Topic Meme: Day 2

[nanila]

redsixwing requested: feeling "other," handling the isolation of otherness?

I’ll tackle the issue of why I felt/feel “other” in a different post, as this was a popular topic. The biggest influence on my ability to handle that feeling was discovering the internet.

It started out with rec.music.industrial (which was closely linked to the beginning of attending weekly club nights in LA and getting really into industrial music - a community of self-identified "others"). I discovered talk on the Unix machines in the USC library and learned the wonders of instant messaging. I joined various mailing lists. Suddenly I had swathes of people with similar interests that I could chat to, not just the ones I occasionally happened to be lucky enough to share a classroom with. It expanded my world enormously.

But the most significant discovery was LiveJournal. I started my journal in 2001 and apart from a few weeks’ holiday here and there, I’ve kept it up continuously ever since. (The transition to Dreamwidth has kept my ever-shrinking non-fandom LJ community from collapsing entirely.) The DW/LJ community is the one I rely on not only to squee with me over cat pictures and SPACE and films, but to listen and advise when, say, I have a problem I can’t seem to resolve or am experiencing the white-hot rage induced by microaggressions. I’m not as keen on Twitter or Facebook as they don’t provide the same sense of continuity as the others. Because their format is so much briefer, I find it difficult to keep up the level of attention that would be necessary never to miss anything there. With my journal community, even if I go away for a week, I can still come back and catch up with everyone and not feel like a topic has “gone stale” the way it does on Twitter or FB (within 24 hours). I know that it's here, and that while the identities of some of the participants have morphed over the years, it’s something I rely on to keep the loneliness of otherness at bay.

Request a topic here

Comments

[soliano]

I have wanted to journal more, but can't keep it up. You have more persistence than I do. your posts also make me smile and give me pause to think.

[nanila]

Thank you! I do carve out a fairly large chunk of time for it. My non-work online priority list is:

Finance management
Time-sensitive personal e-mail (e.g. close family/friends, logistics)
Journal posts and replies

And then everything else is "as and when I get to it", including Twitter, FB and all other personal e-mail.

[ankaret]

Completely unrelated, but I'm making a small reference to C21 space exploration in the new book. Could I possibly borrow some of your expertise?

[chickenfeet]

I've had a similar trajectory for similar reasons going back to Newsnet and Unix when it was "other" almost by definition to be on the Internet, let alone meet one's partner there.

[nanila]

You know, I'd almost forgotten that it used to be considered most peculiar to meet up with a person you've known solely through the internet.

[qian]

I think it's still considered weird! Oddly enough it is totally normal now to meet up with someone you've found online for the purposes of dating, but still fairly weird to meet up with people you are just friends with online.

[nanila]

I was thinking about my circles of acquaintance, online and work/home-wise, and it doesn't seem to be an odd thing there, but you're probably right about it still being considered peculiar in mainstream culture.

[sfred]

I have very similar reasons for preferring DW/LJ to Twitter/Facebook for community purposes. I like Twitter for other reasons, but it definitely doesn't replace the journalling places for me.

[nanila]

*nod nod* I use Twitter as more of an immediate thought-dump. Some of the things that go there will never end up in this journal. One of the benefits of having a locked feed, I guess.

[sfred]

*nods*

[redsixwing]

Thank you! The internet really is wonderful for allowing people to access similar-minded folks.

I'm a bit sad how LJ has been going to pieces, but DW seems to be stepping up in a big way, IME.

[nanila]

Yes. My Dreamwidth community has grown at just the right pace for me over the couple of years. I wish I had more time to give to it - there are a few communities I'd like to contribute more to.

But I still miss some of the core members of my LJ community who seem to have left for good. :/

[majoline]

That is exactly the reason I'm so into my DW/LJ presence, even if LJ is a little sparse nowadays.

[nanila]

I keep hoping LJ will undergo a revival. I admit this is probably a vain hope unless it undergoes a major revamp - and the changes aren't universally reviled!