Why are you not posting

Present levels of abuse are fine albeit the art of the zing is being lost? Idk, idk. I wouldn't mind a bit more knockabout stuff so long as it doesn't punch down so much as across

And so long as it's funny. ILX is incontrovertibly less funny than it was

That's true. I think maybe it comes down to it being harder to surprise each other these days? I feel like I understand a plurality of deems's jokes these days ;_;

That's because he's gone senile

Jude the obtuse thats me

The key is to embrace shitposting, as I have.

We might need a ""shitposting"" has the meaning changed? thread

Tbf ‘shit’ in English is bafflingly polysemous to us ESL folks.

mike-t thats an interesting post!

ilx is not very cutting anymore, and bar the odd long-entrenched personality/policy (and after this long on a board for ideas theres essentially no difference tbh) clash ppl really dont seem to me to say very much mean to each other at all, rly

When they disagree on policy type issues, all bets are off but that criticism seems to me to be as dismissive and ad hom as it ever was- people are here so long that not very many are too interested in hearing anything from anyone else anymore i would say (vs the bad old days ppl seem to remember anyway)

But the day to day zings, which were often absolutely killer btw, are p much gone as a part of the site. Most ppl giving and taking these brushed them off as part of the tone of the site but it was also often (not always, not always) softened by the idea that in another thread thered be a conversation about whatever going on where the same posters were just burbling away happily. We discussed a lot more stuff and lot more breezily here once as well as talking through things in ye olde longer post stylings between heavyweights

Now, for me anyway, theres less of a thread by thread feel/culture and the personas and relative positioning of same carry over across every thread and board, again maybe its all one with posters being long long term here and everyone playing their parts at this stage.

Ive no idea what the question was

That's true. I think maybe it comes down to it being harder to surprise each other these days? I feel like I understand a plurality of deems's jokes these days ;_;

In this place, which is full of smart and funny people, I know I'll never attain the sort of special status which I've become used to. In fact, it's quite the reverse: I generally feel that any contribution which I might make will be of lesser value. My opinions might be too banal, my wit too lame, my knowledge eclipsed by others.

xp The changing shared external environments over time def a huge part, as well as us all getting old together and all that, yeah

otm

xp

The cruellest xp ;_;

There had to be one person on ilx who liked me better

Interesting post from mike t-d...I've been here for a similar length of time, find it fascinating, and am also very much in the 'observer' category.

The reason is time really. I feel that to be a core committed member you really have to be dedicated to putting the hours in and following and responding in real time to the cut and thrust of posts. As it is, I'm content to dip in - mostly as a passive consumer.

I’m sorry, deems, it’s just that my main commitment itt is to relieve lurkers of their lingering shyness. Not being arsed to post is a perfectly legitimate position, however.

I applaud the effort

Wouldnt think of neither luna nor mike-t as particularly invisible posters at all fwiw

There had to be one person on ilx who liked me better

― scampless, rattled and puce (gyac), Wednesday, 3 March 2021 17:17 (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

POLL

On Deem's observation that "we discussed a lot more stuff and lot more breezily here once", this is true and there's often a rush of nostalgia when I see an early ile thread. People were a lot more open about their personal situations in the early days, which made for more distinctive voices - but quite understandably that kind of candour has mostly disappeared.

people are more wary about sharing stuff on internet now, i think

I think these are in fact less dangerous times to post personal information. Much less chance of someone, for example, idk...making a ytmnd of your sexual confessions using a picture someone else lifted unasked from your Facebook. If anything we should feel more comfortable posting all sorts of nonsense

I'm posting less - mostly due to being increasingly insanely busy for a way longer stretch of time than I had hoped/anticipated - but I do like to think, or like to believe, ilx is a place one can always return to, even after a (long) hiatus. Which isn't about having earned your stripes or being what mike describes as being or having become "an ilx person".

I don't see colour ilx people, I see a community with people drifing in and out, some always here, some perhaps overstaying their welcome, but a loosely connected yet connected array of individuals all the same. There is no "ilx person" imo, nor should there be.

But this is all perspective, I can see how others feel different. Regardless mike, to me you are def part of the community.

I really appreciate this place. Thank you all for tolerating me.

Thanks LBI, I appreciate that.

Seconding that - you're OG as far as I'm concerned!

