An Anniversary, Ms. Havisham Style

[cbertsch]

Well, this journal has made it to another year. This is my sixth anniversary here. But it's also the most bittersweet, since many of the friends I looked forward to reading have abandoned the site and others only post infrequently. As a measure of how things have changed, I almost went back and changed that "here" in the second sentence to "there," since most of the comments I get these days come indirectly, via the "notes" I import from Live Journal into Facebook. Sigh. It depresses me, because there are many things about LJ that I still dig, despite its many problems, from the ease with which concentric circles of friendship -- intimate to casual -- can be managed to the comment threading that still makes Facebook's implementation seem ridiculously lame. And I say all that despite a pretty strong hunch that my life would have gone a lot better if I'd never taken the plunge into personal blogging. Anyway, here's the tally, for what it's worth: 3267 journal entries, 13,849 comments received and 11,350 comments posted. I wonder if I'll make it to 4000?

Comments

[e4q.livejournal.com]

i don't know whose blogs you do comment on, but i notice you never comment on mine. perhaps you find me boring? but that means you don't get to meet people in the threads, which is how i refresh my own flist. i started off in lj with two friends, neither of whom blog now, but as people have dropped away (and in one instance actively dumped!) i have picked up new people. either in the threads of friends or the one community i do read (buddhists) or because they follow me in the same way. if you want your lj to live i think you have to be more proactive. people will drop away, and other people get involved, just like real life!

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm sorry you feel I never comment on your journal anymore. It doesn't feel that way to me, because you're certainly one of my favorite LJers, someone whom I look to for sustenance and goodwill. But my schedule has shifted over the past year or so, which means that I'm not up as late. I used to read your entries when they were freshly posted, but now often don't see them until much of my day has passed. For whatever reason, I'm less likely to comment on things that have been sitting a while. And sometimes I just don't make it down to your entries at all, because I'm spending less time on the computer and only see the first couple entries on my "Friends" page before moving on.

That said, I make it a point to comment somewhere almost every day. I have posted more comments than entries over the past year. But the social networking aspect of Live Journal seems to have passed me by, since few of my comments turn into more sustained contact. There are exceptions, of course, I've gotten to know three LJers over the past year who are among my favorite contributors. Maybe it's just that the Tucson LJ scene, into which you had a good deal of insight, has dried up, at least in terms of the connections that kept me in the loop.

[e4q.livejournal.com]

oh! i am glad you still read me!

yes, it does seem that in the US livejournal was used a bit like friendster for a while, but i suppose everyone is facebooking now. on fb i get a sense of how people have used social networking sites in the past, and i do quite like it for that, i have a couple of local friends who i otherwise wouldn't be in touch with, and of course, there is the scrabble. but in general it leaves me rather cold, and i prefer the diary/penpal thing of lj. i am on a couple of ning communities, too, and i find that format quite annoying, the style of the thread here works best for me. i read other blogs on google reader, that works for me ok, though it's a faff to click through to comment, so i rarely do. my big guilty pleasure these days on the internet is tumblr. the age range is substanitally lower than my own, so there is a lot there that i find very eyerolling, but i enjoy sharing images, and find it quite inspiring, now that i am following a couple of good people.

[cbertsch.livejournal.com]

I haven't made much of a foray into tumblr yet. I don't quite get it. But that was once true of Facebook, which I refused to join until you suggested it! Oh, how I miss those days of Scrabulous. I liked the site better when I was playing all the time. I don't even know ning, come to think of it.

[e4q.livejournal.com]

i think there are two main user groups at tumblr, extremely young emo kids and architecture firms. it is a weird mixture. but what they both have a passion for is creating virtual sketchbooks. you don't bother friending and there is no real conversation outside of the images themselves. so if you want your own sketchbook, it's like that has two layers, stuff you made and want to have somewhere, stuff you like and would like to refer to again, and then there is the stream of who you follow, who you can 'like' or repost in your own stream if you want to. who you follow can be changed quickly. that bit is like leafing though magazines at the dentist, but without having to cough as you tear a page out.