Look at me, I'm dancing crazy!

[beelikej]

Today I finally managed to delete my Facebook account. I felt very lost and uncomfortable there, mainly because I never figured out how to keep up with everyone or check a timeline properly. I could mention the privacy issue* and the annoying habit of FB-buttons popping up everywhere, but to be fair it was mostly my personal lack of control over the lay-out that made me avoid the place. Besides that I had so much trouble following people and I never really connected to anyone, except occasionally with people I already communicate with on other social networks. Even then it felt like more fleeting contact than really talking. One reason I stayed longer than I really wanted was that it's the one place my SIL regularly posts photos of my nephew, so I now have an excuse to visit more in real life;)

I still have plenty of online hang outs, although I am considering cutting down, here's a list of all the places you can find me. (I'm BeeLikeJ everywhere:)


Personal blogs and journals
Livejournal - tadaah, you are here!
My Dutch Blog - daily updates of real life
Photoblog (travel)picspams with English commentary
Tumblr - mostly for lurking and liking:)
Twitter - mainly for keeping an eye on Stephen Fry (and other awesome people;)

Hobby blogs:
Filmblog - moviereviews in Dutch
Library blog - reviews of books and fanfic in English
Pottermore - I'm PhoenixNight165 and am waiting for the Chamber of Secrets to open.
Design blog - my artwork archive (not updated in a while, oops)
YouTube - random personal vids
NicknGreg LJ community - (I'm one of the mods)
NicknGreg YT - CSI Nick/Greg fanvids (I'm the maintainer/mod)
My LJ book community - plan to update soon *looks at bookpile*

Registered user, but barely there:
Hyves - a Dutch social network CLOSED MAY 1, 2012
MySpace CLOSED MAY 1, 2012
Insane journal
Dreamwidth
Ok Cupid - What? For the QUIZZES. [On hiatus APRIL, 2012]
Deviant Art

I also have a sockpuppet LJ and a pornTumblr, but those are for personal use only;)


Pfff, I think that's all of them. Feel free to follow me anywhere. I have the same policy for friending back everywhere: I like to keep my dashboard/friendlist/circle/whatever managable, so I don't just collect people to get a high score. Most importantly: these places are my comfort zones, which means I avoid blogs and journals that make me feel awkward. This includes, but is not limited to: an overload of cutesy petpictures or 'revealing' photos of celebs I care not enough or too much about and stuff I have personal issues with, such as a couple of mundane human trades that I'm not even mentioning here for fear of losing my calm.
What I'm trying to explain is that my (lack of) response isn't necessarily a reflection of our actual relationship status or my opinion of you *g*

How many digital hang-outs do you have?

*Obviously I don't mind sharing my personal life :-p

P.S. Thank you, sillie82 for the dragon!

Comments

[bflyw.livejournal.com]

I don't like FB because it's place for old acquaintances to put up an facade of how great life they are leading, and all it shows me is that I am still on the outside of whatever society I was meant to be in by this point of life. I keep staying there though - because I have gottent in touch with 2 old friends, that I wouldn't have gotten in touch with again hadn't it been for FB. So, I can just stay there and try not to be too depressed reading the wall.

Twitter is a place to either follow or to be followed, and sometimes that makes me feel sick.

To be honest, I wouldn't have been on either FB or Twitter if it hadn't been for half my flist declaring a couple of years ago that they would step back from LJ and mostly keep up with fb and twitter.

I am more comfortable with places where we can post actual posts, and have discussions, and where it is not just based on statuslines and 140 char tweets.... just for ppl to like and re-tweet. I don't want to be dependent on a 'popularity contest site' to keep up with friends. But I guess people satisfy their need for more thurough interaction in their day-to-day life and aren't as dependent on LJ for that to happen as I am. It just makes me sad when friends leave, or mostly step away from LJ, because it means that I lose contact with people that are important for me. But hey, I've come to realize that's how it is.

Sockpuppet accounts at LJ scares me. It has to do with control. I like to know who I talk to. I mean - not always knowing exactly who I talk to - more that I know that I do NOT talk to this or that person. Like - I commented on a fic the other day. It was a rather personal comment, so I did it through PM. What I said was absolutely not about anyone else, and I could have said it in public, hadn't it been for knowing that there are one person I didn't want to read that because of previous discussions (that they might not even remember - they are not on my flist, and has never been - so they probably don't even remember me. It's just that I clearly remember that discussion.) If I had found out that the author posting that fic, and therefor received my PM was just a sockpuppet for that person, then I would have been devestated. And because of the excessive use of sockpuppets here in LJ, I never feel quite comfortable outside my own flocked posts. I used to post everything public, and have gone more and more paranoid. I don't like that development.
Eh - you know me, I am weird.

[tanisafan.livejournal.com]

I agree with ALL of this. So very much.

(Except for the twitter thing. Because a lot of the time, 140 characters is all the attention span I have *g*.)

[bflyw.livejournal.com]

:-)
Hey - why haven't we friended each other a long time ago? We have been in the same circles for years now.

[tanisafan.livejournal.com]

I have no idea, actually! But I remedied that right now ;)! <3

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

You have no idea how happy I am to get such an extensive comment. *hugs you* This is exactly why I cling to Livejournal!

Facebook didn't work as an old friends finder for me, because I changed my last name so people aren't able to find me there plus most people I knew in school simply didn't pick up on the whole social network thing. I know this because I only found one or two on the Dutch network Hyves and they barely know how to do updates there;-)
I can understand wanting to get in touch with old friends, but what I learned from my last school-reunion is that we have nothing in common except a shared past and that's not enough to start or continue a friendship. I really hope that the relationships you found on Facebook weigh up against not feeling happy there.

