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My Archaeology: Dawn of Networking
- Jan. 31st, 2019 at 12:31 PM
- reposted by
ryca
I feel like fandom generations are both very specific and easily conflated. Like,, you either live through so many they blur together into one hellish mess or you join in on one generation and remain blissfully unaware of the previous ones
Trekkster Gods
- No internet
- fledgeling fandom
- women run everything
- seriously where the fuck did we go wrong
- fandom wouldn’t exist as we know it without these women
- conventions, badges, quite a lot of taboo but also lots of fun
- closely-knit communities
- mostly discussions in magazines
- hogging the phone so you can chat with your friends
- (while trying to pretend the rest of your family doesn’t exist)
- basement meetings
- fanart what??
Dawn of Networking
- tin-bucket sites and forums
- the badly assembled DIY IKEA kits of the internet
- these were strange places
- i’m too young to know firsthand but I’ve heard the stories
- they were like,, inhabited by eldrich beings
- who would sell souls in exchange for fanfics
- early RPs
- nobody was quite sure what they were doing
- but!! You could connect with more fans quickly!!!
- made obsessing less lonely
- yay
“I was there Gandalf”
- Live Journal
- small internet communities
- the name “Ann Rice” strikes fear into your heart
- also hatred, lots of hatred
- adding every warning and rating under the sun, hiding behind NSFW filters even if it isn’t necessary, praying you don’t get reported or deleted
- you get reported
- your friends get reported
- nobody is safe
- fuck.
Citrus Cheesecake
- DeviantArt and ff.net
- bright shiny eyes
- children everywhere
- “more of a lime than a lemon >//< but also kind of just a lemon with fluff?”
- where did all the adults go? Where were they hiding??
- pls don’t flame
- A/N *dances away from your flames because idgaf*
- omggg such a nosebleed!!!! XD lol
- characters and authors having conversations in the author’s notes
Archive of Our Saviours
- ooo we found the adults
- mass migration by younger fans to Tumblr, Ao3 etc
- looking at fandom’s earlier stages like “I have no memory of this place”
- ratings that had nothing to do with fruit
- (thank gods)
- fandom grows up
- we are all grateful
- we have proper websites to call home
- wanderers can finally settle down
- many fans are Tired
We’re here again, Gandalf
- your elbows are explicit
- cats are explicit
- there are legends of a paradise of pillows
- but none of us wants to leave hell
- blue blue blue
- a well-respected petblr is flagged as explicit
- will we be here in January?
- who will survive?
- those with sense watch the chaos from Ao3, sipping mocktails
- but we’re not really scared
- nothing can kill fandom
- not even god.
I started using LiveJournal 15 years ago today! I was at my semi-stolen computer hutch desk in my bedroom in Santa Cruz on the monster computer that my dad had built for me for college, seven years earlier.
I couldn't really imagine using the site - having a diary? And showing it to everyone? How ridiculous! How little I knew.
I miss LJ. I miss the friends and the communities. I met people IRL after meeting them here! And I kept in touch with so many people this way. I adored it.
Facebook just isn't the same.
(PS - why can't I post this one entry publicly?)
- Current Mood:
nostalgic - Current Location:work
- Current Music:Reasons Not To Be An Idiot (Live) - Frank Turner - Live at Shepard's Bush Empire
I stand behind him, just off to the side. From here I have the perfect view of the stage, and no chance of being forced away from my spot. I gravitate towards this man, or his doppelganger, at every concert I attend. There's always one, some gentle giant with a bemused smile for me as I hover near his elbow. I've never had a problem.
The band is playing an Irish drinking ballad at punk speed. The writhing crowd at the front of the stage has coalesced into some magnificent rugby scrum - a hundred-some brotherhood with their arms around each other's shoulders, swaying in a circle and singing and bouncing together to the rhythm of the song.
The musicians transition from one song to the next and the scrum flies apart, whirling arms and legs a blur, with the shark fin of a red mohawk making its way through the crowd. My breath hitches and I stare hungrily at the mass of bodies, fists and bared teeth whirling past me.
I am safe where I stand, behind the large man who holds his cigarette above the crowd. I am safe and I cannot breathe, so I must dive in.
I feel a lot of pressure, a lot of the time. Sometimes for good reason, I guess. Sometimes... for no reason at all.
I'm a teacher - middle school, English, Special Education. The teaching itself isn't a source of pressure. That's the fun part - the easy part. It's the paperwork that's hard. That, and keeping the parents happy.
I'm a mom - first-timer. I love it. I have it pretty good - supportive partner, good child-care situation. Still a lot of pressure.
Then there's the general dread of "being an adult" (I'm almost 40). Bills and paperwork and all that. It's not my strength.
I feel like that scene in "What Women Want", where Mel Gibson's character starts to realize how much time every woman he sees is spending on being stressed out, and just worrying. That hit home. That feels like me.