But the newbies are also welcome I *guessss*

I think my brain has always had a bit of trouble with the text only format in terms of tracking individual personalities. A group of the longtime posters that I can match to a face or some other more straightforward memory, are easier to respond to. The new layers have gotten deeper and denser over time and without energy to sift it all, it’s maybe better to opt out.

as a lurker, as a college student, i used to feel like mike the diva felt, overwhelmed by how knowledgable and interesting the people here seemed, especially compared to the rest of the internet. these days i feel too close to ilx to really say what it's like, if it is good or bad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_z_UEuEMAo

when i started posting, i was super intimidated. i think i started posting here -- and posting in a very transparent way, just writing what i thought even when i knew it would sound dumb to the cognoscenti -- because at some level, way below the threshold of consciousness, i wanted to be rejected by this community i admired. this is a weird thing to admit -- i just thought of it and i'm not even sure it's true. but when think back to who i was at 24, i really hated myself. i had no career prospects and i had just been dumped by a person i thought i was going to spend my life with. in any case, this community didn't reject me after all. that meant a lot to me -- probably more than i even realize.

again, i'm backtracking a lot here. i am no longer starstruck by the posters whose bylines i recognized or whatever. but yeah, when i was in my early twenties, i absolutely felt that way.

always liked your posts treeship

thanks dan. same to you.

treesh our origin stories are remarkably similar tbh

it's weird because i, in most respects, have a pathological fear of rejection. something to discuss the ol' psychoanalyst's couch.

Eh not the whole profile now buck, just the origin story

Physician, heal thyself.

fwiw mike-t-diva I always think of you as one of the disco experts around here

I would post more but often what I have to contribute is redundant - nearly always, someone has already said it faster and with more eloquence than me. When I see people casually tossing out posts full of insight and with flair and humour, I want to be positively contributing to the conversation in the same way.

Yeah, disco and Discogs are mostly where you'll find me posting...

I feel like I should post more, tweet more, email more, zoom more, talk to people 2m apart more. Shit is exhausting tbf.

I would post more but often what I have to contribute is redundant - nearly always, someone has already said it faster and with more eloquence than me. When I see people casually tossing out posts full of insight and with flair and humour, I want to be positively contributing to the conversation in the same way.

this for me.

but also I'm busier than ever off board and can't even lurk as much as I used to. hard to believe but there are even days where I don't look at ilx at all!

mike t-diva, I relate strongly to a lot of your post. I was a lurker far longer than I ever posted. Started posting again because a) this place has become much smaller, and because of that more tolerant; and b) from a selfish pov, I might get the occasional zing or apathy, but at least I don't get someone's racist friend chiming in as I would on Facebook or an avalanche of look-at-this-nazi posts (meaning quotes of actual nazis, not that I get called a nazi) as I do on twitter. If you have numerous online communities outside of social media, gotta say I'm jealous!

I lurked for years before posting, never posted enough to be a regular. Went through periods of not posting at all because I didn’t feel that I could commit the time and energy to even be noticed, let alone engaged with. But thanks in part to the occasional otm and an unexpected excelsior, I’ve come around to being comfortable as an occasional poster, and I don’t feel shunted aside for not being a regular anymore. All it takes really is a bit of friendly interaction and engagement to make someone feel welcome, and for all the talk of how ILX used to be different and better in some ways, I think that’s one thing that nu-ILX does better. There are people here I think of as friends - whether it’s because of a kindly interaction at some point, possibly forgotten by them but not by me, or because of my early sojourn in the slack, at a time when I really needed people and they were there for me. But as the slack grew I found it impossible to be an occasional contributor and still keep up, whereas back here in the warm confines of ILX, it seems to work out fine.

i've already embarrassed myself enough

But as the slack grew I found it impossible to be an occasional contributor and still keep up, whereas back here in the warm confines of ILX, it seems to work out fine.

Very much my experience as well. As LBI put it upthread, you can drift in and out of ILX and remain a member in spirit, and this flexibility is part of the appeal, as though every return were a new beginning in medias res.

For a moment I thought that was referring to the ILX Slack channel.

You were correct!

Damn, big up to Lord Vic.

The cover of their live album from 1999 is, uh, something.

In case anyone wants to google that, yes, it's NSFW.

he was hanging around with the anus.com folk back then, until he realized they were actual Nazis and fled

Maybe! I mean quite probably! My experience of twitter is that it's as much of a bubble as anything else? I often see other ppl freaking out about what "Twitter" writ large is saying when my timeline is not saying that at all.

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Friday, March 5, 2021 4:17 PM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's the "retweet" feature that really does the thing I'm complaining about

And fair point but I'm not necessarily commenting on the "bubble" effect. Yes all social media definitely has that problem!