On Lurking
Jan. 17th, 2006 01:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lotesseSo, 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!)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 07:43 am (UTC)I lurk, too, and I suppose I'd be someone who'd intimidate you if you only looked at the outside since I'm older and all.
But man! did LJ open my eyes to a lot of stuff. Fandom, yeah, and RP both in journal-based games and in IM; the way the world works in other places on the globe; how the electronic media have all the comforts and discomforts of rl/snail/hard copy media, only faster.
How large the number of truly compassionate people really is: the percentage may not be any higher, but I've had a chance to meet them from other countries, other time-zones (not always the same thing, -grin-), other age groups and backgrounds and experiences, and I'm consistently, day after day, blown away by the sheer goodness of so many, many people.
That said, there are shitstorms every where. Like Frank Hopkins and Hidalgo (at least apocryphally) if you can't outrun them, you just gotta hunker down and pray until they pass.
Please, yes, take heart: be en-couraged. Be with your truth: con-fident. (I lived in reference books, archeology and science fiction, fantasy and biography, for many, many years until the need for political action, really good rock music and a couple good friends got me to start being in the world.) And you don't sound 'pathetic' in the sense of "Arousing or capable of arousing scornful pity". More like "Arousing or capable of arousing sympathetic sadness and compassion". (Both from Dictionary.com, one of my homes away from home.) And you say it very, very well. You write beautifully from the heart.
Post, share, comment, talk. Please. We've been missing you, and we've not even had a chance to know it.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 05:10 pm (UTC)Confessions of a fellow lurker
Date: 2006-01-17 06:57 pm (UTC)But yeah, I wish I wasn't such an LJ-lurker, but better to be involved on this level than nothing, I always say.
I almost published a fic once...
Re: Confessions of a fellow lurker
Date: 2006-01-17 09:00 pm (UTC)Yeah, I'm doing the lit mag thing too. Submission deadline is the 30th. Eep.
Re: Confessions of a fellow lurker
Date: 2006-01-18 12:32 am (UTC)I'll send you whatever you like if you give me an e-mail address you respond to.
Re: Confessions of a fellow lurker
Date: 2006-01-18 12:33 am (UTC)Re: Confessions of a fellow lurker
Date: 2006-01-18 01:11 am (UTC)want. now. shiny.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 10:00 pm (UTC)I've heard people say that they are much more shy online than offline, which always amazes me, because I'm exactly the other way around. I can be severly inhibited by shyness and insecurities offline, but when I get online, that's usually blown away, because a) I can't see the people I'm talking to, and they can't see me, and b) I'm generally much better and more confident in expressing myself in writing, since it takes longer time to type down your thoughts, and you can go through them, and edit as much as you like. When I talk, I have a tendency of just blurting things out, and putting the foot in my mouth.
Still, I lurked in various fandoms and other Internet boards for about five years before I delurked. I think there was initial shyness, but I pretty much got rid of that, once I had aqcuired a certain habit, other reasons for lurking was that I was afraid of how invloved I would get if I delurked, and how time-consuming it would be. It can obviously, be more time-consuming to interact with people on the Internet, than just lurking (though it's always a matter of how you plan your time), and you definitely become more involved, but I still think the friends I've gotten here, totally make up for that. I haven't met anyone in real life either, but if you comminicate with them enough, you can get to know each other easily enough, anyway.
It's true though, that I tend to comment more, the better I know people. It's just easier, and you rarely have the time to comment on everyone, anyway, not unless your flist is bigger than ten. Though it also depends on the topic in the post. If it's about some very general topic, especially about HP, or some other fandom I know, or something that invites for comments, it gets easier to comment on those entires, even if it's someone you don't know. If it's a more personal post, I notice that I usually find it more difficult to comment, if I don't know the person who wrote it.
However, I don't think anyone, ever minds getting comments, so if you're worried about that, you definitely shouldn't be. If someone minds, believe me, they will disable comments, or make the entry lovked for you. If they post it where you can see it, enabling you and anyone to comment, I think that's a clear sign that you'd want your comments. That's the way I see it, anyway, and it's probably why I'm usually not too shy to comment on people I don't know. (My lack of comments is more likely to stem from the "not having anything to say". ;-))
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.
How old are you? You sound like one of the more mature people in this fandom, so I don't think you should keep feeling "too young", no matter how old you are. Anyway, good luck! I know how hard it is to fight personal insecurities, alas.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 10:49 pm (UTC)I'm 19 at the moment, but I got into fandom as a 13-year-old and didn't talk about my age for a long time. I definitely used fandom as a place to interact with more mature people. I needed it, because I've never really written like a 13-year-old, or much thought like one, and online no one needed to know how old I really was. So I'm still pretty wet behind the ears, although I think I do read as older than I am.