I consider myself a happy person. I love my life. But I'm always thinking. And when I'm not thinking of fanfic that I'll never write down, or imagining what I'd do with lottery winnings, I'm thinking about how much of the world I can't do a thing to save, or planning and worrying and trying to keep it all together.
So that's me.
Why am I listing these? Because I miss being a fandom dork!!!
So, what are you all watching? Any of these? Anything, based on these, that I really need to "somehow" get caught up on and watching? Share!!
( Cut because, like I said, dangCollapse )
A Dreamwidth post with
Thank you!!!
http://www.livejournal.com/poll/?id=1795124
"You know, the whole damn world doesn't revolve around you."
"What? What are you-? I mean, I know that! Why would you even say that?"
"Because all you ever talk about is YOU!"
"I do not! I listen plenty! Plus, I know the world doesn't revolve around me - hell, I don't think I even COUNT in this world! In fact, thinking about myself is probably my least favorite thing - it's the best way I know of to feel like crap!"
"You don't have to be completely in love with yourself in order to lose all sight of everyone else - being in love with your own problems is more than sufficient."
"I am not in love with my problems! What are you even talking about? I wish to god that I didn't have so many problems! And I'm trying to deal with them. Why are you beating up on me like this?"
"I'm not beating up on you. I'm just - I'm just reaching my own breaking point, ok? Even when you're listening, you're not listening. And it's not even that you're thinking about what you're going to say next more than you're thinking about what I'm saying now - it's that even when we're just talking, you always bring it back around to you. I say that I had a bad day, and suddenly we're talking about your bad day. I had chicken for lunch and suddenly we're talking - again - about that time you saw that chicken actually cross a road. I try to tell you about what's really going on in my life, about my relationship and how it's killing me, and I don't know what to do about it, and we're talking about your relationship! You don't know how to relate to anybody or anything except in terms of you and your feelings and your experience and your SELF, and don't make that face at me!"
"I'm not making a face! I was just going to say-"
"You were going to say that everybody does that - that everybody sees the world through their own filter, that we all understand other people's experience by relating it to our own, right?"
"Yes, exactly! How is it so wrong for me to do that???"
"It's not wrong, it's just that it's all that you do! You don't extrapolate - you don't say 'I felt this way when X happened to me, so maybe Y would help this other person'. You just say 'Oh that reminds me of a time...' and suddenly we're back to you again! And we're hearing one more story about you. You hijack every conversation!"
"I do not!"
"The other day, when Sheila was telling us that her cousin was on life support, and they were going to have to pull the plug that day, and she was trying not to cry? She said that he'd gotten a staph infection, right?"
"Yeah, and I-"
"You started ranting about that time that you got a staph infection! You latched on to the one part of that story that related to something about you, and you ran with it. Sheila was standing there looking stunned, probably having very reasonably expected some expression of sympathy and support, and instead had to nod along with your rant."
"Well, I didn't, I mean, I don't know what to say when people say something like that. I mean, god, pulling the plug? I have no idea what that's like!"
"You don't have to know what that's like to be able to say 'Oh god, I'm so sorry to hear that'. And that's all that you needed to say. And if you didn't know what to say, you could have waited three seconds and heard me say it, and then you'd know."
"But - I do care about other people! I really do!"
"I know you do, ok? I know. But it's like, well, part of it is that you don't trust yourself, so you don't think 'I can just say that I'm sorry to hear it and it'll be good enough', so you panic, and you get anxious, and you stick with what you know, even when it's not the right thing at all! And suddenly everybody around you thinks that you can only think of yourself."
"But what about Jess? Remember when Jess was going crazy? And I listened, then - I listened really good! And I helped, right? Didn't I?"
"Yes, you did - you were amazing! But it was like you were a totally different person right then - there's no balance between that person who can hyperfocus on someone else's problem and the person who can't talk about anything other than themself. Haven't you ever thought that maybe that's why the only people you can keep as friends are the ones who always in crisis in some way or another? It's like you can pay attention if it's dramatic enough, and when you do you're great! But if people are mostly ok, or just having one or two bad things happen, and needing an ear or a shoulder, you tune out. You become a butterfly, and the only safe landing place is yourself."
"I don't know how to be any different."
"Well, you could start by asking me why I said that my relationship is killing me - that might be good".
"OK, I can do that. I promise. It'll be all about you. See, look at how well I listened to you just now! Aren't you proud of me?"
Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.
I do keep trying, though, although it feels futile as often as not. But I show up most days and I look at their faces, and I try to find some magic incantation that I can use to build them up while pushing them to try harder. I want them to know that I'm proud of them, that I see the progress they've made, without making them feel like they've already done their best and can't do any better.
I grade their work, and I hand it back, and I smile, and I say "Keep doing better".
If you've never gone back to visit an old teacher, to let them know that you turned out ok, and that you remember them, and that maybe they helped just a little bit - consider stopping by that old school, poking your head in the door, saying hello. It means more than you can know.
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