Blogging is totes a scholarly pursuit

[laliandra]

So a few months the lovely kaiserkuchen interviewed me for her Thesis paper -  “Online Blogging & Young Women: The Use of Language and the Internet in Articulating Identity” and she sent me the transcript today. It's a really interesting topic that made me think a lot about me and online life and RL, plus seeing my rambling chattering put down in text form has amused me all day.

So I thought I would present to you selected highlights of The Story of Lal as Blogger, and if you want to chat about You as Blogger then that would be awesome, or if you would just like to ask me about anything I've said or why I use the word "like" so much, that would be cool too.

Also, it means I get to share my dreamwidth analogy with y'all. I am proud of it, what can I say! (--) means a pause, by the way. There are a good few...

Interviewer (Kaz!):When did you first start blogging and how did you even get started?

Lal: Well, I first started blogging properly just over a year ago (--) basically I was in a—I belonged to a Harry Potter fansite and the fansite folded, basically, and everyone switched to LJ. But I used to hang around and lurk on LJ before that, so to carry on and interact with the people I had met on this forum I got a Livejournal! And it was all downhill from there (laughs).

I: Did you actually use to keep written journals and diaries beforehand, and if you did, do you do so know?

Lal: I used to keep a typed journal from when I was like 15 until I was about 17 and then I did that for a bit— and then I kept bits and bobs when I was in my first year of university, but then I wasn’t a particularly good person in terms of— I used to leave it for months and months and then come back to it but yeah (laughs). On and off, really.

I: And how would you describe the content of these early journals?

Lal: It was all very (---) teenage angst (laughs). I started it (--) I don’t really know why. It was all really stuff that was going on at school and with my friends, with my first boyfriend (--) They’re all so cringe-worthy. When I read it now I am all “oh no, I was so self-involved!”. It was a way to record my day and I’ve always found that if you put stuff down on paper you can work out, and sort of untangle your thought processes about it.


I: Would you ever consider switching blogging platforms?

Lal: Erm, I don’t (---) I’m not really sure that I’d see the point? I mean, recently there’s been a whole sort of thing about Dreamwidth, which I have, but don’t use. Well, I use it because when you go to Dreamwidth for stuff, everyone has age restrictions, but if you had an account they wouldn’t keep asking you (--) It was like getting ID-ed all the time in a really overzealous bar—“Are you over 18? Are you? Really?” And I’m like, “yes, yes I am.” I’m just happy I have one that’s in my name, and that’s all I want. So, that aside I wouldn’t see why I would want to change (--) I really like Livejournal, so, and I know how Livejournal works (laughs).

I: How would you say the separation between your online and offline life is, do the two elements mix or is there a strict separation?

Lal: I think in the beginning I kept them quite separate. I don’t use my real name on Livejournal or on the forums or anything. I used a nickname, but it was a nickname I had when I was younger so it still feels like my name. But in the beginning I kept it quite separate and didn’t even tell people I had a Livejournal or anything. But more recently um, just as I’ve gotten more involved with it, you start wanting to tell people about the friends you’ve made or stuff that you’ve found out. So now I do tell real life friends about the people I know from the internet (--) about three months ago, in July? I went to a book-signing of an author who I discovered online and whose Livejournal community I’d joined and made friends with various people there. So I went and met people from the internet! It was weird, but also really cool. It really does bleed through after a while, I hadn’t expected it to, but it really does! You know you’re like talking to someone and then you’ll be like “oh I know that too, because I have a friend who lives in Canada” or like “ my friend recommended this book to me”, “my American friends think this about that” and yeah. Ta daa! It’s really cool, I love the internet for that. But you’d have to be a bit careful about the details you reveal about how you precisely met your internet friends to your real life ones.

My housemates knew, because I was quite involved running a fictive book discussion on of the communities, and I’d tell them I was running an online book club, because it’d take quite a lot of time (laughs) and they’d be like “what the hell are you doing in your room for three hours that you’d had to be there for those three hours?” So I’d tell them about the online book club people and then sort of gradually (---) yeah.

