i'd not heard of them until a few months ago
ok, so i know i should be working(that actually seems to be a good way to end the day working - i was mucho productivo yesterday afternoon. yahoo!), but...
blogs, right.
now, i'd not heard of them until a few months ago, when i found a link at the bottom of a fellow list-member's post. no, scrap that. i read a little article in a newpaper about them. looked them up, thought 'argh, teenage poetry', cringed and moved on.
and now, i'm blogging myself. i hadn't intended to blog. The Squeeze bought me this domain for my birthday in 2002, and we'd meant to get cracking on it right away. but i couldn't figure out dreamweaver, and The Squeeze is so far beyond me in geekdom that we couldn't communicate well enough on the subject for me to learn anything useful. we were also fussing over our freeswingpress site, which also didn't get off the ground, as we couldn't agree on design, he got caught up in the tecnicalities, i wrote a million articles and we moved on.
but now i'm blogging. like i said, i hadn't intentended to blog. i had wanted to learn to intynet.
this is a big thing for a girl who hadn't had much time for the internet since she discovered it in 1993 in the uq computer labs. sure, i'd done some online publishing in a journal (don't ask me to link - it's a somewhat shameful memory) in about 1997, but it wasn't really my thing. i was nuts about discussion lists, but that's an email thing, rather than an internet thing (yes, i do discriminate).
but discussion boards led me to it.
it was The Squeeze who got me interested in the internet in a serious way. he's mr computer nerd. i'm not. well i wasn't. but i don't think i'm really an internet geek. there are other things i care about more. i think that the internet has kind of moved from geekworld into the realworld. for me, anyway.
well, our having adsl at home has helped me get interested. and finding out about music online. my current chapter's on djing and music use in swing communities. the internet is really important in this - i know that i found out about swing music in a big way from online sources when i was researching this chapter... part of me is feeling so uncomfortable with the way this is so obviously marking out djing as an elite, or inaccessible role in the swing community. the way swing is marked 'elite' by the major role the internet and online communications play. argh. what's a feminist to do? get out of swing, i reckon. right now i'm convinced it's untenable for a Sister.
but anyway, now my thesis is really interested in online community stuff. i've come a long way since my frustrations with cyberpunk bullshit in 1994. and so's the internet.
now there are far more interesting people to play with online.
but i'm still not sure this is the thing for me. i'm sure as shit not interested in just wacking my shit up on the web and letting it stand alone. i like the interactive stuff best.
but i'm really looking for some interesting online academic work. so i can really think and really write. rather than just blathering. oh well. keep hunting, i guess.
Posted by Dogpossum on March 17, 2004 12:22 PMno, no. it's my excellent written expression. i am taking liberties with this little foray into vanity publishing...
Posted by: dogpossum at March 17, 2004 08:16 PMAh, I see. I assumed you were referring to elitism in net communities. My bad. I don't know much about cyberpunk as literature (but I've read and liked some post-cyberpunk fiction by authors like Neal Stephenson or Cory Doctorow...)
Posted by: lackaff at March 17, 2004 07:39 PMi take your point, lackaff. but when i say 'my frustrations with the cyberpunk bullshit in 1994', i mean the ways i found cyberpunk - as a literary movement - utterly frustrating when i was looking at it as a student in 1994. my experiences with onliney stuff in 1994 were pretty damn limited. we're talking email (sort of), but mostly just a bit of websurfing.... damn i have to go to the gym. i'll write more later when i have a chance.
(ta for writing, though)
Greets. Since you like the "interactive stuff," here I go...
I'm curious what you mean when you mention "cyberpunk bullshit in 1994". 1994 was rather a good year for online community -- Rheingold was extolling the virtues of the WELL, USENET communities were not yet crippled by trolls and spam, local and internet BBSs flourished... Sure, the net was still mostly an exclusive and masculine club. But the (socioeconomic/technical/cultural) barriers to entry had a largely beneficial effect upon the (admittedly elitest) online communities that were able to form.
Posted by: lackaff at March 17, 2004 02:57 PM