For the First Time Ever, I'm Immensely Sorry I'm a Lurker

[litotease]

Except for the abject moral rage and deep community sorrow I was feeling, the Great LiveJournal Strikeout 2007 itself didn't affect me at all; I've never followed HP fandom at all, so I'd never heard of pornish_pixies (and see how pretty that name looks today, without all of those ugly dashes through it!), and I've never read any of the other journals involved. 

However, for the past year, I've mostly been reading in & about Supernatural -- you know, that show that's sparked the terms wincest, and wee!cest. Incest.  Underage.  Two of the keywords that were getting people banned, banned, banned from their community.  As far as I know, no one in the Supernatural fandom had their account suspended (which, given how random the suspensions seemed, must be sheer, blind luck).  Still, many, many of the fans in this fandom responded with reasonable, rational, absolutely justifiable paranoia.

So it wasn't the Strikeout itself that got me where I live.  It was the Great LiveJournal Lockdown that followed it.   Because there is a group of women out there who, on a daily basis, make me think, smile, laugh out loud.  Some days, they make my heart ache; others, they make my panties damp.  (Occasionally -- damn you all, you good writers, you -- they do both at the same time.)  On the really bad days, sometimes checking in with them gives me pretty much all I have to look forward to.  And for a brief period of time, I was flocked out.

Because not a one of them knows who I am.

For I am a lurker.  I have one of those creepy lurker journals.  I don't produce (fiction, commentary, artwork, recs, personal nattering); I have nothing to post.  I don't use LiveJournal's "friends list" function.  Most of the time, I don't even log into LJ, because I've got everything and everybody I'm interested in bookmarked.

Yesterday, my fannish silence?  Bit. Me. On. The. Ass.

Hard.

Because my silence means that I have no fan cred.  None, nada, zero, zip.  Zilch. 

In the middle of a witch hunt, when no one is certain where the enemy is getting their information, how far they've infiltrated, and how far they're willing to go -- this is not the right time to approach a stranger:  "Oh, Hi!  You have absolutely no idea who I am, and I have absolutely nothing to show you, but I like your work about this subject that's getting people kicked off of LiveJournal left and right, so would you blindly put me on the list of people you trust not to report you to the wrong authorities, please?"  Yeah.  I wouldn't, either.

This time, so far, the problem seems to have mostly gone away (most people are unlocking their fiction and meta, others are planning to unlock once they've reorganized and split-off anything personally identifiable).  This time, only one of my fandoms (the one nearest and dearest to my heart, granted) was threatened.

I'm still leery.  With this attack coming so close on the heels of the FanLib debacle, public attention has been drawn to fanfic.  I think it's possible (not probable, but possible) that fans will have to find a new safe place.  If that's so, well.  Wither thou goest. 

I just don't want to be left behind. 

So, hi, y'all!  *waves shyly, uncertain of reception*   You rock my world.

Any other lurkers out there feeling the pinch?

Comments

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

And can I just say one more thing (which may come across as slightly bitchy, and I apologize for that). One easy way to meet people (if you desire to do so) is to actually respond when they comment in your journal. Since you volunteered the link at metafandom, you effectively invited us to your journal, and it affords you the perfect opportunity to engage--or not.

e_m_pink...I *still* feel weird commenting in people's journals...even some of those on my flist. It takes a moment every time before I hit that post button. Not that that seems to stop me much these days :)

[quivo.livejournal.com]

Not that that seems to stop me much these days :)

The weirdness resistance goes down after a while, I think. Sometimes, you don't realise its still there until you find yourself panicking over engaging with someone's blog that's not part of LJ or GJ or any of the other clones - it really feels like you're throwing your comments out into the sea then, despite how similar it is to commenting here. I think the comment notifications really serve to keep people comfortable here, and the threading and userpics add greatly to that.

[gracecourage.livejournal.com]

I'm actually trying to do that right this minute.

And these are some of my hesitations in delurking:

- I'm U.S. West Coast, so it's only mid-morning Saturday for me. I'm always late to the party.

- I sleep afternoon/evening because I work graveyard. Mid-morning next day is usually the soonest I can respond.

- I share a computer with c8h10n4o2junkie (who finally got her own LJ account yesterday, so I can stop saying "my kid" which makes it sound like she's 8 rather than the adult she actually is), and since she's in college and needs the computer for research and writing while I'm really just using it for recreation, I get kicked off for extended periods of time.

(Hmmm, how much to reveal? How much to reveal? O.K., and the big two:)

- I take an excruciatingly long time to compose my thoughts. My original post? Took me over 7 hours to write.