I think there should be some sort of secret sign that you should be able to make at people—like I have a friend and then it turned out that he had read Harry Potter fanfiction and had done so for years and years and we just hadn’t known this about each other, and we’ve known each other for like three years (laughs). He sort of mentioned it, and I went “whaaaat!”. It was extremely exciting! There’s definitely a kind of vagueness—you sort of mention to people that there are people you know that are on the internet, and I think it sort of depends on each person as well, for how much you let on about it (laughs).

I: We touched upon this earlier, but do you believe in having multiple blogging accounts?

Lal: Well, I guess I pretty much just have Livejournal (-----) but I guess I would sort of consider it. I started out using the filter function on my entries, so that certain people wouldn’t see what I wrote, but um (--) I don’t know. I’ve sort of stopped doing that, and I’ve also pretty much unlocked everything and just put everything behind a cut and gone “if you want to read it, you can, but if you don’t, then no need”. I think because I do feel that my online persona is sort of (---) if you create it, you’re putting a part of yourself online, and you just have to deal with that (laughs) I know a lot of people who— I think it’s more people whose real lives and online lives are intertwined tend to lock a lot more stuff, I’ve noticed. People whose real friends, say, know about their Livejournals and then they’ll lock things where they’re, like, complaining about people they know in real life and all that sort of thing. And because that’s not something that I really do, and no one that I know in real life knows about my Livejournal apart from one person (--) So yeah, I’ve never really seen the point of locking stuff? You’ve got an online journal (laughs)! You have an online journal— what’s the point in locking it? Basically I’m just like, no one is forcing anybody to read about the stuff I post here. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to!

I: You mentioned that one friend who was in the know, do any other people in your life know about your Livejournal?

Lal: Well, my boyfriend kind of knows because I use his computer all the time, so (laughs). It’s the-e-e-re, in his bookmarks. But he’s never really expressed much of an interest to see what’s in there, which I really— I totally would! If I found out that someone I knew had a blog, I’d be massively interested to see what was in it, but he isn’t. And my other friend basically found it because she was using my computer (--) But she was sort of a computer— internet person herself and already had a Livejournal of her own and uses fan-forums for her own kind of stuff. It wasn’t that big of a shock for her, but kind of a big one for me (laughs)! It was like being outed, I felt quite uncomfortable with it at the time—it was quite early on.

I: Would you feel comfortable if your parents knew about it?

Lal: My dad knew that I was like, writing fanfiction. My parents were massively liberal, so they’re not the kind of parents whom I’ve had to be all “yeah, I’m meeting people from the internet, don't freak”. I told my dad all about going to meet these people for this author-thing, and how I’d won this competition online and how I’d got this book and my t-shirt, and he thought it was really, really cool. I had supportive parents, pretty much! I only have my dad, because my mum (---) passed away, so. My whole family is like crazy liberal, so I don’t think that they would be bothered by it. I don’t really talk to my dad about (--) some aspects of fandom (laughs), but some of the stuff, yeah sure, I do a bit.

I: So who would you consider to be the main audience of your blog, and do you see yourself as blogging to an audience? Or does it still remain a personal thing to you?

Lal: I mean, there is an element of writing to an audience— like trying to be amusing, trying to be entertaining or being informative at least. But yeah, I mean I don’t have a massive friends list or anything, and I don’t add people randomly, it tends to be people with whom I’d actually want to be in more of a dialogue in with, than just me sort of grandstanding to them, I think. It’s people I want to have a conversation with, and go “this is my life” and find out more about their lives— more like a two-way thing.

I: Do you think that online friendships or friendships that started from online meetings can be considered on the same basis as real life friendships?

Lal: I think some of them, sure! Like some of the people I’ve met online, I probably have more contact with them than I do with people with whom I went to school with five years ago, but still consider friends and probably talk to about once a month if that. Whereas some online friends I talk to every day, practically. So I think definitely, some friends you consider sort of just part of your flist, and some people sort of segue into - what you consider that if you’d met them in class or whatever, you’d like to think that you would’ve become friends with them anyway. I think it’s also that the stigma of having met people online has faded, which I think is good, because it’s like joining a university society or something—because if you said “I met someone at dance class and now we’re friends” or “I met someone at a real life book club and now we’re friends”, no one would even bat an eyelid (--)  I think it’s less so now, but people will still (--) if you went “I met someone on the internet” they’d still be all “ri-i-i-i-ght” (laughs).

