On Interacting
Dec. 15th, 2018 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fractalfracturesSo I have issues around social anxiety and am kind of intensely oversensitive to criticism.
And it occurs to me to ask for people reading my blog who disagree with something I've written to please directly comment to voice their disagreement/correction and give me a chance to defend myself, admit I was wrong, whatever before writing a post of their own to declare to the world that I was wrong about something.
And it's interesting, because something like that would never occur to me to do on Tumblr, and honestly my knee-jerk reaction to someone who posts controversial stuff with a "#[people I'm criticizing] do not interact" tag is contempt.
I think that's because the way the Tumblr platform and culture work, posting anything that's tagged or likely to get reblogged is basically inviting others to a verbal gladiator fight. Not particularly healthy for most of us, but the way it works.
Anyway, I'm glad to be here. Random strangers are welcome to follow me, getting comments, no matter who they're from, will generally make me extremely happy so long as they don't lead to too many involved political arguments that sap away my time and energy.
I'm planning to keep most stuff public, but if this actually takes off I might use friends lock to hide posts about my real-life relationships*, so that I won't feel mortified if any of them find this blog. Ideally I'd figure out what to do about the currently huge gulf between my pseudonymous virtual online presence and my relationships with people I know face to face. Ideally there should be no reason not to feel comfortable revealing this blog to anyone I consider myself sufficiently close to, but the truth is I've just never learned how to be friends with people while we are both open about important issues we disagree on. Needless to say, online SJ has not been ANY HELP at learning to manage this, since their general attitude is that you shouldn't be friends with anyone who isn't 100% Woke anyway.
But like, how does one even go about sharing pseudonymous social media accounts with one's meatspace friends? Put it on your Facebook profile and spend a long time making a customized list of people who you are okay with seeing it and then hoping that some of them actually notice, and you don't accidentally include anyone who's going to have issues with finding out you're a genderqueer relationship anarchist? The problem with just directly messaging individuals is that it seems kind of pushy and like it's presuming interest where there is no reason to expect any? Blah.
*Yes, I'm aware that talking about people behind their backs is generally considered unethical, but the fact remains that when you're in a relationship it's often very necessary to your mental health to have a place where you can talk it about freely to one or more third parties without your partner there to judge you.
And it occurs to me to ask for people reading my blog who disagree with something I've written to please directly comment to voice their disagreement/correction and give me a chance to defend myself, admit I was wrong, whatever before writing a post of their own to declare to the world that I was wrong about something.
And it's interesting, because something like that would never occur to me to do on Tumblr, and honestly my knee-jerk reaction to someone who posts controversial stuff with a "#[people I'm criticizing] do not interact" tag is contempt.
I think that's because the way the Tumblr platform and culture work, posting anything that's tagged or likely to get reblogged is basically inviting others to a verbal gladiator fight. Not particularly healthy for most of us, but the way it works.
Anyway, I'm glad to be here. Random strangers are welcome to follow me, getting comments, no matter who they're from, will generally make me extremely happy so long as they don't lead to too many involved political arguments that sap away my time and energy.
I'm planning to keep most stuff public, but if this actually takes off I might use friends lock to hide posts about my real-life relationships*, so that I won't feel mortified if any of them find this blog. Ideally I'd figure out what to do about the currently huge gulf between my pseudonymous virtual online presence and my relationships with people I know face to face. Ideally there should be no reason not to feel comfortable revealing this blog to anyone I consider myself sufficiently close to, but the truth is I've just never learned how to be friends with people while we are both open about important issues we disagree on. Needless to say, online SJ has not been ANY HELP at learning to manage this, since their general attitude is that you shouldn't be friends with anyone who isn't 100% Woke anyway.
But like, how does one even go about sharing pseudonymous social media accounts with one's meatspace friends? Put it on your Facebook profile and spend a long time making a customized list of people who you are okay with seeing it and then hoping that some of them actually notice, and you don't accidentally include anyone who's going to have issues with finding out you're a genderqueer relationship anarchist? The problem with just directly messaging individuals is that it seems kind of pushy and like it's presuming interest where there is no reason to expect any? Blah.
*Yes, I'm aware that talking about people behind their backs is generally considered unethical, but the fact remains that when you're in a relationship it's often very necessary to your mental health to have a place where you can talk it about freely to one or more third parties without your partner there to judge you.
no subject
Date: 2018-12-18 04:23 am (UTC)I feel like for all the criticism Tumblr's gotten for being unhealthy, that it's pretty unwarranted (until now, anyways). It seems like ppl learn their social lessons pretty quickly there; from abandoning toxic fandoms like superwholock, not telling ppl to kill themselves (especially over their art), and being careful in their critiques. Hell, even the staff said "female presenting nipple", which we enormously made fun of, but was actually there attempt to validate nonbinary folks while still adhering to misogynistic laws.
So I understand your fear of criticism and need for a disclaimer. Because somehow, people still haven't learned to be nice on the internet, especially outside of tumblr. It's my fear too :(
I also agree with the whole 100% woke thing. And that's even harder navigating "types" of wokes. Maybe I'll write about that in my journal. But you know, when different people have different morals- which everyone does at some point- it's frustrating trying to navigate thru that herd mentality. Do you know what I mean?
no subject
Date: 2018-12-24 06:26 am (UTC)I've been using my online name and my real name synonymously since I started using the internet back in 1997. It's always been a part of who I am and everyone I know so I guess I'm not really sure. However, I'm not gender or sexuality variant and I've never been at risk at losing my home for who I am so I'm in a very different position where being open about some aspects of myself never put me at risk. Even so not every aspect of my life is public and I still greatly value control over my privacy.
At least with DW you can lock and unlock things very easily, so you can change stuff on the fly whenever you're feeling concerned at no consequence to you or anyone else because no one ever is notified of these changes. It's that freedom that's made me feel more comfortable here than anywhere else. (and no there's nothing wrong with venting about people in closed spaces, sometimes you gotta work things out in private before you can confront it)
Don't stretch yourself further than need be, take it a bit at a time. There's no shame in hiding if you need to for a time.