(no subject)

[rivka]

What attracted me to LJ was the idea of writing about anything that interests me at the moment, without worrying about whether it's interesting to other people or appropriate to a particular locale. It's true that I'm aware of my audience - at first I tried not to have one, by not telling anyone I was keeping an online journal - but it's also true that I feel freed by the opt-in nature of LJ. If you're not interested in what I write, why are you reading my journal?, I ask my inner critic when it accuses me of being boring or precious or self-involved. And my inner critic has to shut up.

It occurs to me that while this is a feature to me, a LJ writer, to many LJ readers it's probably something more like a bug.

This post brought to you by a debate in alt.polyamory.

Comments

[redbird]

It's a feature. I can and do write posts that start with "nothing to see here" when I don't think anyone will be interested. And the reader can then skip, or go on. This isn't an in-person conversation: if someone decides partway through an entry that they don't want to read more about X, they can just skip, without my even knowing it, let alone being irritated.

I write what I want, where I want. Little of it is hidden. But that doesn't mean everyone has the right to have it in the form they find most convenient.

Of course, you know I'd say that, because you've seen me comment on this over in alt.poly. Where I have thus far resisted the urge to point out to Aahz that I might equally well say that he is depriving the denizens of rassef, where he no longer posts, of his input.

Jo, who is a close friend and oddly squicked by online journals, does get email that covers some of the same stuff I put here. But that's my choice--she hasn't demanded it, only mentioned that she doesn't read LJ.