I: Would you consider the information you reveal about yourself enough to make people “know you”, and how do you decide the amount of personal information to share?

Lal: Well, I mean (---) If someone I knew found my blog, they’d know it was me (laughs). I don’t have my real name, or the name of anyone I know or live with mentioned, everyone gets a pseudonym, but I’ve said the town in England where I live (--) it’s a big city, so I don’t think that would be so much of an issue. And there are no pictures of my face (--) I think you talk about quite a lot of stuff, but I think there’s a bit of stuff you don’t mention as well. It’s like having random conversations with people, and you have to try and build a picture of the person from those. But I think you can.

I: What do you think are the negative aspects of blogging?

Lal: (----) I don’t really know, because I’ve only had a really positive experience with Livejournal, but (---) it’s quite easy for people to hide certain aspects of their personality online, I think, than in real life, because online you’ve always got such a really long time to consider what you’ll be saying before you put it down, and I think that could be an issue. And also, you know you make friends with people who live on the other side of the world and you don’t get to see them and that’s upsetting. I think there is always the possibility that people become more involved with their online lives than their real lives (--) but I think it’s good that there’s somewhere for people to find people that they can get along with. Because there’s no guarantee you’re gonna get along with the people you go to school with, or work with and if you’ve found somewhere with people you get along with, I think it’s fine if that’s the internet. I think the internet is like the real world— there are really, really cool people, and really unpleasant people, you just have to kind of accept that and move on.

I: Any closing remarks?

Lal: I said way earlier in the interview how I’ve always found that writing stuff down helps untangle how you feel about things, and I think that’s true about blogging. I think a lot of the blogs that people have are a way for them to put down— relate an experience and decide how they feel about it by writing about it and getting other people to talk about it, which I think is really interesting. And it’s also interesting because quite often you can get an outsider perspective on a problem and if you, I don’t know, have a problem with someone you live with, or are not so sure what to do with your life, you just write down what you feel about it and get a range of perspectives from people who like don’t come at it with the same emotional attachments to you as with your best friends or your parents or something. It’s like you work out which bits of you are important, I guess, because like I said it’s quite easy to (--) suppress parts of your personality when online (--) so you know, you work out which bits are the ones you want to portray to the world.


I think you all should know that "Any closing remarks?" May not have been exactly what Kaz asked here, but to protect her Interviewer-ly credentials, I will not say what it was. I am also amused that she cut the bit in the "parents" section where I said something along the lines of "I tend not to mention the porn!"

So, thoughts, fellow bloggers? This has mostly made me want to blog more. Can you start NaNoBloMo (where you blog every day for a month) halfway through a month? Or is that wicked cheating?

<3

Comments

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

I like how you are calling November 3rd "halfway through a month."

< /helpfulcomment >

p.s. your interview was awesome, and I love, as always, that you love the internet and fandom as much as I do.

[miabee023.livejournal.com]

You as a Blogger is quite fascinating and I am so glad you have shared this interview. (Especially your Dreamwidth analogy. Too many times have I felt the same feeling after having forgotten to sign in on dA or lj itself.) Me as a Blogger, I fear, is not terribly interesting and I would feel a bit odd shouting about it at you, so I think I'll just respond to a few things I thought were quite intriguing that you brought up.

I think online friendships are just as valid as real life ones, even though I have not had many. (I don't think I hang out in actual communities and things like that enough.) I think people feel like you don't have as much of an equal relationship if all you have is textual communication, but I rather disagree - I actually feel like I am more myself in text than I sometimes am in real life. I'm actually terrible at lying in text, whereas I'm actually pretty good at it when speaking outloud. I mean, that would seem pretty nonsensical, but that's just how it is for me. So, I am pretty willing to accept that people are just honest as they are when speaking as they are when writing.