- Part of the reason it took me so long to compose that post is that I was fighting a dissociative fugue to do it. Unless I have a very specific role to play, like at work, I am terrified of inviting the attention of people I don't know. I either have panic attacks, or I get dissociative. I would have expected online life to be easier, but in fact it's harder; there's no body language here for me to read, no subliminal cues for "safe, straightforward" versus "use caution, hidden agendas, double messages" (ugly childhood, lots of therapy, long story, yadda yadda). Still, I picked the "courage" part of my username because I want to remind myself that I have it, that I can use it. And here I am on a Saturday morning, using it. And if it takes all day (and it may), I'll find a way to say something back to everyone who took the time to say something to me. I'm rather excited.

(And now I've been working on this post for almost an hour. Really, it takes me forever.)

That said, OMG cathexys responded to my post!!!

If I see your name anywhere in a discussion, I always stop to read. Sometimes I agree with you, sometimes I don't, but you're always articulate, and you always make think, make me clarify my own position, and I find that incredibly valuable. I'm grateful you're here.

Thank you so, so much.

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't make it work. And don't feel like you owe us either.

As i said, i was aware that my comment was a tad bitchy, but I think it was a kneejerk of many rounds of people complaining (which you totally were not!!!!) of people wanting to be recognized in conversations but never responding when commented to.

You've also just seen fannish neurosis in full action :) I went back to check on your comments, b/c I thought you'd addressed an incredibly important issue, and I saw you'd commented somewhere.

The reveal's a big one. I've noticed two things: many younger fans reveal more than us old folks but the longer you're around the more you end up revealing (and these are total generalizations and not true in all cases, but I think general tendencies).

Anyway, I feel horrible now for jumping at you, esp. since I just made a post on fannish time so I should have been a bit more conscious of that. I'm really sorry!!!!

[gracecourage.livejournal.com]

Please don't feel horrible. I get it, I (mostly) got it at the time.

I basically got three types of answers back: (1) Hey, welcome; (2) Yeah, I'm a lurker, too, and for whatever my personal reasons are I don't want/plan to change that, but I love fandom and don't want to lose it, and this is important; (3) Delurk! Connect! Here are some ways you can do it. Come on in, the water's fine!

I decided to answer the (1)s first, rather than answer in order, because those were (relatively) easy and (relatively) quick. (Is there fannish protocol on this? Should I have done them in order? I was wondering.)

The (2)s are harder, because I don't have a solution to offer, and so I feel like I've only got a boilerplate commiserating answer, but boilerplating or "see above" is a really lousy way to build connection. So, how do I say basically the same thing to several people, but make it personal enough that they understand I'm not blowing them off, I'm trying to reach back? Needs some thought, and re-reading.

The (3)s are hardest of all, because my kneejerk anthrophobic reaction is "Oh, yeah; sez YOU! There are sharks in that water, biatch!" And there are sharks in fandom, and exploding mines, and ancient wreckages with rusty sharp edges that can cut. There are also herrings, and sea bass, and dolphins, and I really want to see the dolphins, but for someone like me who (metaphorically) doesn't swim so well, this isn't a safe dive. And I was hoping to come up with a way of responding to these gracious, warm invitations to play without having to say every friggin' time "but, see, I have this personal history...." "Oh, wait! Come back! I'm difficult, I know it, but I'll be worth it in the end, I promise...." Argh.

But your original post was none of the above. It made me wonder if there might not be some viable way to loosely link the lurkers (alliteration!) so they (we) don't get lost: a newsletter or journal of our own -- the_lurker_times, perhaps -- where we could just say, "Hi, here's me, I can't bring myself to/won't be able to participate much or at all, but here's my e-mail, don't lose me"? I don't know. But I wanted to think about it, and so, originally, I probably would have replied to your post last of all.

Still, fannish time is real (and I think fear of not being able to keep up is a reason many lurkers don't delurk). My silly daughter decided yesterday that I should stop to eat, and that the mother/daughter stuff we'd planned to do on Saturday should happen on, oh, Saturday. We didn't get back until 5:00 PM, which (with my ridiculous work/sleep schedule) is way past my bedtime, and I had to crash. So now it's Sunday morning (well, for most of y'all, it's really late Saturday night, but for me, sitting here with my second pot of coffee at three in the morning on my day [night] off, it's early Sunday). And I didn't finish responding to everyone yesterday, so some of the fans (OMG, thank you, everybody) who took time to respond to a post I made on Friday won't get my response until today -- that's 48 hours. In internet time, that's too long. I'm worried about people feeling dissed.

And fannish neurosis, I get. I haven't posted a lot of responses, but I have posted some. Mostly, I did not receive responses back. How do I read that? Is it "Hey, I said something, you said something, we had an interaction -- cool!" or is it "you're boring" or "I don't talk to strangers" or "OMG, so many replies, can't possibly respond to them all"? (I'm sure for different times, and different people, it's different things; I just have no context with which to interpret the silence, y'know? It's amazing how much I rely on body language to give me those cues, and how flummoxed and lost I feel in this venue where those cues don't exist.)