Like any other network Twitter suffers from a massive amount of attention from people who simply need to have a huge circle of followers/followees, but I only hang with those who don't care how big their friends-list is. The celebs I follow are also all down to earth people because my favorite kind of tweets are the ones that announce simply daily adventures, from enjoying a sunrise, bitching about the weather or feeling bad about not doing housework. It makes me feel connected to the whole world;)

I too depend on LJ to interact more in depth with people and it saddens me that a lot of people left in favor for short messages on FB and Twitter. A lot of my friends now post through Dreamwidth, but as long as I can't take my precious LJ lay-out with me, I'm not going there. I do hang around on Tumblr a lot, but I don't understand people who use that as a blog. It's good for sharing interests, but doesn't work for me for personal messages.

Ah, yes, the sockpuppet. I made one because I hate commenting anonymously. I like to leave a name and be accountable and approachable about things I say. In a round about way that's exactly the same reason as why you don't like them, I guess;)
I completely understand why you are careful. I wouldn't call it paranoid; it's your way to feel comfortable online and that's fine. Others need sockpuppets to feel safe in certain areas and that's cool in my book too. (I'm obviously not talking about people who abuse their account to attack others, I prefer to focus on good intentions;)

You're not weird, we all have our own preferences for dealing with life and the internet. That's why I appreciate it so that we can talk in detail about these issues: live and learn!

[bflyw.livejournal.com]

well - I have more trouble shutting up than leaving extensive comments ;-)

My last school-reunion was this Saturday, and let's say I didn't go to too much trouble to get there - so when I 'unfortunately couldn't go', I wasn't too sad about it. I have never been to a school reunion btw - I don't really see the point. Except - maybe if it was high-school, there was some nice people there.

The two people I have re-connected with is worth it. :-) It's my best (and basically only) friend from Highschool, and a girl which I used to play with one weekend every year (and a couple of summer vacations) when my dad and her dad ran the same orienteering games. They ran for different districts (dad in the counties Akershus and Østfold, while her dad ran the games in the counties Hedemark and Oppland), so it was only that ONE big tournament each year that their orienteering club arranged, and dad's club always compeeted in, that we met each year. And then a couple of week longs summer tournaments in Sweeden (where ppl from all over the world compeeted.) I was so happy when she contacted me through FB a couple of weeks back, saying that she had thought about getting in touch with me again for a few years, and that she finally found me. It must be 20-25 years since we last saw each other.

Twitter just---- I like to TALK with people. Hell, I like to talk, period. And when I talk, I like to get response, for me a conversation is when one talk, the other talk back, and the first one response to that again. Back and forth. It's a beautiful thing! That just doesn't happen much on twitter - exacept from you, Sillie82 and Moviegeek.... but you are all on LJ as well.

I have a tumbl account - but I haven't really figured out how it works. I might be stupid... I just didn't see the use of that. I understand that I could put up my picts etc there to share - but well - again, I kind of like that respons that you can get, that I didn't se happen there. I didn't really figure out to give response to others either. I am sure you can, but I just didn't figure out any thing other than to 'like' a picture.

So for me, flicr became my place to share my pictures. Not than anyone comments there either, but at least I have more control, and I can display it better. And I am trying to figure out how to import my flicr photostream to my webpage (that I will make) at my domain bflyw.net that I bought a few years back, but haven't really used. It's typical - the webdesigner just can't make a website for herself.

But all scripts I have found so far is php, and I program in asp :-/ But I won't give up.
Hey - maybe that should be my goal for today?

I can totally see the use for sockpuppet, and I have actually thought about it myself (for good use). But it doesn't take away the unease I feel not knowing if there migh hide another 'known' person behind that name.

Yes, I am weird, but I am okay with that LOL

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

I've been to two reunions: one at the closing of my old middleschool (I attended that from age 8 to 12) which was sweet. The second was from highschool and I felt like I was back in school. Not that I had a bad time then, but I was editor of the schoolpaper and the activities committee and at the reunion I hung with the exact same group again instead of talking to everyone like an adult and finding out what they were all doing now. It felt like nothing had changed which was disappointing. In the end I prefer to remember everyone as they were back then;)

Most of my social networks overlap; so the people I communicate with on LJ are also the ones I talk to on Twitter;)

Tumblr is my happy place where I can just sit quietly in the corner and enjoy looking at people. I find it annoying that you can't really respond in private (without reblogging) and I try to only follow people who don't reblog each other. I rarely post or reblog, but mostly scroll and fill up my like-corner:) Whenever I'm bored or down, I go through my collection. For instance I follow an artblog and a couple of fanblogs; the beauty, comedy and pretty are very soothing.

An example of an arty post I liked

All my Tumblr likes :-)

If I ever come across you in my sockpuppet disguise I will introduce myself, but I doubt we hang in the same circles in that identity;)

[bflyw.livejournal.com]

Oh, I really likes that art post!
:-)

[kennsea.livejournal.com]

Heh, I'm surprised you follow me anywhere seeing the amount of bullshit I say and the cutesy animal pics ;)

[tanisafan.livejournal.com]

Seriously, I constantly want to unfollow you and your cutesy animal pictures. So gross :p.

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Well, this is where your lack of updating saves you;) But don't think I didn't notice the "cute" on my Tumblr dashboard. *glares* I learned from experience to not click on your twitpics :-p