However, I will admit that lj sometimes makes me feel the necessity to self-edit, which I usually try to overrule, seeing as how it's MY journal, just like everyone else has THEIR journal, and it is everyone's right to write down whatever they want in their personal journals. But if ever I get particularly irritating and angsty, I try to shove it behind a cut. Of course, I also do pretty much the same thing in daily life (because no one likes a whiner), so... I don't really see what the difference is, honestly.

The separation from people you know in real life is definitely an interesting one, though, admittedly, I only have two people reading my journal - one being you, and the other being a friend from real life, so... I dunno. But lj has definitely always been something I write for myself and for my friends (since that was how I found out about it, through a friend), but I would hate to have my family read it. I mean, I love my mom and she is fabulous and I can talk to her about anything... but I still wouldn't want her reading my lj. But I think that's because we tend to behave certain ways for certain people - for me I have my family, then my friends, and then my host family from Italy, and all of them basically require a different sort of interaction. All of these interactions are true and are me, but they are also different.

I think something interesting to consider though is that we usually use the words "real life" to distinguish between things from the internet and things from our daily lives that don't take place in lots of 1s and 0s, which seems like it would contribute to our preset assumptions that friendships online are not "real" friendships. Of course, then the question becomes, "What phrase do we use instead?" to which I have no good answer.

... I don't think my parents know that I write fanfiction. In fact, they only have the barest notion that I write at all, come to think of it. (I don't think my sister has a clue, but then, I don't think she has a clue about a lot of my life, so that is not exactly new.) I think it might be because writing for me is more personal than drawing - I mean, I doodle all the time, so it's not particularly special, whereas when I write I pour a lot of effort into one thing exclusively and so it feels more intimately connected to my own mind. (Which is probably also why I am terrible at taking criticism regarding my writing, whereas I am fine with people critiquing my art any day.) It's the same thing for me re: piano vs. singing - I have no qualms practicing piano in front of other people, whereas I hate practicing singing in front of other people, because singing is something internal, whereas piano is something external.

So... that was all pretty random, and not quite as thoughtful as yours, I think, but hopefully you find it slightly interesting nonetheless.

[mcollinknight.livejournal.com]

"I tend not to mention the porn!"

Aaaaaaaaaaaand THAT is why I love you. lol.

very interesting interview - and it's so cool to see audio things transcribed, idk maybe I am just being a language nerd, but I love reading the way people talk.

[kaiserkuchen.livejournal.com]

"ANY CLOSING REMARKS" was the best way I could think to mask the gibbering mess that was the original not-question lolol. And lolol did I really cut that part?? Ahaha well apparently I must have felt that it would be too distracting or something XDD

But you seriously were one of the best people to transcribe, nice clear speaking voice, good speed :DD

Random addition re: the "real life" thing

[kaiserkuchen.livejournal.com]

Hullo! I couldn't help but see this as I scrolled through to type my own comment and just wanted to add that the whole "real life" terminology is also something that the academics who write about online blogging or communication in general have been wrestling with a bit, too. The term itself was pretty much originally adopted from the wide-spread casual use of the word, and most of the academic texts I read for the research bit either used it interchangeably with "offline life". Still, they would always go through pains to mention that the use of "real life" is meant without any negative connotations and is used only because of its extreme prevalence and the fact that it is so pervasive.

People apparently simply can't find a better word, but now that people's opinions on the internet have since been pretty much more expanded since the 80's/90's when internet research really kicked off, you can worry less about using the word and having people assume the worst/all the old cliches about real/unreal life.

/info dump ^^

[pigrescuer.livejournal.com]

I was actually thinking about some of this yesterday, how odd.

I think, in some ways, internet people can be better friends than people met in 'real life', because - thinking of my own life - t home, i have friends who I made at school, who I met because they were in my classes and form (although, after 7 years, friendships become quite set) and then my friends from ballet and hockey, who I don't see that much anyway, and my friends from the pub, which is generally bonding over alcohol, and most of them are my boyfriend's friends.

Anyway, so having just started uni I was thinking about making friends - not being very good at reading people - and I realiseed my friends I have made are all people I've been put with - my kitchen group, my archery group, my zoo trip group, my tutorial group...

