Creation of Blog

        
Livejournal and 'Social Networking' Problems



           Years ago (probably around 2002-2003), I started using Livejournal. At the time, there was no MySpace or Facebook. If you haven't ever used it, it's still around, and basically it's a blog with some social networking built into it. You see others' blog (journal) entries, they see yours (if you want them to), and so on. What I discovered after using Livejournal for at least a couple of years (if I remember right), was that it was mainly a place where people talk shit about each other. While "venting" is perfectly fine in my opinion, even if it's about a certain person in particular, but the social networking aspect of Livejournal turned it into a gossip- and shittalking-fest constantly. While having an online anything entails that other people will eventually see it and read it, the social networking part of those types of sites tends to make users' opinions gravitate more towards expressing opinions specifically for those people, and eventually, no one else. Of course there were the options a user could choose to make an entry private, which was fine, but the others were "Viewable only to friends, " and then evolved into "Viewable only by certain friends." I'm paraphrasing and quoting at the same time.


          So eventually this became very irritating, especially for someone like me who was constantly sitting at work, reading paragraphs written by people who complained about people they didn't like who were friends or acquaintances of their online or real life friends. In any large group of people, it seems almost inevitable that certain personalities eventually will become intolerant of one another, unhealthy psychological tendencies or no. Although being "two-faced" has a negative connotation, I just accepted that people have different sides to them, and whether they allow those sides to come out or not and how they treat people is up to them. I'd have friends who had very admirable qualities: they'd engage you in somewhat meaningful conversations, they were funny and entertaining, and they seemed to want you around. On the other hand, they'd talk about your faults in a derogatory way to others, they'd become aggressive, dependent, and guilt-inducing if you did something they didn't like. In other words, manipulative.


         After expending time and energy getting angry and annoyed, I stopped using Livejournal. I used it throughout my relationship with my now ex-girlfriend, and once that was over it seemed like a good time to get rid of the account. On top of the other problems, no one was reading it. It could very well be because of a) what/how I wrote, b) outside interactions with people I knew, which at that point were terrible, and/or c) not many of those people cared about what I had to say in the first place.


        I always thought he goal of "social networking" was to keep in better contact with people. Over the years, it seems as though people have found out they:

1. Have nothing meaningful to say (See: status updates on facebook that no one cares about)
2. Are more different than they thought they were, and therefore can't get along
3. Can't "brag" about their great lives or "whine" about their shitty lives without someone who calls themselves their "friend" commenting back and giving them shit about expressing themselves
4. Aren't understood any better by people they know or care about, despite having provided many paragraphs to explain their point of view.

         I ended up saving all of my old entries, but I have no way of knowing how much material it is, but it's probably a lot, and I don't think it ever helped me meet new people or become closer to the people I knew and cared about at that time, which was basically my main reason for using it: letting people interested (if any) know what was going on inside my head so they knew where I was coming from and knew more about me.


MySpace


          Starting in 2004, I created a MySpace account, but I didn't use it until my Livejournal account was gone. I wrote blogs, and assume people read them in the usual casual way. I never expected anyone to read anything I wrote, really, I just wanted to put it out there if they were interested. Once I got into a relationship with my current girlfriend, I spent a lot less time writing online.  More of my family members started showing up there too, and I have very little politically and religiously in common with most of my family members, so one of them bringing up something they objected to on my profile or in a blog at Thanksgiving was something I wanted to avoid altogether. I'd rather them just not know I'm agnostic and very "progressive," among other things.


          I found that even among the people I considered "friends," there were those that were only interested in affecting others' lives in a negative way. The more things I saw in people I knew that I didn't like, the less I trusted them. Once that happened, I no longer felt comfortable telling people about my relationship, my insecurities, or things I didn't like, which tend to be many.


