My new social experiment continues...

[tinuvial]

I have gotten several emails going... "How do I know you?"

I guess there is this unspoken LJ etiquette that says you should ask someone before you friend them... Well folks, here is the scoop, um... no, not gonna happen.

LJ is public social media. You don't have to friend anyone back that friends you. After all, by friending you, I am giving you access to my "friends only posts" (which, btw, there have been less than a couple of dozen over the course of eight years on LJ). I am not demanding that you friend me back, meet me, fall in love with me or anything of the sort. I just want to broaden my horizons, absorb more perspectives, and yes, make some new friends.

Of course, this is one of the reasons I have always disliked the term "friends list" - to me, it is a compilation of writing from multiple sources. People may or may not be "friends" in the traditional sense of the word. Until I started my little experiment, I had met almost everyone on my LJ, even those I met through LJ as far away as Las Vegas (waves at lordremo).

I'm trying to expand my perspectives. I love reading LJ, I love the creativity, the passion, the fervor with which many people write. I admit it, I'm a literary voyeur. I love to have my thoughts provoked and my mind expanded.

I would hope that you add me to your "people whose journals I read" list. Yes, I have a filter named exactly like that, so that I can keep track of them. But you might or might not get on one of the other filters that are used to limit content to those who wish to receive it (such as my BDSM filter, or my book filter, or weight loss filter, etc).

I may not know you, but I hope that by reading your journal, I will get to know you soon.

Ciao for now.

Comments

[jovan-scorn.livejournal.com]

LJ is not any one specific thing, it is a tool whose use is defined by the user.

Six apart may call it a networking tool and that influences the user who sign on and use it which is fine. But the fact that the information here both in content and control is so varied it's impossible to say it's just one thing, especially and open forum for all to view.

To compare it's like a blank notebook. You can take it home and write in it never to show anyone your thoughts, you can write a best selling novel, you can draw art for just yourself or your friends, or you could write a scathing political manifesto and pass it around for all to see. The only thing LJ can do that the notebook can't is have links and media from all over the internet collected there or linked there.

[scottopic.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's an unspoken rule, but don't consider it exactly untoward to ask.

[quaero-verum.livejournal.com]

Well! this is cool, because you are only the second person in the entire history of my own LJ to spontaneously "friend" me out of nowhere.

Makes me feel loved. <3

And I see you're in tight with 2redpath5 and nevermind_that so you must be cool too. And I, like you, love to make new friends.

Thanks for the add!

[dmedicus.livejournal.com]

I look to see if we have mutual friends. And if we do then I friend back. How do you get to know people, if you want to know them already.

[jenna-sb.livejournal.com]

There are several people I have "met" on LJ that I have not met in real life. I only know them through the lens of live journal, and yet I pull for them when times are tough, I want them to succeed, and I miss hearing about their lives when they don't post. Through getting to know them I have had my thoughts inspired and my point of view expanded. I love livejournal for just that reason.

[nevermind-that.livejournal.com]

Well, hot damn, now I want a BDSM filter.