(no subject)

[andrewducker]

I wrote this as a response to a post by Warren Ellis about how RSS and syndication could lead to online taste tribes, centred around liking X, Y and Z. He said (excerpted down heavily):

Now, you and your tribe -- and if you're all on Tribe.net, you can grab a bit of code from the site that displays you all on a sidebar on your website -- select out the content streams on the web you like. Your favourite online comics, the internet radio stations you like, the artists who put new mp3s and art and photography on their sites, etc.

I replied:

My only problem is that I think we've moved beyond taste tribes, into Taste MishMash. I read 36 syndicated users, ranging from newssites like Slashdot and the BBC to 14 different comic strips and writers like you, Neil Gaiman and Charlie Stross.

I pick up tastes from people around me, recommend and am recommended interesting things to read and occasionally use the "Whose popular amongst your friends" tool at :
http://www.livejournal.com/friends/popwithfriends.bml
to see who or what my friends are reading.

But the last thing I want to do is get involved in a community that argues over who or what reading material defines that group. Chunks of my friends list are/were semi-defined by SF-fandom in general (and Buffy in particular), bits of it are into computers, part are into comics of all kinds, smaller slices are deeply involved in politics (green party and/or gay rights usually). Oh, and there are a few people who are so heavily into Tolkein that they were at the The One Ring Oscar party for ROTK.

Trying to hammer out a concensus about what the group likes would be just a ridiculous exercise, especially as "The Group" is essentially a fluid long-term equivalent of a flash-mob, with no centre, whose main commonality is that I like to read their writing and they like to read mine.

If I want a taste tribe centred on buffy, I'll go join a Buffy community. If I want to read about Tolkein I'll go read the TORN bulletin boards. If I want to read about a wide variety of subjects, including all of the above, I'll read my friends list, in which people talk about all of the above, and more.

If only I could get them to shut up about their personal lives.

Not, that is, that I don't care about your personal lives. I just care more about your thoughts and feelings than what you've been up to today. Yes, I know, that puts me in the minority, destined to become a gumpy old man by, ooh, the week before last.

Comments

[cruft.livejournal.com]

I'm confused. How is it that someone's thoughts and feelings aren't the same as her personal life?

[andrewducker]

I'm extremely interested in more abstract pieces (writing about philosophy, media, theories about the way the world works), interested unusual events in peoples lives, or in events that make them feel something special, and less interested in "Today me and Bob went down the pub. It was fun."

I suspect this is largely because I have so many darn people on my friends list - many of you were added because you wrote the occasional thing I was interested in, but 180 people is just too many for me to be able to care about every thing that happens to each of you.

There are exceptions - the people I actually know, here in Edinburgh, and some people that I've come to care about because either they've been about for so long on my friends list, or they particularly interest me (you're in the second group - I do care about what you're up to).

But generally speaking, minutiae of everyday lives don't interest me that much, which is why my personal posts tend to either be about things I'm involving other people in - telling people about the picnic Lilian was organising - or things out of the ordinary - I'm off to Venice. When I do tell people what I've been up to, it tends to be fairly rote repetition of facts, because I don't find it that interesting to talk about (even though it's frequently interesting to do).

Yes, I know, I'm odd.

[cruft.livejournal.com]

Okay, I can get down with that.

I vaguely remember you mentioning something like this before, but, wouldn't it be nice if LJ let you define categories for your own posts, so that others could filter out certain categories? That would make it a lot easier to keep up with the occasional interesting thing that one's horde of boring friends occasionally produces.

[andrewducker]

I made the post in 'suggestions' for exactly that. People were supportive. Nothing ever happened.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

I don't really have thoughts or feelings on my livejournal (and I endeavour to conceal the former and repress the latter in real life, obviously). Mostly it is just what I've been up to.

Sorry.

I could have elaborate fake thoughts and feelings if you like, though?

"My relationship with Sven Von Altdorfer is becoming troublesome. Yes, I care about him immensely, and I am aware of how important his job is, but it disturbs me on a deep level that I am involved in a relationship with the Captain of the Last Line of Defence for Sweden... I mean, those manly, slightly briny hands that hold me so close... the same hands will exercise Sweden's nuclear option as a last resort. I mean, he has killed men during his time in the Special Forces, but should this be an end to our relationship?

And this brings me onto my central point - a complex dialetic on ethical nuclear warfare versus the hotness of Swedish sub-mariners in todays post-Beverly Hills Cop 2 society..."

[andrewducker]

I commented on this in my reply to Cruft - there are _some_ people whose personal lives I care about. You're lucky enough to be one of them ("Hurrah!" says Nick).

But even then I'm not a personal life kinda guy, most of the time.