Regarding Facebook


        I recently created a facebook account... like very recently: three days ago. I saw almost everyone I knew there, even people that previously didn't show up on social networking sites I used previously. I saw my girlfriend's family members, everyone. With all of the security- and privacy-related stories that have come out in the past couple of years concerning facebook, I wanted to see exactly what was going on. Facebook asks for things that were previously optional in social networking: your real name, your birthday, your gender, etc.
As someone who started using the internet regularly in 1997 or so, but saw the proto-internet years earlier with BBSs, personal information was never something that went along with creating a public profile online. Of course, I entered a fake name and birthday, and used an old yahoo email address.  Providing personal information online was the internet equivalent of leaving your curtains or blinds covering a huge front window of your home wide open so that everyone could get a good view of everything you owned and you as well... all the time. Not only that, but considering facebook seems to be a huge money-making apparatus, it seems strange that people would blindly offer up their personal information so easily to something so commercial. I thought people hated junk mail and telemarketing calls! I was always under the impression that stalkers were feared, or at the very least disliked. Now suddenly people can look up just about anyone else online any time they want. Of course, there are privacy options, yes. Make your profile visible only to friends... the usual business. Although your huge front window is closed to others, facebook still knows everything about you, so you've cut out the Peeping Toms looking into your window, but your mailbox is still full of junk and people are still calling you about shit you don't want. Facebook is now rated by financial institutions as worth $50 billion in terms of value and future capability. It's a free service, so where is the money coming from?


           With millions of people using the same social networking service, the problems involved started becoming more publicized. People still write articles about annoying status updates (too stupid for me to go into here), "friending" problems, privacy, social conflicts, and annoying people in general. There's an entire South Park episode about how dealing with facebook grief is annoying as hell. Instead of becoming more understanding of others, people tend to become more and more abrasive, combative, and aggressive toward each other, and because of the nature of social networking, it's often passive-aggressive. My intention here is not to sound like an elitist, or a know-it-all, but considering I used two of the three more popular social networking services over the past ten years, and considering the same problems always come up, I think it's pretty safe to say that more people now are dealing with these annoyances, even though they've been happening for years.


           The whole purpose of having an account that's searchable by your real name is to allow people to find you, but they've got to get through the friend request border. This can cause a problem. Yes, there are indeed people "out there" who will give you grief for not adding them as "friends" on social networking sites. Family members, coworkers, anyone. "They didn't add me? Fuck them." It's true, and it's retarded. Also, if you decide to let someone into your circle of guarded "friends," there's always a risk they'll see the President of the United States is your "friend," and their opinion of you will change. Although it's ideal to think of people as understanding and respectful, you might still have to deal with someone you know giving you shit because of something they saw on your facebook profile, and in general, dealing with bullshit from people isn't one of my goals in life. If you, as a user, decide not to spend (waste) the time changing privacy settings to keep some of your views, actions and opinions guarded and only viewable to certain people, you basically only have one other option: not to include anything "objectionable" on facebook, or any other social networking site, but what's the fun in that? What's the point? If you're not a person who has anything to hide, you're probably generic. Don't like democrats? Someone hates you. Don't like conservatives? Someone hates you. Like people of the same gender? People hate you. Think religion is garbage? A lot of people probably hate you, and now they can find you with your real name and single you out. What people do with knowledge is always up to them, but why give them the opportunity? Unfortunately the majority opinion is stronger than the minority in many instances.


          If you take the non-disclosure route, you've just become another person with a generic online profile, devoid of controversial opinion. Take for example a conversation about surveillance:


Person A: "I don't agree with government or private surveillance, no matter what the need for it is."
Person B: "But if you have nothing to hide, what's the problem?"


         If everyone were to conform to this standard, no one would ever have an opinion on anything other than the Sunday football game, how displeased they are with one product or service or another, or how awesome the things you buy are. I sometimes hear people talking about television commercials. "Did you see that one with _____ where the _____ ______ed that guy?! Awesome!" No, I didn't.


Don't say anything that would displease your family, your employer, or your friends. Don't say anything.


Now


            So why this blog? What's the difference between this and something like facebook? It's mostly anonymous (I hope), but people could probably find it if they dig, or if I point them directly to it if they give enough of a shit to see what I'm up to. I won't be using it in a social networking kind of way. It's just something to do, in the old way of expressing opinions and being creative in some small way. 


            Anecdote: someone I went to middle and high school (9th grade only) with recently killed herself. As a 14 or 15-year-old student, I remember her being nice, and also very smart. She was an executive with a London-based "management consultancy firm"  who was staying at the Caledonian Hotel in Edinburgh, Scotland one day, and decided to get out on the ledge of a window. She eventually jumped, fell four stories and died. I did some searching one day and found a blog of hers spanning at least two years. Although reading about her love of expensive bedsheets wasn't exactly to my liking, I thought it was interesting to read it after she was dead. It wasn't written specifically for a network of 200+ people who like to mind each other's business down to the last detail, it was just there.