So the point is, online friends are all friends you have sort of chose more than offline. You've bonded together because of a common interest, not because you're working together or whatever, and you come together to just chat, instead of having to do something.

That was very babbly, but maybe it made sense. I tried to write it at 2am this morning but couldn't quite form sentences. Now I am a leetle bit hungover so it probably doesn't make much more sense.

[azurelunatic]

Hooray for the blogging!

[isil-helyanwe.livejournal.com]

Why does the word 'NaNoBloMo' sound so dodgy to me? It makes me giggle in a really childish way...

Anyway, yeah, you raised some really interesting points up there - especially the relationship between online and real life. I'd like to know if less people keep diaries now that blogging is so much more of an option - because I think diaries are rarely there as completely private things, they're just something you don't want your family to read and throwing words out into the ether of the Internet basically equates to the same thing if you're posting anonymously and don't let it conflict with your real life.

Another thing I find interesting (which your interview made me think about, but didn't really talk about explicitly) is whether or not the blogging culture and Web 2.0 is, for lack of a better phrase, creating the idea that because everyone's opinions matter, everyone wants to hear your opinion.

I don't really know what I'm trying to say about that, I don't really have an opinion about it, but I think that pre-Web 2.0 generations look at the value/impact of their opinions in a very different way from how we do now - they couldn't post a video or comment on stuff, as they had was either being in power or writing that trusty letter to the editor. And I think it's an interesting thing to think about, although admittedly difficult to discuss on the Internet when everyone replying is most likely going to be in support of Web 2.0 in some sense.

Anyway, well interesting post, good one.

[laliandra.livejournal.com]

OHMYGOSH.

You are mean.

I would have to psyche myself up to it, so it would probably be half way by the time I got round to it.

:D, you are awesome. We all love fandom, it's such a brilliant place <3

[laliandra.livejournal.com]

Hee! Seriously, there was a whole minor discussion at that point. There's crazy liberal parents and then there is oversharing...

Heh, now you get to hear how much less eloquent I am when I'm not typing. It is funny for me to see all my funny speech habits in text!

<3<3<3

Re: Random addition re: the "real life" thing

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

So I realized when I saw y'all talk about this that I use the IRL and RL abbreviations and never EVER ever type out "real life." I suppose that is my way of trying to get further away from the literal meaning of the term, because I am firmly of the opinion that life is just as "real" online. I mean, anywhere people interact, there are real people on both sides, it's really happening, to me it counts as real.

Though I regularly still see people say "chill out; it's just the internet" in response to someone who has gotten upset or offended by what is happening online. So the idea that the internet is somehow less real than other social interactions is definitely still around. And, IMO, still totally wrong.

Or maybe it's just that it's more real to some people than others? Like some people consider it a game and don't reveal much about their real selves, whereas others put themselves out there totally as they are. It would seem much more real to the latter group, I'd assume.

Talk talkity talk talk. Hi! You are Lal's friend and therefore I like you, even though we have never actually met. *waves madly*

Re: Random addition re: the "real life" thing

[kaiserkuchen.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely, I agree with you. Which made it was really interesting to read about the waves of theory about the internet vs. real life, what the theories about what identity becomes when separate from an actual physical body and words like "technological determinism" get flung about.

I think what you mention in that second paragraph is true, though another aspect that factors in is the magical power of the internet and its anonymity in turning normal people into sudden unrepentant douches and trolls, too. I mean, we as users know this for a sad fact, but it was really interesting to read actual studies about anonymity vs. politeness/impoliteness online. Someone even wrote a paper on the ~infamous~ Futaba/2Chan message board lolol (the Japanese original of what we know as 4Chan AKA THE ABYSS OF THE INTERNET lolol)

HEEELLOOOO :D I see that you are Kara (or at least my comment notifying mail told me), and deduce that you must be the Kara that Lal fangirls AI with (and Glee too, right??) C'EST TRES AWESOME TO MEET YOU TOOOO ♥

[laliandra.livejournal.com]

I don't remember exactly what you said but I felt that the sentiment was something along the lines of "please say something smart for once? kthnxbi"

I remember that part very clearly. We in NO way segued off into a discussion about smut...

