I’d say my LJ is a LOT closer to MPSIMS than the Pit. I’ve talked about Little League and I’ve put up pics of refrigerator art - and people have commented on them (for instance, my triangle body is my best feature, and the black crayon stick legs look EXACTLY like mine, according to some people). I’ve bitched about my mosquito bites and had people pop in with suggestions of how to keep them away.
Since it’s my LJ, people can choose to read it or not to read it. I can post about how I just ate an apple and it was crisp and juicy, the way I like it, unlike the one I had yesterday, which was a little bit mealy - and I won’t feel like I’m putting more useless shit on the front page of MPSIMS.
I can angst AT people, but without giving the whole message board access to what’s going on in my private life. I get the feedback and give-and-take of a message board without getting lost in the shuffle of new members and new topics.
And if I, in my own little LJ, scream for people to ‘show me the LUUUUUUUURVE, bitches!’ - they do. And my attention-whoring is acceptably minor and personal.
What’s the deal with those Amazon Wish Lists? Is someone going to click on that and send you one of the items on it? If so, how often does this happen? Or is it more of a way to say, “if anyone has this book, mail it to me, I’d like to read it?”
I think it is so friends and relatives or whoever else might potentially buy you a gift can click on it and see what items you “wish” you had. It probably works better if you tell people you have a wish list on Amazon. I’ve put stuff on such a wish list and had relatives buy them for me for Christmas. I think it is pretty unlikely that a total stranger is going to buy something on my wish list.
Re: The OP: What has always stopped me from doing the LiveJournal thing is this: My pathetic existence bores me to tears. I am certainly not going to inflict that torture on a bunch of innocent passers-by.
I started mine around the same time I stopped reading this board as frequently-late 2000. A lot of folks from here got journals themselves, and I’ve been able to maintain and create wonderful friendships. I spend most of my online time reading and posting to Livejournal.
I’d say close to 70-75% of the people on my friends list are from SDMB.
In fact, I think just about everyone that has commented in this thread is on my list.
It’s a shame you were linked to the communites that have popped over there, that’s not really what LJ is about.
Like Troy and a few others, I’ll offer a link to my journal.
I don’t have a LV, and like Eve, I’m not clear on what the point is. But I occasionally pop into the SDMB community to see who everybody’s talking about and to make sure it’s not me… again.
Your personal journal can be as useful as you want it to be. For someone like me who lives alone and doesn’t have someone around to answer questions, it’s quite useful. I can ask questions and request advice without feeling ashamed that I’m coming off as self-absorbed. After all, it’s your journal. You’re expected to talk about yourself, not other people (or, more to the point, it’s not expected by other people that they’re supposed to talk about themselves in your journal).
Also, because it’s your own journal, you don’t get so many people bitching at you just to bitch at something. Most of the time that someone posts something here that asks for help, there’s a few dinks who crap on the thread. I think that with an LJ, you’re more likely to get information you need, rather than people blathering to hear themselves talk.
I guess it’s kind of like a blog? (Would that be right?) Here’s mine, for example. Basically, it’s a way to post things that are going on in my life, let off steam, get things out in the open (like a diary), only people can leave comments, offer advice, etc.
Some of my friends have LJs that detail their sewing projects, for example, with pictures and stuff, and we get advice about costumes and fabric and all the other goodies that fascinate us costume buffs.
The one you are referring to is probably a Live Journal community, which is different. It’s kind of like a live journal that’s sort of used by a bunch of different people. Sometimes, people DO use them as a snark fest, but then that can be said of many message boards. It’s just the set up that’s different.
If you have your OWN journal too, you can set it up so only the people you consider friends can read and comment, etc. Or anyone.
Hey, sometimes you feel like sending someone a gift! I actually just put mine up there to see what would happen. So far, nothing has happened. I do like to look at other people’s lists though, it’s like another peek at their interests (aside from what they have listed on their profile page.)
Eve, although I have an LJ account (courtesy of one of the nicest BADs, when it still required an invitation), I really don’t LJ.
While it’s a medium that has undeniably struck a chord for many, it just isn’t right for me. But it does, obviously, meet some needs of a variety of folks.
Journals can help people track their lives, sort out their lives and solicit input from others regarding their thoughts about their lives. It’s all much more narcissitic than we’d be likely to put up with for very long on the Dope.
So, that aspect, the journals, seems to be of help to a subset of the group who’re part of our aggregate.
I haven’t taken to that.
Then there are the communities.
The main SDMB community is the SDMB community, where everybody posts as who they are.
The alternative community, surprisingly enough revealed to me and many others by a then-Mod when the “death” of WallyM7 was re-examined, is sdmb_anonymous. There, no rules abound. Well, they saY they won’t savage anybody in good standing.
