Really Deep Thoughts
Jun. 5th, 2003 10:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pantryslut"Nobody wants to read about what I had for breakfast," says webmaster Mark Kliem of gaypornblog.com, talking about the approach he plans to take for his new site, i.e. not too personal.
"TMI," a friend of mine succincly states when explaining why he doesn't do LiveJournal -- reading or writing.
Another good friend says, after reading my LJ for the first time, "And I thought poking around my friends' websites was stalkerish."
I am sympathetic to this sort of point of view. But...
Kliem goes on to say (I am stealing his words from an AVN article about the launch of his new gay porn blog) that "I am fortunate enough to get to go places and do things that other people envy. I want to share those experiences with others."
Which is still, it seems to me, a bit exhibitionistic. Somehow that seems worse to me than "what I had for breakfast." Maybe it's not, maybe it's just the same. But it feels boastful. "I went to this *fab,* *exclusive* event that you can only dream of attending. Here are all the salacious details..."
(Note that I'm not accusing Kliem per se of doing this, nor even intending to. He's just a convenient springboard for my rambling this morning..)
I've never been big on those sort of event reports. I mean, didn't our mothers tell us that it was impolite to brag? Of course, I seem immune to most forms of celebrity culture, so there's probably a deeper problem here than just my inability to distinguish between different degrees of vicarious living.
So far, I've found that the biggest effect of LiveJournal on my social life is that I run out of witty anecdotes to tell people, because I've already posted them here. But that means I'm posting what I'd otherwise be saying anyway.
Yeah, I really do tell people what I had for dinner last night. Worse, people *ask*. (Well, at least one person asks. You know who you are. ;) )
Oh, and what I had for breakfast today: a peanut butter sandwich and green tea.
"TMI," a friend of mine succincly states when explaining why he doesn't do LiveJournal -- reading or writing.
Another good friend says, after reading my LJ for the first time, "And I thought poking around my friends' websites was stalkerish."
I am sympathetic to this sort of point of view. But...
Kliem goes on to say (I am stealing his words from an AVN article about the launch of his new gay porn blog) that "I am fortunate enough to get to go places and do things that other people envy. I want to share those experiences with others."
Which is still, it seems to me, a bit exhibitionistic. Somehow that seems worse to me than "what I had for breakfast." Maybe it's not, maybe it's just the same. But it feels boastful. "I went to this *fab,* *exclusive* event that you can only dream of attending. Here are all the salacious details..."
(Note that I'm not accusing Kliem per se of doing this, nor even intending to. He's just a convenient springboard for my rambling this morning..)
I've never been big on those sort of event reports. I mean, didn't our mothers tell us that it was impolite to brag? Of course, I seem immune to most forms of celebrity culture, so there's probably a deeper problem here than just my inability to distinguish between different degrees of vicarious living.
So far, I've found that the biggest effect of LiveJournal on my social life is that I run out of witty anecdotes to tell people, because I've already posted them here. But that means I'm posting what I'd otherwise be saying anyway.
Yeah, I really do tell people what I had for dinner last night. Worse, people *ask*. (Well, at least one person asks. You know who you are. ;) )
Oh, and what I had for breakfast today: a peanut butter sandwich and green tea.