:D glad to hear it!

<3

[laliandra.livejournal.com]

Marmfish bonds of destiny!

Yeah, I totally see your point, because here, in the wonderful world of the internet, you get to pick the people who are most like you in the whole world. As opposed to the people the same age and location as you... Good point!

And I like the idea that just talking makes for better friendships than activities!

I hope your hangover has subsided somewhat. Drink lots of water! And I do not think you babbled at all, or maybe I am just good at understanding the rambles of others due to my own rambly nature...

[kaiserkuchen.livejournal.com]

ACHHHHH PISH POSH. I remember thinking "fffffuck yeah" throughout the interview due to all the quotable things you were mentioning! I was more frustrated w myself for being too lazy/dumb to think of a fitting question to conclude things and preferring to muddle through some sentences instead lol am I ever happy I interviewed you guys and could afford these signs of shoddy interviewership as opposed to uni academics where I would have had to been on my goddamn A-game >_>;;

OOOOOOOOOHHHH, now I remember that bit, too! Hehehehe good times ♥

[laliandra.livejournal.com]

Hee! It is a silly word, really. Even NaNoWriMo sounds daft to me, as internet things often do when said out loud. Have you ever said "flist" IRL? It's a marvellous word.

Anyway, that's a really interesting point. I was talking to a friend who has been on the interwebs for much longer than me about this and she was talking about the original popularity of online diaries that were just personal thoughts, whereas now I think that we are all more likely to be more soapbox-y, to see that we have an audience and talk to it. Which is something very valuable that the internet provides, sure, but, yeah, also leads to a lot of people thinking that their opinion is somehow validated because it's on the internet somewhere. I tend not to look at the comment sections for most informative blogs. And youtube comments actually make me weep for the online generation...

Anyway. Glad you enjoyed!

[laliandra.livejournal.com]

This is such an awesome comment, I am so thrilled that you shared your thoughts with me on this :D

It is really interesting what you say about lying, because I have always found it fairly easy to lie IRL (I'll come to that later!) but yeah, find it weird to type out something untrue. Lies of omission, perhaps, but outright untruths seem hard to phrase.

I like your thoughts about how we self edit and seperate ourselves in life in general anyway, I hadn't thought about it like that, and it totally makes sense. One of the other people KAz interviewed used the analogy of one fashion designer having many different lines to express different parts of themselves. We have different ways of expressing different parts of ourselves. I mean, I love having places where I can be completely and utterly fangirlish, just flail and squee and be silly. That doesn't mean that's all I am...

Oh wow, I completely agree re writing versus other forms of expression. I can't draw at all, but I am much more comfortable with dancing in front of other people than singing. And in terms of writing, I just can't ever let people I know IRL read things that I have written. It feels like having to bare a part of your soul to someone and that is hard to do face to face, I think.

I mean, my current beta is one of my dearest online friends and I consider her a real friend, completely. But I don't feel as freaked out sending her thousands of words as I do about my boyfriend having read one page of my tiny notebook.

Weird.

Anyway, enough about that! In real life IS a problematic phrase! I had not thought of that before. I count the interactions I have online as real, so, why distinguish in terms of reality. Must try harder, internet, find us a good alternative!

Lovely to hear from you, as ever <3

[laliandra.livejournal.com]

I have been told I am eminently quotable *points at icon* ;)

You were a lovely interviewer! I had so much fun doing it and talking about it and I still think about a lot of the things that you brought up. Like, I have always separated my writer self and my self-self, and so it is super weird to have people I KNOW reading things that I have written.

Just for the record, you are totally one of the "segued into actual friends" people. Though I may have told you that before, but it always bears repeating :)

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

I was the friend in question, and I'm gonna jump in here and clarify my thoughts about Opendiary vs. Livejournal. Because it's not that OpenDiary wasn't for an audience. It was all about the audience. It was just a small, intimate, personal audience. Like sharing your thoughts with a few really REALLY trusted friends, who are extra trusted because they couldn't actually impact your life or give away your secrets even if they wanted to, because they didn't know your real identity.

