An interesting day
Yesterday was a rather interesting day. I don’t mean that the snow had melted after New Year’s Eve, which it had and which I loved. Some not so nice things had happened lately too – but fortunately not to me or my family or anywhere near here.
A relatively famous popular historian (real, academic historian, but with a big popular following) had written an editorial piece for one of our biggest (conservative) newspapers about how immigration can be an asset, not a drain on our resources. Immediately after the piece had been published, he’d been hit really hard by internet hatred. I happen to know that he has been bullied in the past, and this must have been rather traumatic for him, but he decided to post about it on his History Blog in the same newspaper, and that’s where I read about it. He claims not to be scared and will continue to stand up for what he believes in.
Since I have enjoyed numerous fantastic books by him, a tv show about history, a ‘live’ lecture by him as well as many fascinating blog posts, I decided to email him to show my support. Very soon afterwards I received an email in reply where he said that emails like mine make him realize the world is a lot better than it’s seemed lately, in his inbox. It was very nice of him to reply although I know he tends to do that, since I’ve emailed him twice before and asked for blog posts about different interesting historic topics and he’s always posted about those topics almost right away.
All this was nice enough, but also on the same day, I read a blog post by an author whose first two (fantasy) books I’ve read and enjoyed, where she talked about her writing and book related plans for the year and asked her readers for our plans. I decided to dare to reply and before the end of the evening I got a very nice reply where she thanked me for my well-wishes and in return wished me luck with my writing. I’d never imagined this woman who is sort of famous in Swedish writing circles would be so nice.
It’s not the first time though, that authors I admire have been nice and replied to my comments on their blogs.
A writer of historic romance even found my blog and commented (another blog than the one I’d posted my review on) and added it to her links list.
A science fiction writer and I even had a long conversation about his books in the comment fields on his page on Goodreads.
Another sf writer didn’t reply for nearly a year so I assumed he didn’t check that blog or had decided not to reply to any comments, but then suddenly I received a very polite reply.
A fantasy writerĀ of two books I really loved, also replied politely and told me he had an idea for a sequel but that other projects had come up instead.
I guess that’s it, but it’s unusual for me to have such nice things happening to me. Maybe it’s a good omen for the new year.
No more Livejournal
Last year, Yahoo bought Tumblr so I had to leave and delete my Tumblr. I really loved that photo blog. :/ And now it’s happening again. This time it’s Livejournal. I don’t trust them anymore. (Because of reasons!) What’s really sad is that I’ve had a Livejournal for almost 14 years. It really is the end of an era. š
Fortunately, I have another journal on Dreamwidth. The software and interface are both great and I love the themes, but unfortunately I hardly have any friends and there are far fewer communities. Perhaps now that many people are leaving LJ, the existing communities will become more lively and hopefully some of the ones from LJ will move to DW. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
So disappointed…
I can’t help being disappointed. Today I saw for myself for the first time what my LiveJournal looks to people who are not logged in – ie the majority of my friends. Maybe I’m being unreasonable, but I deliberatey chose a ‘basic’ account, so I could have a nice looking journal, without many of the features the paid accounts get. And now they’ve found a way to cheat us twice over. We get the basic features but we still have to endure the ads.
I just hate ads on a site. Usually anyway. I know of a few sites where first of all the ads are so unobtrusive they don’t offend me and I don’t even notice them unless I go look for them, secondly, the ads are usually to the point. I’ll find merchandise and services that I’m interested in. But in general, ads are an eyesore. And now LJ has joined the ranks of those moneygrabbers. Sorry, but that’s how I feel. If LJ hadn’t been such a nice community I’d leave, but from now on, I don’t think I’ll blog there anymore, I’ll just post a link to my real blog/homepage. Anyone interested in my posts will have to click a link and leave the site.
TheĀ Revolution
A part of the revolution (and evolution). It feels a little like that. One little link in the long chain since the the art of writing was invented in Mesopotamia maybe five thousand years ago.
In an article that I read recently it says that the blog – the one you’re reading now is just one example among many – is a part of the evolution since Gutenberg invented the printing process. So – you and I and everyone else are a stage of the evolution.
In this article there was also something really interesting about how this collective way of expressing oneself will affect our ‘collective brain’ and society.
Really fascinating and we – you and I and all other bloggers – are a part of the revolution. We are watching history being made.
Once upon a time, printed books were viewed as a threat against high culture. Today the internet might be perceived as more of a threat than an asset. Others don’t ‘believe’ in the blog. But if the spies don’t win, if the greedy money grabbers are allowed to win, then maybe five hundred years from now, we’ll look back on the breakthrough for the internet as a new phase in cultural history and blogging as a part of journalism, as important as perspective in art, recorded music, literature in the form of printed books or printed newspapers.
Not so long ago, you couldn’t find out about current affairs and incidents that might have occurred, by opening your paper in the morning. People didn’t know what a paper was. Nowadays you can get news in many different forms, but back then you had to be grateful if you could hear about something, orally, from someone who had been present and seen what was going on.
It’s easy to forget that a blog isn’t just a cool kind of homepage, where you can post photos of yourself or post quizzes with images.
Think about the crisis in Burma – the blog was one of the most important ways of communicating with the outside world. That might give you another view of blogging. The medium is certainly versatile and important.
Long live the blog!
