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On Lurking
Jan. 17th, 2006 01:07 amSo, since it seems to be the week to stand up and be counted, I'm raising my hand. I'm a lurker. I read far more than I comment on, although I do try very hard to comment on fic and icons that I like. I don't lurk because I don't read people's ljs, and not because I'm trying to stalk them, but out of very simple insecurity.
For one thing, lj is often a very personal medium, and I'm never quite sure enough of my social status to comment on a lot of stuff. Some people do use lj as a place to communicate with people that they actually, you know, know, and I've never met anyone fannish in person. I'm never quite sure if a comment coming from me would be weird. Because I haven't met people in person or im'ed with them I feel shy and out of place, but the reason why I never get close to the people on my flist is because I avoid contact with them out of that self-same shyness. So there's that.
But it's also about feeling like the dumb one, or the inarticulate one. I think that, for me at least, this started in part because I came into fandom as a very young person. Fandom was very educational for me, both in terms of writing and sexuality but also in literary theory and politics and art and copyright law. I've spent so much time being the little kid who has a lot to learn and doesn't feel knowledgable enough to butt in that it's become a default. I don't know that I've ever not felt like a newbie. Maybe at the old BoE Prancing Pony forums. But I think that I felt like a hanger-on, someone peripheral, even then. Even when I actually wasn't.
That is, of course, ridiculous. But the shitstorm here last month didn't help.
This is the one thing that I really want to work on this year. Call it a belated New Year's Resolution. But I'm done with insecurity. I'm insecure about so many things--the quality of my creative work, the quality of my academic work, whether or not people like me. And because of that insecurity, I allow the things that I'm emotionally afraid of to happen. I don't talk, and so I'm not talked to. I don't share my work, and so no one comments on it. The whole thing's bloody idiotic, and I'm done.
So. I will have confidence in me. I will do good work and share it with others, maybe even in rl. I will post more, and I will allow myself to be drawn into debates. I will believe that I have a worthwhile contribution to make. I will be more prolific. I will let myself go. And I will really try to comment more.
(I sound completely pathetic in this, but I'm going to post it because I do feel that feelings like these are a big part of lurkerdom that haven't been addressed in any of the essays going around right now. Bow before my massive confidence, ye mighty, and despair!)
For one thing, lj is often a very personal medium, and I'm never quite sure enough of my social status to comment on a lot of stuff. Some people do use lj as a place to communicate with people that they actually, you know, know, and I've never met anyone fannish in person. I'm never quite sure if a comment coming from me would be weird. Because I haven't met people in person or im'ed with them I feel shy and out of place, but the reason why I never get close to the people on my flist is because I avoid contact with them out of that self-same shyness. So there's that.
But it's also about feeling like the dumb one, or the inarticulate one. I think that, for me at least, this started in part because I came into fandom as a very young person. Fandom was very educational for me, both in terms of writing and sexuality but also in literary theory and politics and art and copyright law. I've spent so much time being the little kid who has a lot to learn and doesn't feel knowledgable enough to butt in that it's become a default. I don't know that I've ever not felt like a newbie. Maybe at the old BoE Prancing Pony forums. But I think that I felt like a hanger-on, someone peripheral, even then. Even when I actually wasn't.
That is, of course, ridiculous. But the shitstorm here last month didn't help.
This is the one thing that I really want to work on this year. Call it a belated New Year's Resolution. But I'm done with insecurity. I'm insecure about so many things--the quality of my creative work, the quality of my academic work, whether or not people like me. And because of that insecurity, I allow the things that I'm emotionally afraid of to happen. I don't talk, and so I'm not talked to. I don't share my work, and so no one comments on it. The whole thing's bloody idiotic, and I'm done.
So. I will have confidence in me. I will do good work and share it with others, maybe even in rl. I will post more, and I will allow myself to be drawn into debates. I will believe that I have a worthwhile contribution to make. I will be more prolific. I will let myself go. And I will really try to comment more.
(I sound completely pathetic in this, but I'm going to post it because I do feel that feelings like these are a big part of lurkerdom that haven't been addressed in any of the essays going around right now. Bow before my massive confidence, ye mighty, and despair!)