Strawman Poll
Aug. 25th, 2007 08:50 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
skyecaptain.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
poptimistsHello -- long time listener, first time caller. (I'll be posting a big mostly-American teenpop project thingy in a week or two, and then I will go back to lurking the comment threads.)
Here's a paragraph that I wrote to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
koganbot a couple days ago in the K-punk fallout (I was the blogger who moved K-punk to K-pathos with my K-patheticness), though my comments weren't about the post itself, which was more confusing than anything else (I'm sure he'd say the same of my posts -- I doubt either of us really does his homework).
So a few questions that I'd like to elaborate on here:
(1) Is one of the appeals of Poptimists its unique sort of exclusivity? I'm relatively new to LJ (and rock crit/conversation in general, really), but one of my goals has always been to open up conversation and, frankly, get people to notice me. (In that sense, any publicity is good publicity, but any conversation isn't necessarily good conversation; tricky balance sometimes.)
(2) If others feel like they want to explode this conversation into the world, how do we do it? How do we send up flares? This relates to Frank's evolving DDR idea, but I'm asking in a more immediate sense: how do we (or, maybe with less angst, how ARE we) keep(ing) the conversation going and expanding?
(3) Do you feel the conversation needs to expand and grow to survive, or is that not what people take from the community -- and by that I mean, is it more of a comfort zone, a sort of conservative space that can occasionally, without ridicule/nastiness, entertain radical (or at least provocative to use a less loaded word) ideas? (Somewhat related: can it expand and grow and remain a comfort zone, or are public disses the equivalent of growing pains? I notice that the teenpop thread on ILM, for instance, has dwindled since a few posters defended -- and fairly successfully, I think -- the thread's existence to non-contributors.)
(4) Are these questions for the larger community, or for individual Poptimist members who have an interest in breaking out into the morass of pop-critdom writ large?
(5) Was it silly to post this on a Saturday night (US EST) when everyone's about to go on holiday?
Should add before/if there are comments that I've started visiting my LJ network and Poptimists first in my internet routine, and I really love the community here. I just wonder whether or not it has anywhere to go -- or if having no particular place to go is actually desirable to most members. I guess I'd call it a guilty pleasure, myself -- sometimes you wanna go where everyone knows your alias. But for all the collective insights and singular minds (& vice versa?) on display here, I'd also like more Poptimist writing to bully its way into more eyeballs, even if some eyeballs are less likely to actually read it carefully -- or at all -- than others.
Here's a paragraph that I wrote to
koganbot a couple days ago in the K-punk fallout (I was the blogger who moved K-punk to K-pathos with my K-patheticness), though my comments weren't about the post itself, which was more confusing than anything else (I'm sure he'd say the same of my posts -- I doubt either of us really does his homework).This [angst] is well-covered territory. But it's really frustrating, especially as I'm approaching an academic program that's going to be much more time-and-mind-consuming in an unrelated field and probably won't be able to write for outside venues regularly. I just want to WANT to talk about this stuff. It shouldn't be *that* hard; I really love talking about it! But I feel like public discourse keeps finding its way to some kind of underground secret society sh1t that really rubs me the wrong way -- locked LJ posts and even LJ itself, which often feels like the catacombs of internet pop chat.
So a few questions that I'd like to elaborate on here:
(1) Is one of the appeals of Poptimists its unique sort of exclusivity? I'm relatively new to LJ (and rock crit/conversation in general, really), but one of my goals has always been to open up conversation and, frankly, get people to notice me. (In that sense, any publicity is good publicity, but any conversation isn't necessarily good conversation; tricky balance sometimes.)
(2) If others feel like they want to explode this conversation into the world, how do we do it? How do we send up flares? This relates to Frank's evolving DDR idea, but I'm asking in a more immediate sense: how do we (or, maybe with less angst, how ARE we) keep(ing) the conversation going and expanding?
(3) Do you feel the conversation needs to expand and grow to survive, or is that not what people take from the community -- and by that I mean, is it more of a comfort zone, a sort of conservative space that can occasionally, without ridicule/nastiness, entertain radical (or at least provocative to use a less loaded word) ideas? (Somewhat related: can it expand and grow and remain a comfort zone, or are public disses the equivalent of growing pains? I notice that the teenpop thread on ILM, for instance, has dwindled since a few posters defended -- and fairly successfully, I think -- the thread's existence to non-contributors.)
(4) Are these questions for the larger community, or for individual Poptimist members who have an interest in breaking out into the morass of pop-critdom writ large?
(5) Was it silly to post this on a Saturday night (US EST) when everyone's about to go on holiday?
Should add before/if there are comments that I've started visiting my LJ network and Poptimists first in my internet routine, and I really love the community here. I just wonder whether or not it has anywhere to go -- or if having no particular place to go is actually desirable to most members. I guess I'd call it a guilty pleasure, myself -- sometimes you wanna go where everyone knows your alias. But for all the collective insights and singular minds (& vice versa?) on display here, I'd also like more Poptimist writing to bully its way into more eyeballs, even if some eyeballs are less likely to actually read it carefully -- or at all -- than others.
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Do not read if you hate meta
Date: 2007-08-26 10:24 am (UTC)Anyway, lots to say and not really any time to say it as I have to go shopping. Poptimists isn't a closed community - but a lot of people don't like LJ and don't want to sign up. This is partly because LJ is coded young and gothy (and female maybe) in a way that's embarassing to some: I've been AMAZED by what an effective screener simply "being on LJ" has proved to be actually in terms of trolls etc (& the name helps). We still have 160-ish members tho, even if most are lurkers.
Being on LJ has other disadvantages too of course - comment threading at 50 and the way old posts just drop off the radar distorts the way ex-ILMers in particular have to do things and I know I've never really adjusted well.
Poptimists was an experiment to see how an LJ pop community could work - rly well in some ways is the answer - and the specific circs of its creation, mid-July 05, very much balanced "seize the day" and "I need comfort". It's also a post-ILM board (in the same way Dissensus is, and the Noize Board is) - positive online energy is nomadic. BUT I also always thought someone ELSE wd be the person to build the next big place I wanted to hang out so Poptimists was kind of meant as a stopgap before that particular Hacienda gets built: meanwhile I am still tapping my watch and waiting for the builders while the stopgap puts down its own roots (hurrah) (metaphor crisis).
Something that really enthuses me about Poptimists is the range of age, experience, enthusiasms we have here & also most of the people in it are younger than me and (it sounds lame pointing it out but it's important, specially compared to ILM) there are lots of women posting, proportionally a lot more than on other music discussion places I've been. So it feels like a much more fertile place than ILM for starting projects, personal or group, and I think my imagined Haciendabuilder is much likelier to come from here than there. (no pressure like).
Re: Do not read if you hate meta
Date: 2007-08-26 10:29 am (UTC)Re: Do not read if you hate meta
Date: 2007-08-26 02:38 pm (UTC)Re: Do not read if you hate meta
Date: 2007-08-26 08:51 pm (UTC)