In praise of triviality

[andrewducker]

octopoid_horror very reasonably asks - what's the difference between a livejournal update and a facebook update. And it's an interesting one.

The problem with LJ is that people frequently feel bad posting multiple entries, or indeed anything at all unless they think other people will be interested. There's a worry that we'd be annoying other people, or being dull. And so many people feel like LJ is either work (because they have to write something _good_) or yet another thing that makes them look dull.

With Facebook, every time you log in there's a question sitting there on the right hand side, nagging at you. "Andrew is..." and it's the work of a moment to type in something trivial. Maybe something funny, maybe something serious, maybe something personal, maybe something meaningless. But it's there. Waiting. And so very easy to fill in.

Frequently I'll see status updates from people that haven't posted to LJ in months. And while I _love_ long entries with interesting ideas in them, I'm also fascinated by the little personal tidbits that pop up in Status updates. They make me happy in entirely different ways.

Comments

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I felt I was asking a reasonable question unreasonably, actually, because I had in mind a humourous comment that I wanted to make.

"The problem with LJ is that people frequently feel bad posting multiple entries, or indeed anything at all unless they think other people will be interested. There's a worry that we'd be annoying other people, or being dull."

Wow, your friends list is pretty different to mine ;-)

Although I don't post every day, there is a tacit assumption within my own LJ that if someone is reading it, they must want to see every last detail I post about. I wouldn't read someone's LJ unless I -wanted- that level of dull survey-posting/camwhoring/icon-captioning/film reviewing/angst-ranting or whatever they fill their LJ with. If my LJ was more of a hip "blog" about a given topic, or intended just to present a certain aspect of myself, I would be more careful I guess. But I use it as a personal journal, so people can take it or leave it.

I would say that we have different kinds of people on our friends list, but to a large extent we don't. Or rather, a lot of my friends are yours, but not all of your friends are mine. I can't speak for yours but mine are definitely people who use livejournal as...well... a livejournal, and all that entails. The only people on my friends list, as far as I'm aware, who would use the term "blogger" for themselves are just rss feeds of actual off-LJ things.

[andrewducker]

I have plenty of friends who do have regular updates. But definitely a fair few who don't. So yeah, some of my friends list are like that. But many of them are the same kind of people but just don't seem to update in that style.

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

I've never quite gotten why people apologize for posting often. If I didn't want to read what they had to say, I wouldn't friend them. I find it baffling.

[darkoshi]

The facebook status thing sounds similar to the status messages people on Yahoo IM can set.

With Facebook, every time you log in there's a question sitting there on the right hand side, nagging at you. "Andrew is..." and it's the work of a moment to type in something trivial.

Wouldn't be a work of a moment for me. There were times in the past that I felt like updating my YIM status to something... something witty or interesting or descriptive... but most of the time I'd end up sitting there wondering just what I should set it to. And worrying about my tentative status message being too silly or too dull or too attention-seeking... and even when I do enter something for my status, it usually isn't too long before it is no longer applicable, and then I feel like I need to take it down again. Writing LJ posts is usually easier for me than doing status messages. Imagine, needing to condense all the interesting wittiness of a whole LJ post into a single short status message.. LOL

[time-for-tea.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean. I am one of those people that very rarely posts to LJ and usually about practical things like party invitations. I feel that there's a minimum level of craft that has to go into my LJ posts.

But I change my Facebook status pretty much every day, sometimes more often. Basically, of what it says there when I log in doesn't feel relevant any more, I feel I need to change it to something that is. Which is great. And I love seeing other people's statuses change too, without the sense of effort which trawling through the 80 or 90 lj entries that there might have been on my friends page since the day before.

[babydyke-82.livejournal.com]

Ellie is overfed.