Whereas Livejournal seems to be to a much larger audience. Even when entries are friendslocked, it never seems as intimate and personal. I don't know if that comes down to the fact that I am not a teenager anymore and neither are the people whose journals I follow, or something about the site design, or what. But in general it feels like a lot more like the audience has turned from a really safe, nonjudgmental audience into a more temperamental, impersonal and sometimes judgy audience, and the type of things people write about has changed accordingly? It's like nobody wants to give too much of themselves away. With OpenDiary, the whole point was giving EVERYTHING away. It was for the really personal stuff that you couldn't share with anyone else comfortably. I don't think LJ is trying to be that, and if it is trying, I think it fails.

Honestly, I use LJ almost exclusively for fannish stuff. I mean, sharing and discussing and all that. But I don't feel close to people who are my LJ friends, or I mean, I sometimes do, like with you, but I feel close to you because of chatting in Campfire, you know? I would barely feel like I knew you if we only communicated through LJ, even if I read every word of every entry and commented on all of them. It's just not a very intimate place at all. To my eyes.

Re: Random addition re: the "real life" thing

[miabee023.livejournal.com]

Thanks for letting me know! I've always kind of wondered about that, and I do feel like it's just a bit snappier than "offline life" and that's why people use it more. It just seems like it has this meaning attached to it, as much as people may mean it in the other sense, and that could affect our perception of things online as less real, whether we'd like it to or not. I think people who use the internet more, though, are more inclined to understand consideration of relationships online as "real".

[miabee023.livejournal.com]

I always thought I was alone on the lying thing! How interesting. I mean, that's why I can't write letters if I'm in a bad mood, because I know that'll just give me a really whiny and obnoxious letter, or it'll make someone worry unnecessarily, and who wants that? Maybe it's partially because we think through things that we put down on paper - making sure that they are true - so putting down a lie seems odd? Except it seems even stranger that people who write fiction are unable to lie on paper, since... well, that's what we do and take pride in doing well. Um. This is kind baffling and I don't really know what to make of it.

I definitely have people IRL read things I've written, but they are incredibly select - just... three people, I think. (One (girl) for unending enthusiasm and encouragement, one (girl) for painful criticism, and one (boy) for the very special task of making sure that my characters are not too gay. Not kidding.) But these are people I feel very comfortable with - the two girls are my best friends, and the boy is one of my exchange student friends (and exchange student friends are somehow different from normal friends, I think, in that you all meet when you are most vulnerable and worried, and out of that comes a bond which is so immediate and lasting, it still rather stuns me at times).

I think we kind of choose the people who read our fiction - we write for a certain audience. Once someone reads one thing that we've written, they then become part of that audience. I mean, before I would've NEVER thought Paul would be reading my exceptionally slash fiction, and yet he begged me to let him read some of it (inexplicably, since he is terribly Catholic and conservative), and now is part of that audience I write for. So I think it's allowing our mind to accept someone as a reader that's the important part of not feeling worried about letting that someone read our fiction.

Lovely to hear from you too!

[kaiserkuchen.livejournal.com]

Hehehe, you have all kinds of validation going for you there, as befitting for a lady of your awesomeness :DD

I am all on tenterhooks now for my grade, ahhhh I hope the prof likes it! Just talked to another friend who's in the same course and HASN'T HANDED HIS IN YET. And only has like 7 pages written so far and none of his interviews started or sourced or anything. And he wants to be done by the end of this month. I knew he was a giant procrastinator, and we didn't really discuss our thesis' because I was preoccupied with mine, but OH BOYYYY the dude is so screwed.

♥ ♥ ♥ Dude, same here, same here! We need to skype again soon, I want to know all the deets of your clothing-tastic job :DD DO YOU HAVE WEIRD CUSTOMER STORIES YET?? Hee.

[laliandra.livejournal.com]

Aww, you. Also, hi Andy! I hear your bf is totes cute.

OMG I am sure that your grade will be good. I managed to get a 2.1 for my dissertation in the end, anything is possible. Holy crap, that is leaving it late. But it can be done!

We do, we do! We must set a date and I can tell you all about fitting boys with dresses for Halloween and such. :D