[cathexys.livejournal.com]

Actually, there are different opinions on the "responding to everything" discussion (which you've probably seen). And I'll put myself firmly on the "respond to every comment" side, not only, b/c I find it polite and it'd my own online politeness thing but also because as a lurker it's *smart*!

I mean, I'm a non writer, non vidder, non artist, which made me on mailing lists near invisible (well, it also was, b/c I didn't talk to anyone, but I felt like I had nothing to say!) I spent years reading and, like you described, following people to new fandoms, when a favorite writer or reccer fell hard. It was like I was part of fandom when noone else knew I existed. When I finally started emailing people, there was always this immense disconnect, b/c while they'd just met me, I'd been talking to them for years...in fact, not unlike imaginary celebrity behavior of parasocial relations (hmmm..that's a near thought: lurkers as BNF fans?)

So, the only way people know me is when I talk with them (b/c you probably don't know that, but my journal is completely flocked and had to be after only a few months after my jump into the cold water, getting an LJ, making my first post). writers can be curmudgeons and still be loved, b/c they have already given something precious...but if all you have is your interaction, then that's what you need to do to meet folks!

(So, the comment was less, Hey, go answer your comments! and more, Look, this is the best way to meet folks, go answer!) As for personal issues: I'm not discounting them, seriously, but c'mon, you're reading our journals, right? Even the non flocked stuff indicates that fandom certainly collects peole "with issues" (and I've never directly made the connection about why our passion so easily turns into wank, but duh :)

As for potential suggestions: I'm not sure creating a network with other lurkers can be enough, b/c unless you're tied in with the people you want to stay connected to it might be hard. Then again, I think the problem actually is less that everyone goes off to play elsewhere, b/c you'll find folks again (I remember Seperis stopping updating at her blog and I thought she'd stopped for a while, only to find out she'd gone over to LJ and I'd just missed it!), but that people will go underground on you. The move toward flocking is one thing like that (when I look over my flist, a good half to 2/3 of entries are flocked!).

But maybe in getting together with other lurkers it might be easier to get comfortable talking? B/c you here? You just threw yourself into the deep end of the pool, didn't you :) And I very much feel with you on how scary it is. Unlike you, I like online conversations a lot, b/c I don't pick up body language and here everyone's equally disadvantaged *g*, but I just started a RL real name blog, and posting and commenting there scares me like crazy!

Fannish time? Take all the time it takes! We're all in a mad rush, but I know I'm tickled getting a response days and weeks later. As for replying for replies. See, that's where most people stop. It's more a greeting and back, a thanks, no thank *you* kind of exchange, and very few threads will go beyond the first exchange. You're the host here, but everyone else has 5 or 25 or 55 other conversations going on...

And now I'm off to my blog, where I'll have to force myself to answer and might go take my boys swimming before even thinking about getting up that nerve :) See, we're all just faking it a bit better *bg*

[gracecourage.livejournal.com]

in fact, not unlike imaginary celebrity behavior of parasocial relations (hmmm..that's a near thought: lurkers as BNF fans?)

LOL. I was just saying this in response to someone else. I fangirl astolat and poisontaster about the same way as I fangirl Callum Keith Rennie or Jared Padalecki. Even though I feel a connection, even though their existence is important to me and brings me a great deal of pleasure, it's absolutely, totally unidirectional.

You just threw yourself into the deep end of the pool, didn't you

My Mama always said, "if you're going to do something...." :)

[daybreak777.livejournal.com]

I’m responding to this as a former lurker too. It breaks all of my personal lurker rules. It’s way late to the party and it’s in answer to a thread between two posters. Kind of like interrupting but not really. And it’s to someone I don’t know. Whew, it’s still hard to press ‘post’! Oh, well. I originally delurked and created a journal because I could see that the show I was primarily interested in (BSG) was going to end and I knew I would miss the squee of responding to shows while they were fresh and new. So I jumped in and am totally delurked now. But I still revert to lurking sometimes. There are people whose journals I read several times a day whom I know I will never ever comment in. And flocking can definitely lock people out. I’m not sure what can be done about that.

So, I’m either totally silent or very chatty. Not much in between. I like your idea about a lurkdom newsletter (but who would post?). And I wonder if lurkdom is enough to unite people if they don’t have a fandom in common.

There are sharks in that water, biatch!
After laughing out loud, I realized that this line struck me most about your comment. Even though I’m delurked, it’s still scary to post comments to others, particularly those I don’t know. I think it’s just an immense, immense shyness that is difficult to overcome even when everyone has been unfailingly nice to me.

