Re: Set up LiveJournal community?

Michelle Bottorff <mbottorff@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jonathan L Cunningham <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

(snip)

What does "get to know" mean? To my mind, it implies a two-way process.

Does it? Why?

It's just what it means! Sort of a Heisenberg uncertainty principle: you
can't "get to know" someone without interacting with them.

If you prefer a metaphor, it's like the difference between a still
photograph and a movie clip, or between a silhouette and a photo. The
silhouette will only tell you the *shape* but it lacks essential
information. But <shrug> YMMV.

So, to "get to know" someone through their LJ, I would also have to
write a LJ (and they would have to read it). Or not?

Well, that would be entirely possible, if you feel that its required.

I don't, for example, believe it's possible to "get to know" anyone
just by reading their LJ. (Similarly, it's doubly impossible to get
to know a TV personality.)

*shrug* Okay, whatever.

I think I'm going to try again.

People come here, because they are interested in talking about sf
composition. People friend people on lj, I assume, mostly because they
are interested in that person, or at the very least, what that person
has to say. That makes lj seem inherantly more friendly and intimate...
it's more about people, and less about subject matter.

(snip) Yes, I got all that the first time.

My incomprehension (if any) is at a different level, which is curiously
parallel to the explanation I just gave above. I already knew or
guessed *why* people do it, but couldn't (or can't) at a different
level, see why.

People write, and read, LJs because they feel it brings them together.
What I fail to understand, is why they feel it brings them together. And
that is because it would not make *me* feel closer to someone: I'm
more demanding. I don't want to listen to a broadcast, I want to have
a conversation.

And, I suspect, a lot of the interaction is much more like a
conversation than like watching a soap on TV, and but where it isn't,
it's serving the purpose of a soap. (Or, perhaps, soaps are a weak
substitute for the real feelings of intimacy achieved by LJ users.)

All of which is by-the-by(sp?). As I said first time, I have no
criticism of it or people who use it: it seems a positive and beneficial
thing. But it's not for me.

Jonathan
(Curiously, I felt the need to use "and but" in the penultimate
paragraph - neither "and" nor "but" alone was right. Hmmm. I think I've
just invented a new conjunction.)
.

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