I don’t visit either often, but I do look in. I don’t think either has much to offer.
It was interesting tonight to visit the SDMB anonymous forum and read someone’s description of myself and realize that one person’s internet perception of me is so alien to how I percieve myself.
See, MY LiveJournal is all about me (and maybe auntie em, but only if her agent gets a good deal). It’s true that the SDMB is also all about me, but too many other people here just ignore that part.
… and it’s not true that I make stuff up. Everything in my journal can be verified by me; just ask me when you find that I have some free time. I’ll back myself up.
Also, people who read my LJ grow bigger boobs and penises. Sometimes both at the same time. People who post to my journal are invited to help me move millions of dollars out of Nigeria. It’s a magical place, my LJ.
I’m the opposite. I write about the mundane events of my life because I actually enjoy reading those sorts of things about other people. Well, other people who are reasonably good writers, and don’t use annoying chatspeak (“U R kewl. L8rs” – that type thing). Why, I’m not really sure. Some people interest me and some don’t, but it is more in the way they write about it than what they are actually writing about.
While they say there is no ripping on good-standing members, it’s more in theory than practise. I do not participate in the anonymous communities. If I’ve got something to say to you, I will say it to you directly or not at all.
I have been on LJ for two and a half years. I have made some very good friends through there, and even got a job. Two, if you count my singing job (which is on summer hiatus). You get to meet and get to know people a lot better than you would through other media.
I use LiveJournal mostly to connect with people who share my interests (language, Les Misérables, and the Lord of the Rings actors, to name a few.) It takes some looking to find the people who aren’t asshats and/or psycho, but they do exist.
I also love the feature of being able to lock posts so only certain people can read them.
I tried for years to keep an old-fashioned journal, but I would write in it maybe once and then forget about it. But when I got my LiveJournal, it was the perfect combination of writing for myself and writing for an audience. I rarely go a day without an entry, except when I’m in the midst of final exams.
Since I moved away from college, my LiveJournal, my mother’s LiveJournal, and my brother’s LiveJournal (my dad hasn’t felt the need to get one) have been a great way for us to keep up with the little things in each other lives. Likewise with my high school friends who live all over the state.
I’ve also met some great people through LiveJournal – like the girl who’s just about to come home from teaching English in Japan, the couple in the Midwest who share my passion for geekery, the activist in Scotland, some Dopers that I only knew tangentially until I started reading their LJs or they mine … that sort of thing.
There are some LJ communities that are poisonous, but they are exceedingly easy to avoid. I’ve never had any unpleasantness in my journal, save for one of them Passion driveby spammings, and if you’re worried you can turn off anonymous commenting so that everyone who comments has to have a LiveJournal account, which shows when they post.
My journal isn’t terribly fascinating, especially since it’s currently full of blathering about my graduation, but I’m under no obligation to be interesting, thankfully enough.
Yeah, it’s by no means SDMBcentric. Many of the people on my friends list are from the SDMB, but I also have high school buddies, people from other message boards, and people I’ve picked up from both random searches and clicking on other people’s journals with similar interests.
Likewise, there are dozens (possibly hundreds or thousands) of communities you can join if you wish. Ones for crafts, knitting, weight watchers, things to do in your city, drinking, quitting drinking, etc. There is probably a group for any interest you have, and if not you can start one of your own.
There are lots of reasons to have a LiveJournal. Some people post a general personal diary (there is enough crappy teen angst up there to last a million lifetimes), others have interest-related personal or community journals, others have support journals (dieting, alcohol addiction) and there are also joke/humour/photo communities.
LiveJournal really hangs around the Friends page. You “befriend” whomever you like, and their journals become part of your own private syndicated feed. This means you can track what all your friends are doing/writing on one simple page. You can also add external syndications to these, such as Garfield cartoons or the Savage Love sex help column, or news feeds from various sources such as the BBC. It becomes your own personal online magazine in a way.
It is a great way to safely meet people in your home area, or who have similar interests. My subscriptions currently include SouthBeach diet community, Garfield, BelleDeJour, Agatha Christie, Photo-A-Day, wtf_inc, and many more. You can go for a serious set of stuff, or lighthearted, or a mix. People posting quizzes and “memes” happens frequently: and the choice is always your whether to take a quiz, or skip and read your next friend’s post instead.
My journal is at http://www.livejournal.com/users/istara - if you check out my Friends list (go to userinfo), they are all really interesting journals, and none of them contain regular abuse or trolling as you unfortunately witnessed. Many of them are SDMB users, but about an equal number have no connection with SDMB.
SDMB is only a tiny, tiny fraction of of the LJ community.
