White Star Line

[aristophains]

LiveJournal. Facebook. What are we doing and why? Blog articles on this by Keith (alias bristolian_kam) and his friend Al (a.k.a. alastaire, my dear Watson), along with the comments on each, have proved highly thought provoking. These are issues that matter to me and demand reflection and response.

I was an LJ reader and commenter before I was an LJer. This was me (what

Comments

[davidn]

I started my own journal at the end of my first year of university, when a group of international friends started them together to stay in touch with each other after they went back to their own countries. I was reluctant to start one, because even though I posted to many online forums then, the concept of just having a space to say whatever I wanted was new to me. Now, though, I'm still going - and I, too, have noticed the migration away from Livejournal and on to Facebook

[aristophains]

Thanks for your comment. :) It's interesting how there are such diverse stories of how LJers past and present came to be here and how our attitudes to blog-keeping have developed. Spend an hour asking people why they joined Facebook and one might be left with the nagging feeling that 60 minutes of potential watching-paint-become-less-wet time have been lost forever.

I'm surprised to realise that you're the only LiveJournal user I know who's made use of the renaming facility. When people give themselves pseudonyms or comedy middle names on Facebook it usually looks silly and attention-seeking (when in Rome...), but name changing on LJ suggests adaptability on both sides. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that LiveJournal offers a better package.

[billyhicks]

Excellent post :) As one of the few regular LJers left I still read every single post on my friends page, including all of yours. I know I'm a bit rubbish at replying sometimes, but every comment I receive is heartwarming and keeps me posting new entries. Just the thought that *one* person is reading and enjoying what I write, even that of years ago, is a truly warm feeling.

This post has inspired me to write my own thoughts on the subject too, which will appear shortly!

[aristophains]

Thanks, Billy. :) It's been good to hear your thoughts on this, and to know that I've helped inspire you to formulate them

[bristolian_kam]

Wonderful response, squire! Thank you for bringing your light to the fore (and fora!) and for the terrific respect you give to Al’s work and mine. I thought I was setting myself for an ideological beating when I brought the subject up. But if Al pays deference to my response then I, in turn, bow in deference to this. Mine was just a bundle of observations loosely shaped around personal experience. Your journey here is a special one, worthy of more recognition than I (or anyone) could single-handedly offer

[aristophains]

Thank you for expressing such kind sentiments. :)

I did consider rounding off my entry by giving voice to an egocentric streak. I know that if friends with LJ accounts wish to follow my life and its associated pontifications, they have to keep coming back to LiveJournal. For those who have made a murine departure from LJ, conscious or otherwise, this would carry the negative sense of 'I'm going down and I'm taking you down with me.' But for those who are happy to keep visiting, regardless of their own strained or broken relationship with LJ, the sense is a positive one: I'm taking you along with me. I'm sure we can both agree which applies to you. And I cannot discard the fact that as your rate of entry making has decreased, your rate of comment making in my journal seems to have done the opposite. When it comes to your LJs there will always be a selfish nostalgia on my part, but the days when I would make an entry and hope it would be elevated by receipt of a comment from you? Those days I do not miss. :) Thank you too. x