I haven't posted a lot of responses, but I have posted some. Mostly, I did not receive responses back. How do I read that?
I think if one is instinctively shy or private or has issues (like me), this shyness will always crop up. And if you have commented, it is hard to interpret silence. I don’t have any answers on how to circle the wagons in times of crisis or kerfluffle. Just wanted to let you know that I sometimes think the same thoughts. There is something quiet and comforting about lurking. I can do both.

[gracecourage.livejournal.com]

(*face palm* OMG, I exceeded the posting limit. I've never done that before. Really, I'm almost done.)


And none of the above even addresses the original post -- how to not lose the lurkers when fandom needs to cirle the wagons. Because I'm pretty sure that the lurkers are the biggest part of fandom (I know the number of hits -- the number of reads -- on any given fan website or archive is always far larger than the number of replies).

I personally found Supernatural because an SGA writer made a side trip; I found SGA because a Due South writer changed ships. I didn't find either one because I found the show iself -- I read before watching. The excitement generated by the online fandom producers gets picked up by the lurkers and carried out into the world -- lurkers pimp, they spend, they drive up Neilsen numbers. They're (we're) part of the force that keeps the show going. Had my fannish voyeurism not dragged me into SGA, I might have rented the videos had they showed up at my local video store, but I probably wouldn't have bought the DVDs, or sent Hewlett an "awesome" postcard (yeah, I did that). With SPN, I wouldn't have rented the videos to begin with because I generally don't do horror, so I certainly wouldn't have written the network a "for the love of God don't cancel this show" letter; without fandom, I wouldn't have known that the show was borderline, that the letter might make a difference. Without access to the energy generator of fandom, I think many lurkers would lose their enthusiasm, which would hurt the show, which would hurt fandom. (Am I preaching to the choir, here? I'm probably preaching to the choir. Getting off soapbox, now.)

Anyway, thanks again -- for the posts, and the replies, and for being part of fandom.

[neetriht.livejournal.com]

I take an excruciatingly long time to compose my thoughts.

YES. Exactly. That is essentially why I wasn't going to leave a comment on here, even though I really wanted to. I've already spent over five hours jumping around [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] (I have work to do, dammit), and it would take me at least one more to come up with anything I was even remotely satisfied with posting. So, uh. Consider this an unofficial comment, yeah?

It is also the biggest reason why I have only left maybe three posts comments in fandom in as many years. On a related note, if I am not feeling eloquent (and I am not right now, which is killing me), I cannot bear to even write. I rarely feel like I've got anything interesting (read: more than 'OMG LOVE!!!1!!11!one!1!!one') to contribute, and when I have, I am either too picky about writing it, or someone else has already said it-- and usually much more poignantly than I ever could've.

I'd rather spend eleventybillion hours reading fanfic or meta than twentyquadrillion obsessively composing and editing a post or comment that, if value translated clearly into time, might be worth half an hour at most. :|

P.S.
I cannot wait to get into Supernatural fandom. I've just finished downloading the first season, and plan to start watching later this week. :D

[gracecourage.livejournal.com]

Meeee tooooo! And "word!" to boot, on all of it.

Thank you so much for the unofficial comment. I like unofficial.

RE: Supernatural -- be careful, lest you find yourself zombiefied (http://gwyn-r.livejournal.com/207530.html?thread=2673834&format=light#t2673834). Or drugged out (http://mona1347.livejournal.com/185346.html). (Me, it's got me pretty much both!)

If you feel like being unofficial again, later, I'd love to know how you liked the show.

[neetriht.livejournal.com]

Where is my Supernatural icon I need Supernatural icons pretty gorgeous slashy Supernatural icons...

So, yeah. I just saw the first two episodes and, uh. I think that maybe I am going to like this show a lot. GAH, the pretty! How am I ever even going to pay attention to plot? Does it matter? :D

[gracecourage.livejournal.com]

Oh! Oh! The plots get goood.

Angst, and love, and duty, and loyalty, and standing together against all odds, and the beautiful, beautiful brother-love combine with the pretty. It. Sucks. You. In.

Noooo! I have no slashy icons to share. I neeeeed some slashy icons to share. :)

[amireal.livejournal.com]

Half a thought.

I think it might get easier to compose your thoughts with time. I mean-- just in this space. Part of it might just be a comfort with the zone that'll take time to achieve and the hard part about that is you have to BE in the zone to get used to the zone, but being in the zone is hard so--etc. You see?

Basically? I'd look for things that prompt an immediate response in you (in other people's LJs). Those are easiest to comment on. Even if it's quoting something directly and going "Yes, god yes! Thank you for saying it for me!".

[neetriht.livejournal.com]

I think it might get easier to compose your thoughts with time.

You know, that had occurred to me? But only in general. What you said about the 'zone', etc. feels very true. I think that is it. Thank you for putting it so concisely! :D