A fundamental disconnect from the connected world

And now an explanation of why I bothered with the Livejournal plug-in.
In the past few weeks, I’ve gotten e-mails from a couple of folks I worked with or knew otherwise who had just stumbled across my blog for the first time, and one asked me a question that I found a bit odd – “Why don’t you have a Myspace site?”
It’s time I owned up to my virtual sins: in case you hadn’t guessed it, I’m way behind on the whole “social internet” thing. Which is odd, isn’t it? I was an early adopter of the online world (back in the BBS days) and then of the internet, and then of having a web site. These days, compared to the folks who are on Myspace, Livejournal, Xanga and just about every other “social networking” site out there, it’s actually a bit alarming to find out how far behind the curve I really am. I can say I probably read fewer than 15 blogs every week, and quite a few of those are in the (soon to be extinct) blog section at Digital Press. Quite a few of the friends whose blogs I would read are even further behind that curve than I am.
Don’t get me wrong, I know there’s more to the blogosphere than “dear diary” (though I’ll admit equally to not having found much more interesting stuff to post in my own blog that doesn’t meet that description) – there’s political and technical and ideological discourse aplenty. But the Myspace thing I’m not sure I get. Some of my friends have Myspace pages set up, or Livejournal, but I seldom see much from them on how they’re doing – all the action is in the area where your friends leave you messages. Or, actually, to be more precise, where your friends (and, in all likelihood, total strangers) leave you huge animated GIFs that basically say “Have a nice day” over and over again. Color me old and cranky, but I just don’t see the value of it. Maybe I’m missing something here.
So am I an antisocial social networker? I could actually see that being part of the answer. I’m no social butterfly in person. I put my whole site together so other folks can see and enjoy it, but I don’t expect much feedback. It could just be that my generation – in online terms at least – is falling by the wayside. After reading “Commodork” recently, I was struck by Rob talking about maintaining close friendships with his old BBS buddies, and I got to thinking about it – and nearly the entire staff of my web site consists of people I’ve known for years, back to the Fidonet days at the very latest. Rob’s book also makes a mention of how the old BBS days represented a bit of a technical meritocracy: if you could figure out the modem commands, you were in the club. If not, you were a prehistoric forerunner of today’s net n00bs. These days, that meritocracy doesn’t exist, and it seems like the inmates are running the asylum. Don’t get me wrong, the internet is a great force for good, free thought, free speech, the spreading of ideas, and the spamming of the masses. But it’s also like network television – you’ve got to wade through a lot of Jackass and Blind Date before you get to, say, the first couple of seasons of West Wing.
The internet, in short, has become a Popular Medium. It’s not mine anymore. Not mine alone, anyway. Which means I have to adjust to some new ways of doing things.
I took a look at plugins that might crosspost Scribblings to a Myspace account as well, because there’s some appeal to finally caving in and creating such an account…and then leaving it alone until further notice, posting my dispatches from afar. (See? Antisocial.) As it turns out, there’s no stable way to achieve that; the one WP-to-Myspace plugin that used to work, XrisXros, seems to have fallen by the wayside due to changes made to both platforms, and its programmer got tired of trying to keep up with those changes. Can’t blame him. I hope someone cracks that problem in the future.
If only so folks will stop asking me when I’m going to sign up for Myspace. I just don’t really plan on it until then. Sorry if that’s just me being antisocial.