Disposable Friendships

[lupestripe]

Did anyone else feel deserted when the diaspora to twitter happened? It was like everyone just left LJ en masse without telling me. I took it a little personally for a while as it seemed like my friendship was disposable. Typical over-sensitive reaction from me.

*and yes I still resent being forced on there just to keep in touch with people who had forsaken LJ, despite the fact the two media are quite different. I find twitter far more disposable and thus I feel less close to those on there than I did when they were on LJ. You get no appreciation of thought or feeling, just clumsy shortened comments which often portray the writer as either lacking in depth or arrogant. In fact, I think overall it's had a negative impact in friendships and my Fandom experience, aside from correspondence with a couple of people. Sorry kids but it's true.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone.

Comments

[sil-wolfdragon.livejournal.com]

Yeah. But of course you knew that from my Facebook whining :P

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

It was that which gave me the idea in all honesty :P

[moth-wingthane.livejournal.com]

Very much so. I hated it when I was told "You'll have to come to [wherever] to keep in touch." Oh, my friendship means that much does it?

Also, I find it dreadfully inconvenient to have to place messages in four different places to reach everyone I know, which ultimately is leading me to not bothering anymore - it's just not worth it now.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Your first sentence is pretty much how I feel. I don't mind using Twitter as its interface is comptable with the iPhone and so I can update it on the bus but it's the concept of needing to go there to keep in touch with people which irks me.

[silent-o.livejournal.com]

People are ignorant and shallow. Furries are no exception.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Sad but very true :(

[whitetail.livejournal.com]

I did feel a bit deserted, but I tried not to take it personally. Actually, I think most people moved for purely practical reasons. Although it's an overgeneralisation, those who left for Twitter seemed mostly to be the ones who weren't very good at writing to begin with. They are simply better suited to a 140 char format. I'm not. I enjoy writing narratives; telling stories and the like. Twitter and Facebook just aren't made for that.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I agree, I don't think it's a personal thing as it seems to have happened to many of us. It's always the same when the masses move one place and the rest of us are left behind. As you say, Twitter suits a lot of people but sadly I think its superficiality means that you get to know people a lot less than you do in a proper blog. I have far fewer friends now than I did in 2008, that's for sure.

[fionacat.livejournal.com]

I find it a lot easier to read things here, i can actually relax and read.

Twitter really does move too fast and i have to pick and choose the status updates

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Yep, Twitter can be a bombardment of information, usually pointless information at that.

[harlequeen.livejournal.com]

I still follow old sites. I consider that of Livejournal, and don't update it. Partly because I lost trust in it.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I don't think the trust issue helped LJ.

[r-a-blackpaws.livejournal.com]

*nods* I do agree. I know I have been pestered by people to get a Facebook page just so they can keep up with events in my life (see one of my recent entries for my thoughts on THAT idea).

To me, LJ and IM's, along with the occasional FA note, are enough.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I have a Facebook page for precisely those reasons. My university friends moved there, started arranging events on there and I never got to find out about them. Story of my life really. I'd rather not have Facebook though, in all honesty. I don't think it's a good interface, it's too fussy and the personal data harvesting they do I am uncomfortable with.

[tinycorvid.livejournal.com]

I never really left, although I can understand why it came across that way - just really busy. I guess a quick status update on twitter or facebook takes a fraction of the time as it does to write a LJ entry.

Hope it hasn't contributed to making you feel bad :( I do get where you're coming from.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I think time and convenience are certainly reasons - perhaps the main reasons - why people have left LJ and moved to Twitter. It is a sad case of affairs though.

On the contrary, you and a couple of others I have actually gotten close to because of twitter.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

*closer

[wulfsige.livejournal.com]

I haveta say that I agree with what your saying. I miss lj back when it was active and in its prime. It allowed a connection that you just can't get with twitter. I use to hate it though when people would randomly delete their journal account without saying anything. Kinda came across as they just didn't care enought about ya to even say "bye" :/

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

LJ in its prime was great although a little annoying too I guess. It's amazing how you can look on past events with rose-tinted spectacles.

People who randomly delete their accounts are quite rude, I feel. It certainly damages a lot of their reputation in my eyes. And, as you say, the superficiality of twitter means I know a lot of people far less than I did before. I think that's quite sad for a friendship.

[bloodbeauty.livejournal.com]

I think i'm lucky, most of the people i care about never really left, i've had more of a problem with them going over to dreamwidth or their own wordpress blogs, but thten i pick them up via rss. i think my friends are too verbose to ever really deal with a character limit. most of them are on twitter, but come back here for blogging.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

Some did, some didn't. My friends list on LJ is still quite actively thankfully and those on dreamwidth still crosspost. I do feel that the sheer choice of social networks as resulted in too many people being in too many different places, thus cheapening the whole experience.

[fargowolf.livejournal.com]

I'm still here. To be honest, I never had any use for Twitter in the first place and thus, never created an account there. Most of the people whose posts I do read, are either here, or on FB.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I prefer LJ to twitter, although I am on twitter too. I use them for different things. I have never got a handle on FB at all though.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

That's the very reason why I joined Facebook. I would rather not have the account and I think the site is awful, but sadly it's a necessity. As you say, it's very easy to get missed out in this world of multi-social networks.

