loved. But it might be better served elsewhere if what I do hurts people simply because I want it to fit my own needs, and maybe it can't, not really. Maybe I ought to find a less community-based space, even if I haven't entered that community.
I love Harmonyfb's allusion to going room to room. That's one reason I'm super careful about going to friends' friends pages. But it's got me wondering and thinking about my expectation of space, and not matching others. I hate feeling this way. I do feel crappy about it, but... at least it has me thinking about bigger issues, which I guess is never a bad thing.
And frankly, I love your bad language. It always makes me feel better, because I swear too much myself! ;-)
Re: Coming from someone who wishes to remain unspoiled, but doesn't have entitlement issues...
Date: 2003-04-12 10:27 am (UTC)That unknown user would
Good swearing and champagne, two things one can never have too much of...
Date: 2003-04-12 10:55 am (UTC)Anyway, don't be weirded out that we were sort of talking about this. It was the entitlement thing that got to me, that this person or these people feel that they're entitled to demand that you change your journal because they're not paying attention to the nice, big, black letters that warn of spoilers. Um, at some point, I have to get annoyed, because that's just presumptuous of them. It's not like you barged their way into their house or sat next to them on the train and discussed oral sex with someone in loud detail. I actually saw someone use that argument. You're not forcing people to read your journal,and you observed the courtesies by posting the NICE BIG BLACK SPOILER WARNING, so if they didn't notice that, well, too bad. Is it your job to make them more intelligent or observant? NO, it's not, unless they're paying you money, in which case I find it hard to believe there's enough money for that. Well, what they're trying to do is make you responsible for their lack of observation or caution. And they're not even paying you or doing nice things for you that hopefully involve sex.
I just don't think you should make demands of someone unless you're prepared to offer at least a coherent reason for why your character flaws are their problem. Failing that, you should offer them a concession or something. "If you do this for me, I'll do this for you." It's kind of common, actually. Except instead of offering an exchange, people just try to justify it.
There's no justification for it, though.
Re: Coming from someone who wishes to remain unspoiled, but doesn't have entitlement issues...
Date: 2003-04-12 01:24 pm (UTC)Well, unfortunately, for those of us in the UK - even on Sky One - that's exactly what you are doing when you post about last night's episode on American TV...
Re: Coming from someone who wishes to remain unspoiled, but doesn't have entitlement issues...
Date: 2003-04-12 04:35 pm (UTC)This reminds me way too much of the huge La Femme Nikita list I was on back at the beginning of that show. The show was huge in Australia, and they didn't see it for at least six months after the Canadians and Americans did, but discussion always morphs and changes, and then they'd have a screaming fit. Why you'd put yourself in a place where you could be spoiled if you're that passionate about avoiding it, I never understood, but they did, and they made a lot of people who inadvertently said something because they were excited and becuase discussion often shifts shape feel pretty fricking bad.
Again... I never asked anyone to put me on their friends page. They did, and I warned that I'm discussing the current American airings... and I don't know how much more I can say about this. All I ever wanted was to do my page my way. I never asked for it to be in others' faces. If there's a chance of finding unpleasant things on other friends' friends pages, maybe it's wise to avoid those extra spaces. So that's it. I'm bowing out of the discussion because I just don't think I can handle it anymore.
Re: Coming from someone who wishes to remain unspoiled, but doesn't have entitlement issues...
Date: 2003-04-13 01:02 am (UTC)I guess again we're running into the difference between public and private space. What's published in public posts on livejournal is, well, public: you're at a party in brad's house that everyone on earth with an Internet connection is invited to - and yes, plenty of Americans do tend to forget that they're publishing spoilers for upcoming episodes in public space, and yes, this bugs me (and yes, I try not to scream at them, and I'm sorry!)
I think it's also a difference between British and American standards. In fannish public space in the UK, it's usually considered polite in mixed gatherings (a few people get to see Buffy very early, and some get to see it on Sky One only two or three weeks after the Americans, and some only get to see it on the BBC nearly a year later, and a few people have to watch it on video... etc) to stick to talking about what everybody knows about - usually up to the episode last shown on the BBC or C4. Americans don't tend to think like that because they don't have to (there was a Babylon 5 incident a few years ago where the Brits got to see the season finale a week or two before the Americans, and I'm told by people who were online then that it was almost funny to see fans who'd been carefree and unspoiled pleading - begging - British fans not to discuss Babylon 5 without spoiler warnings, so it's not a national characteristic, just a privileged one).
But that's by the by, really. I still think this is the point at which our realities diverge: you don't think of public posts as being public space, and I do. And I feel that there are (ahem) standards of behaviour that are commonly expected of fans in public spaces.
This is different, I agree, from joining a discussion list. You can either ban Americans from the list entirely, and stick to only episodes Brits have seen for discussion, but if it's a mixed list then spoilers are going to happen - which is why I purposefully avoid all mailing lists or online discussion groups for Buffy and other series where I don't want spoilers. (With Buffy, I even try to avoid current fanfic.) That's a form of private online space where you enter at your own risk.
Here's the source of our dissension: I see public posts on livejournal as public space, in which public manners ought to be observed. You see any post in your own livejournal as private space, even though what you write in a public post is available to anyone with an Internet connection, and may be accidentally read by anyone who happens to stumble across it - as I did. (And may be discussed at length elsewhere, which would certainly not happen - or ought not to - with friends-only posts.)