Fertilize Then Synthesize

[lupestripe]

Oh LiveJournal, how your demise pains me so. With many sacrificing your hidden charms for the triviality of twitter, it is upsetting to remember the halcyon days of 2007 when nearly everyone was here and the Fandom felt more like a community than the disparate group of people it was (perhaps inevitably) exposed to be.

The current economic conditions and the rise in the number of furs has resulted in the dominance of cliques. This is evident IRL and is very evident on twitter. Not many travel like they used to and the development of more localised communities means there is also no need. Why visit other cities when you can socialize on your doorstep? I am also sure the rise of conventions in this country has also had an effect - why go to a few little parties when you can go to one great big one? All of this creates a sense of drift - a more localized focus which has resulted in more localized friendships. This is no bad thing necessarily but I do feel it has led to other friendships being forgotten.

I have drifted apart from so many yet I do no different to what I did four years ago. I go to the same number of meets, post in the same online forums yet feel more isolated than ever. Perhaps my lack of adaptation is the problem. And yes we do have a fantastic group in Leeds but this doesn't prevent me from seeing other furs too.

I am falling out of love with twitter. It never replaced blogging for me, it was just a different medium. It's upsetting to read the tweets of former friends who have shown no interest for years. Responding to tweets seems to be a disposal pastime so despite my trying, often a conversation isn't forthcoming. Furthermore, the banality of the majority of posts on twitter makes it far less engaging than the posts on conventional blogs, not to mention more depressing.

Maybe I am a Luddite, a snob even, but I will be blogging far longer than I will be tweeting. It's just a shame there are so few of us left over here. It seems less transient, less superficial and far more intimate. This is why I am far closer to my LJ friends than those on twitter.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Comments

[rustyfox.livejournal.com]

I got rid of the thing just as it was becoming popular for similar reasons. Among them I felt the onus to keep looking at it or feel 'left out' of banter and goings-on distinctly insidious.

Unfortunately as a result my online socialising has dwindled to almost nothing. If you're not on twitter, you're not in the loop. And even then, if you're not looking at twitter at just the right moment, or looking back through endless drivel, you're still not in the loop. I genuinely don't understand its appeal (other than for celebs to posture and massage their egos and fans to boast about their famous 'friends', which seems an obvious application).

To be honest I'm pondering killing even this thing. I'm not sure it serves me much purpose these days for the opposite reason. Seldom few use it for anything.

[shep-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I'm still around, even though most of my posts nowadays are about the Volvos :)

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Funny..I seem to remember making a similar post myself a few years back and getting shouted down for it.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

Not by you of course.

[moth-wingthane.livejournal.com]

Being an "online only" fur, as in I can't meet people RL, I've noticed this trend especially. I often feel like I'm sitting on my own watching everyone else walk away. And it's no fun.

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

Still here. Admittedly, I like Twitter, but it's hard to get very deep or reflective in 140 characters. It's like the difference between a long talk and a text message. I don't see it as bad...just different.

The downside is that it does suck away a lot of meaningful material that now won't be posted to LJ :/ It certainly can't express ideas in the same way, and complex ideas..not at all.

[bloodbeauty.livejournal.com]

*hug* we're still here just quieter than we used to be!

[junkshop-coyote.livejournal.com]

The trouble with Twitter (and I'm guilty of this too) is you get little crack-like hits of attention and immediately want MORE, so it takes all the time I used to spend here....

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the time you take in sharing of yourself. I do read everything, even if I'm all too often quiet, and update my LJ much less often than I'd prefer.

Twitter's fine for quick tidbits, but anything worthy of discussion? Far better suited to here, where replies are threaded, (mostly) unconstrained in size, and even come with your choice of icon per response.

I suspect part of the issue with people migrating is, quite simply, the allure of the new and shiny - witness the hullabaloo over G+ on its debut, only to be largely ignored by most outside the punditry. Give things another two or three years, and there'll be something else they'll be moving to. =:)

[skawinski.livejournal.com]

I've never really tried Twitter myself and have to intention to. There's just nothing much to it, mostly an exchange of short phrases.

As for the increasing numbers of furries - the more the merrier. Just hoping that it won't make Britain 'The Drama Isles' over the course of years :P

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

I use Twitter a bit too much, although I never quite left Livejournal.

[jm-horse.livejournal.com]

I suspect you might be guilty of making a good-old-days argument here.

LJ has declined in favour of Twitter, but it's still used by many people. And Twitter, while being different, has its own strengths and merits. Furries have shifted to Twitter because they prefer it.

To put it another way - the signal to noise ratio of LJ is much improved.

Your comments about the changing dynamics of the real-life furry group are interesting. I suspect you're thinking about some friendships that have drifted because of the tyranny of distance?

[fen-ra.livejournal.com]

I don't see the point of twitter, it's far more interesting to read detailed and interesting posts on here.