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

I've certainly no intention of leaving LJ. ^_^ I'm on Twitter, but it's much more an avenue for quick disposables and tiny chats - here, you can explore someone's reply to a posting, and ponder a response, explaining yourself in the process. Or, in a posting, mention specifically what appealed (or didn't) about, say, a film, not merely that you've seen it. (Or worse, let 4sq robotweet it for you..)

Still, my flist doesn't seem to've been hit too badly, especially taking into account the natural migration of people from one site to another. Frankly, it's sort of amusing to see the (very) occasional tweet berating LJ's relevance, when things are on the upswing - my flist's seen the recent addition of rav_bunneh and pawnytail, newcomers to LJ both, f'rex.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I use twitter for that purpose too - and it is certainly a different medium to LJ. Sadly though a lot of people solely use twitter or use it to the detriment of LJ and I find that a little bit sad.

My flist has taken a pounding really but the quantity has been redressed by quality so I guess I shouldn't complain.

[elfasi.livejournal.com]

It's interesting... I joined Twitter long before anyone started leaving livejournal. I just view it as a different kind of thing, certainly not an alternative. However I've noticed it scratches the same itch in people to talk about what they've been up to... And if that itch is scratched by Twitter, even if much less is ultimately said, it never builds up to an itch strong enough to go to livejournal, even though it should.

It's sorta similar in a way to how I find online roleplaying saps my drive to write. It scratches the same itch and uses my writing skills and by the end of it I don't want to write any more. I'm disappointed less people work on proper posts on livejournal any more, and I'm certainly not guilt free in that respect. However I can understand why it happens. People just no longer get that pressure buildup of life events they want to distill into an LJ post, because of Twitter.

I don't resent it though. Just an unfortunate fact. I do resent being forced onto Facebook though, which I dislike a lot, and am there out of obligation to family for the most part. I'm not furry there at all.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

This is pretty much how I feel too - you have summed up an angle on this perfectly. I resent Facebook particularly, and perhaps Twitter less so, although I was one of the first people on the latter too. I just feel I know people far less well on twitter than I did in the LJ days but perhaps that's a symptom of other things too such as a fewer number of furs daring to venture out of their locales these days.

In terms of writing, because I am an editor and journalist, I don't really have the desire to write creatively in my spare time. I doubt that will change to be honest.

[eldabion.livejournal.com]

Totally agree with what you are saying. Although perhaps you are being a bit harsh. I don't think most people went "I am leaving lj for twitter", I think on most cases the convenience of twitter plus the path of least resistance etc...

I do think my social life has suffered with the whole twitter development. It means people are fragmented and it is hard to have a single way to reach that audience in the same way.

I don't think though that facebook is objectively better than lj in terms of features. It just feels a lot more modern. The only problem with facebook is that there are -too- many people on it e.g parents

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I don't think it was a conscious thing, more an evolutionary one. Some people left and the rest followed. It was quite sad that some of us weren't dragged along until it was far too late though.

My social life has and hasn't suffered through twitter but then I have made it my mission to spend more time with close friends and less time going to furry events in general. I think a lot of my twitter friends can be considered former friends now as I hardly know them these days such is the superficial nature of the social network.

I think Facebook is awful, always have done. There is far too much going on there, it's far too fussy. I feel the same way about FA incidentally, a site I hardly ever use.

[startide.livejournal.com]

I'd be on livejournal more if they'd make a decent Android app for it. The main site is clunky in a phone browser, and since I'm rarely on an actual PC anymore due to the job, I have to make do with the mobile phone. The official LJ Android app only allows you to post, and there's no way to check the friend feed, and the few 3rd party apps I've found are worse than horrible, lol!

I've actually started to burn out on Twitter, so hopefully you'll see me more here. I've gotten where there's too many people following me and I'm following back there that I've stopped watching the main timeline there, and just have a list grouping with only my closer friends on it. Was getting royally stressed trying to keep up with everyone, to the detriment of my mental health.

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

The iPhone LJ app is quite good but I admit that if it wasn't, I wouldn't be using it anywhere near as much. I am normally so busy when I get back home from work, I rarely have time to update on my PC, hence the three day delay in responding to this. It's handy to update LJ on the bus to work though.

I set up a second twitter account for my close friends when I realised I was following too many people on the main one. Keeping on top of it all is a stress though so I tend to just dip in and out of twitter these days.

[startide.livejournal.com]

I've heard their iPhone app is pretty good, too. Seems iPhone gets all the well designed apps, and andriod gets piles of vomit, lol!

I've still only got one twitter app, but I've been using private lists to keep tabs on those who I'm close to. I've got one list strictly for locals so I can keep on top of events, another for close friends, and I'm planning on making a lulz list, and put insane people in it, for those times where I want to see some concentrated insanity. XD

Off topic, but have you heard of an English beer called Wells Banana Bread beer? I just randomly found some at the supermarket.

[giro-batol.livejournal.com]

No, which group atually reads what i post there?

[lupestripe.livejournal.com]

I don't know - I get few replies on twitter sadly.