know that we'll have Conversations in my imagination

*oh boy*

Earlier today, I was unfortunately reminded of the bullies that I experienced on LiveJournal.

I also hated my time on Tumblr for the same reasons.

Whilst LiveJournal will forever be the home of my heart on the internet, and I am very sad that I can't spend time there anymore because of the Russia stuff, part of me is glad that my blogging had a fresh start. LiveJournal will always be there, and maybe someday, I will go back to it.

I've been on LiveJournal since 2003--back when  you had to be invited. I have been an LJ user for over 20 years. My original account was removed from the site because of the extreme bullying I was experiencing on there, and was gifted a paid account---one that I continued to pay for even after the gift expired because I loved the gifted experience so much. I was never a curated or fancy blogger. I wasn't what you would have considered "aesthetic," although I certainly had my own aesthetic that I cultivated. 

But (unfortunately) back to the bullies.

My original account on LiveJournal was targeted by people I went to school with. They were my classmates who found my site, and would leave the most horrifying comments. Even when I posted privately or f-locked posts, they would post in their own journals about me; often times, they would use my whole name. When I finally moved to the new account, I was targeted by people in anti-Tori Amos groups run by embittered former fans for daring to continue to like her music. 

Something about the anonymity that just makes people so so emboldened to be the nastiest they can possibly be; that also comes out on Reddit, and I absolutely hate that it in turns makes me so aggro. It brings a lot of ugliness out of me that I don't like. The sheer fearlessness behind their unhinged nastiness is something that has always scared me--is this what humanity really is? Is our default setting when no one is looking and when we are anonymous cruelty?  Is THAT who we really are?

And, look, I know intellectually that I should not care what the losers on TBL Survivors or sadfrenchpeople say about me or anyone else. I know intellectually, this is absolutely loser behaviour, bottom feeder behaviour. Intellectually, I am acutely aware that nice or sane people do not send anon death threats into people's Tumblr inboxes, screenshot LiveJournal entries when someone is having a mental crisis, make posts dedicated to mocking people's tattoos. I am aware that naming these communities is like talking about Fight Club and generally considered, but I don't care. Truly, I do not care about the 'rules' when they certainly don't GAFS and they named ME by NAME! 

I remember when I  openly talked about sadfrenchpeople on Tumblr, and members of the anon meme asked me to take my posts down. I was responding to one of their posts saying that I, at the age of 26, was "too old" to get into music. The audacity of these people was next level. The whole meme itself was terrifying--people saying not only the cruelest things about you possible, but also making up whole interactions, lying about things you said or did. I was going to talk about it. 

I know what makes me a repeated target for bullying--I am both a vulnerable and sensitive person, and I will not be quiet. I have no issues naming communities or accounts that dedicated themselves to cataloging the online use of others, obsessively, psychotically. I literally do not care of naming the linking these goons is considered a faux pas, because why should people who do not play by any kind of societal rules be dignified with any kind of mutual respect?

My LiveJournal is just a time capsule now of a me I don't want to revisit. I deleted my Tumblr  account finally in 2022. I did not want to have a capsule of those memories.

And I know--I KNOW--that none of these things should matter, but they really, genuinely effect me to this day. I will almost never post pictures of my tattoos online anymore, no matter how happy I am with them, unless they are completely f-locked. I don't post any of my art anymore, and I have almost entirely stopped drawing altogether. I don't like to check my inboxes on anything, I don't like to look at the comments I get for fear or seeing something nasty. I have this very blog removed from Google searches--because even though there are far worse things out there being written and people of considerable more interest, it only takes one obsessive person who dedicates an afternoon to obsessively catalog everything. And what if, by their estimation, I have done something wrong? Even now I cringe inwardly looking at my stats and the considerable  and baffling amount of traffic I get on here because I worry this is all being shared somewhere else to picked apart, scrutinized and/or brutally mocked.

It's not paranoia when the precedent has been set. 

I know who I am, and I think that's always intimidated people. I am a lot of things, but I am not insecure about who I am. And I certainly know I am not one of those losers who skulks around the dark corners of the internet bullying other people.

I've always liked blogging. As soon as I knew what it was, I loved it. I love slow and long-form writing. I love photo essays and long and detailed accounts of people's travels and day to day lives. I love animation and fashion blogs. Of course I love the endless scroll content formats--Instagram photo and video carousels are a  great similarity to ye olde blogs. We love consuming synthetic and manufactured vulnerability, so outlets like TikTok and Instagram feed into that--yet the internet as a whole continues to remain cruel to those who actually want to be vulnerable. Whether or not the cultural pendulum swings back into longer and slower forms of communication (notice how I didn't say "content"), I will still be here.

I will still be here and still blogging (in a bully-free zone). No matter what the rest of the world is doing.

*Although I understand that Substack--which I am never joining-- is also a thing, and it's basically a blogging newsletter. Not sure I understand thinking people need or want mine or anyone else's long-winded opinions in their inboxes, though.....