who writes this shit out on a smartphone?
Apparently, me.
So Lj was down again this afternoon. Not long, but it is frequent of late. Plus there was the subject line thing, and lj's general dickory. If something viable appeared, I'd so jump ship. So with the Dreamwidth cheerleaders in full force and open account creation going, I began wondering why I wasn't leaving.
I don't like the default colors of pink, red, and white. I know fandom tends to be female driven, but that color scheme is too fem and valentiny looking. I have the same gut feeling to the default scheme as I do standing in a card store in Feburary, or browsing in the girl section of the baby aisle - eye-rolling exasperation.
I know, join and I can change that. But that lovey-dovey my vagina is awesome color scheme is what people to the site first see, or look at on default comment pages. It makes me feel embarrassed about fandom, and not in a self-loathing, lady hating way. More in a geewhiz, do we have to be the girly cliche that people assume about female fans way. I'm not a big pink person anyway. I like that the default on livejournal is mostly black and white with a splash of denim blue, internet orange, and wizard robe purple. Those are colors from my wardrobe.
It's not only about the colors, though. That's just what I notice first off.
I liked Journalfen because it felt garage built punk with attitude, which is what livejournal felt like in the beginning. I've been here for over ten years. Maybe closer to 13 years. Not on this journal, but on this site via another one. I was here back when Brad ran the site from college, and when the site went down the user base saw messages that said things like, "Stop hitting refresh, retards." So there was a gritty kind of unfinished feel that Journalfen had. But Journalfen, I felt, was incomplete. And I feel the site was that way for two reasons- the age limit (which I liked) and the fandom-centric direction only fans doing fandom stuff were invited. People kept their Livejournals for non-fandom stuff.
The whole of fandom was split from what I thought of as real life, mundane, muggle, "normal" stuff. journalfen was about fandom me, not me as an entire person. Then I realised the further split where you had older fans doing the things they've always done in the regular old fan way, and all the new to fandom and young fans doing in things in new ways. Once I understood that happening, I knew I wouldn't stay on Journalfen forever. And as the focus of my life changed from fandom-centric to other-centric with a couple hours of fandom squished in, I didn't feel like Journalfen gave me eveything I needed, and returned to livejournal.
The best thing about livejournal for me is that it's not a fandom driven place. It's a me driven place. I can enjoy fandom because it's part of me. But I can also enjoy crafts, politics, and peeks into lives that aren't mine, because all of that is me too. Livejournal's focus is me or rather the user. Tell me about yourself is a grander answer than tell me about your favorite television, move, book, or musical group.
It's the candy intake equation. I like candy. But I don't want to eat it all the time. I like fandom, but that's not everything I am and I hope it's not everything you like about my journal, even if that's what drew us together.
Dreamwidth is great for fandom. If I were all about fandom or felt like I gave more content to fandom via fic or art, then I'd be comfortable at Dreamwidth. But my friendslist is their kids and pets, their fights with coworkers, and planning trips. Dreamwidth comes across as all of that being a secondary focus.
Livejournal acts like the sibling who is embarrassed I wear Vulcan ears in public. But live journal hasn't specifically told me to knock that off. Hasn't blocked me from making communities dedicated to The Sorting Hat. I don't feel like I could make a community on DW for parents of kids on the spectrum to talk about accessibility tools, or a joint weightloss journal for a small specific group of friends. I want one place to put all my stuff and talk to all sorts of people. Not a site for this and a site for that. Especially when the first original site has stated I can keep fandom and everything else together.
I think it comes from a split of fandom acceptance. Dreamwidth is about a place to be out and proud of fandom, run by a group of fans who want respect external of fandom for fandom. I was on the internet when we were told not to share our real name with anyone, and in fandom when slash was sold under the dealers table and RP(F/S) was kept to whispering. And while it's awesome that we've come so far, there are people still fired for their online activities and handed take down notices for what should be fair use content. One part of fandom cannot ask or simply expect the other part to be cannon fodder in the battle to win a war which fandom may eventually lose. Or rather you can't ask me to potentially fight a termination or all of Warner Brothers so that fans later on can post Harry Potter porn in public.
So that's why I'm staying with livejournal. I'll switch platforms when I find a place exactly like livejournal's culture of me, but also excited by all (good, bad, and embarrassing) of fandom.