(no subject)

[lobelia321]

Write about what you're interested in first, and then think about making it comment-worthy. If I was primarily concerned with popularity, I wouldn't write about porn, or suicide, or self-responsibility when applied to specific people, because every time I write about that I watch my numbers drop.

Numbers drop when you write about porn?

Heh. Not in my neck of the woods, dude.

P.S. cathexys has just traumatised me by linking to this post. True, t'post is amusing and kind of true and kept me scrolling for quite some time -- until I realised that, omg, it was written by a man.

I have serious man-phobia when it comes to LJ. The only men allowed in my little LJ world are Orli, Dom, Dudley and consorts. Not, *gulp*, real men.

*too straight for men*

Comments

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

you seriously have no guys on your flist???

and i do apologize for the trauma-inducing link !!! :D

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't know, I never look at my Friends of-list; some may have snuck in there under innocuous names but my Friends list is women-only. I once had a man on there and I can't remember if I've deleted him or not, I so rarely delete -- but if he's still on there he languishes in non-default-list-land.

No, no, as I was just saying to eyebrowofdoom: Girls traumatise me in fanfic but boys traumatise me in LJ. Which is fanfic-land to me. That is, to me, the gender divide goes firmly along the author-character divide: I like all the authors to be authoresses (and the readers to be lectrices) but I like all my characters to have penises. 'tis a weird world, the world of my psyche.

[travelingcarrot.livejournal.com]

There are men on lj? Who knew? I've never knowingly read one.
This is my perfectly female space, and I like it that way.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I know. This fact traumatises me everytime I come across it.

[travelingcarrot.livejournal.com]

P.S. Is that wanker serious? Huge lists of tips on how to get more comments? Am I missing his deep irony, or are some people really that self-consciously manipulative? Is posting what you feel like posting when you feel like posting it and accepting whatever reaction you get (or don't get) going to go out of style? Or will I be safe as long as I stay in my 'female space'?

*worries*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I regret having read to the end of that post now. What you say is absolutely spot on. I didn't want my LJ habits to be dissected and self-helped and workshopped in this fashion. It was amusing, yes, but somehow lacked either the self-irony or the tinhattery-rantiness of fandom-related posts of this sort. There is a sort of business-like edge to it.

[msilverstar]

I actually seek out slash-friendly guys. I have three or four on my friendslist, cos I'm deeply curious about them.

In RL, I have many many many dear male friends, mainly of the computer-nerd flavor.

But I like variety.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I have had to realise that I like the men in my real life, and I like the men inside the fanfic, but I can't have men around on the author-reader side of fandom, and I don't like them to enter my LJ space. LJ is a bit of a coven for me!!

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

Yes: it's not the LJ thing, or even the slash per se, that I want them to keep away from. It's me writing slash (and discussing it, and fandom, and so on) that is my male-free space. Hence a measure of relief that the male I knew of, on my Flist, has more or less closed down that LJ.
I quite like the coven metaphor too.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you like the coven. There is another word I thought of but it has no English equivalent: Kaffeekränzchen. It's German for an afternoon get-together of wymmyn (mostly middle-aged, mostly housewives, mostly the sort who wear hats with feathers) over coffee and wonderful German cake and torte and whipped cream. For me, LJ is a kind of mix of those two things. And the coven goes with *cackling*, hah. And what others have said: for me, LJ goes with slash, even if I'm not reading or writing much at the time, but to be speaking with people who have no concept or interest in slash, as a dependable groundswell, is, to me, off-putting. I'd have to be minding my ps and qs! Or something. And then slash is a woman-to-woman thing, no matter the trickle of men who make forays into it.

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

It's okay. I have two slash-friendly men on my f-list and they're both perfectly lovely- although it was a bit of a shock for me at first. :-)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I have no men on my Friends list. Not knowingly. There may be one, left over from 2 years ago, but if he's still there (I never look at my list), he languishes in non-default-list-land so I never see him. I don't think anyone has invaded my Friends Of list nor tigged me. I scare them off!

Nope, no, nein danke -- penises only in the fic for me.

P.S. Many men are lovely but I still don't want them in my LJ-coven.

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Many men are lovely but I still don't want them in my LJ-coven.

Yeah, I think it's kind of nice having it be an all-girl thing. I think we'd have a lot less hugging, kissing and glomping if there were a lot of menfolk about.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Ew, glomping a man... I don't know why and I can't be bothered self-analysing or other-analysing but I just like this space to be all-wymmyn. I'll think about why some other time. Got to go and be busy!! Two more minutes of email time on my timer!!!

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

Ah, I've come across him before, although who knows where or why?

Personally, I'm always rather shocked when people attempt to use LJ for non-fandom related purposes. In my heart of hearts I believe this is unnatural.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

There has been a recent trend towards real-life LJ use but the groundswell is fandom. And it will erupt! Other things are just weird.

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

I read that post and its predecessor with mild amusement, and then retrospectively got irritated because it felt as though someone was running a skills-and-popularity contest in my friendly, half-assed, bumbling-about-and-being-unprofessional space.

I'm not sure when I realised this was a man, and am trying to figure out, slightly self-consciously, if I am being terribly essentialist in putting these two posts down to a not uncommon male tendency to offer solutions to problems when you're just rambling on about something for the pleasure of it.

See, I didn't realise my f-list was unacceptably small, or that people weren't leaving the right kinds of comments because I was asking the wrong kinds of questions. I came for the slash, and then happily discovered a bunch of faceless, likeable people who could write convincing male-male fellatio and still make informed jokes about Beowulf.

I do have a man or two on my f-list, come to think of it, but they came via Rugbytackle for the smut.

*cackle*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Yes! As I was saying to travelingcarrot above, there was a certain self-irony or tinhattery rantiness missing in that post, things that are normally present in slashy posts of similar ilk. I've read others' posts on getting tigs and on being a, what is it called again?, big bitch in fandom or somesuch -- but this manly post was somehow more edgy and more business-like. I now wish I hadn't read it. I share your essentialness completely! I am so essentialist that I don't think I've got a single man on my List. And the lists I tend to join that are not fandom all seem to be dominated by wimmin as well! I mean, the Stepford Wives: how much more female can you get? And my Bollywood list: all women there. I seem to gravitate towards these!

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

a not uncommon male tendency to offer solutions to problems when you're just rambling on about something for the pleasure of it.

Exactly. I posted on my other LJ about a Situation, and had all sorts of male Friends (some of them actual real-life people I know) giving me advice, despite the fact I'd specifically said it wasn't a problem. The women discussed: the men told.

What I disliked about the post that Lobelia's discussing is that reductionism: quantity of comments over quality, playing to the masses etc. Silly man.

[marysiak.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to let you know about Return of the Convention (guests Jed Brophy, Kiran Shah, Alan Lee and John Howe). Bristol, March 26-27th 2005.

http://www.nadobra.com/conv/

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you!