A Poke to the iPad
Jan. 5th, 2024 09:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_gneechOnce again I am in a Starbucks, posting via my iPad, this time because I dropped the car off at the shop and this is a place within walking distance of it to hang out. XD That this particular set of circumstances seems to be the primary time I post anything to my DW is somewhat coincidental, but not entirely so: when I have the opportunity to be working on art or game prep etc., I tend to be doing that instead. Writing in my journal largely depends on not being able to do something more urgent.
Related to writing in my journal, tho, I was thinking recently about the phenomenon of “convention reports,” and why they’re not much of a thing any more. Once upon a time in the fandom, people would write up what they did and who they saw at a con, and those of us unable to go (or possibly were there and hoped for a shoutout) would read and comment, and feel like we were part of the event.
Weirdly, I think the wide availability of internet and particularly things like streaming and YT videos are the main factors in the decline of this practice. (More people are able to go to cons these days as well, it seems, which makes for crowded cons! But that’s the way of things.) But why would someone write ten paragraphs about being at the con when they can just stream while they’re there? Why would someone read about it, when they can watch the stream?
I think the general decline of the journaling blog is a similar thing. People point at microblogging as having sucked the air out, and they’re not wrong, but it’s also incomplete. Long form anything is often presented in video format any more, to a more immediate and visceral reaction and feedback. Text is slower and at a remove, which suits those whose tastes run that way, but we’re a quiet club of weirdos compared to the population as a whole.
That’s my current theory, anyhow. XD
-TG
Related to writing in my journal, tho, I was thinking recently about the phenomenon of “convention reports,” and why they’re not much of a thing any more. Once upon a time in the fandom, people would write up what they did and who they saw at a con, and those of us unable to go (or possibly were there and hoped for a shoutout) would read and comment, and feel like we were part of the event.
Weirdly, I think the wide availability of internet and particularly things like streaming and YT videos are the main factors in the decline of this practice. (More people are able to go to cons these days as well, it seems, which makes for crowded cons! But that’s the way of things.) But why would someone write ten paragraphs about being at the con when they can just stream while they’re there? Why would someone read about it, when they can watch the stream?
I think the general decline of the journaling blog is a similar thing. People point at microblogging as having sucked the air out, and they’re not wrong, but it’s also incomplete. Long form anything is often presented in video format any more, to a more immediate and visceral reaction and feedback. Text is slower and at a remove, which suits those whose tastes run that way, but we’re a quiet club of weirdos compared to the population as a whole.
That’s my current theory, anyhow. XD
-TG
no subject
Date: 2024-01-05 03:35 pm (UTC)Nowadays, a larger and larger number of con growers are under 20, and the old guard is thinning out. So there’s just less of us. And the young folks that are coming in grew up with everything being short form. Most of their social discourse takes place in a paragraph or less. Not specifically because they chose this, but because that was just what was available to them. We’re all to some degree a product of the environments that we grew up in.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-05 04:04 pm (UTC)Yeah, I think the rise of TikTok over microblogging platforms shows that most people prefer watching to reading. Alas for those of us who do not! :D
But also I think it's much easier to consume than to create, and many folks who would've blogged 20 years ago are browsing now instead.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-06 04:41 am (UTC)Thought about this ever since and couldn't really connect these themes until now: they're all easy to immediately appreciate. Reading takes time and focus; so does understanding art with more going on than "it's cute." If it all gets filed under "I'll look at and process that later," when's later, after this next video?
I don't know about Gen Z, but I personally find it hard to keep up with everyone making stuff I like. It's a drive-by +Fav 90% of the time because I have to get through my queue and keep up with my other hobbies and remind my loved ones that, yes, I'm still here. There's just so much.
no subject
Date: 2024-01-09 11:46 am (UTC)