nothing like as good as usenet

[agoodwinsmith]

So, back whenever, I could see that it would be more and more difficult to access usenet and the really excellent newsgroups there.  So, I made a stab at getting myself connected - facebook, livejournal, blog-o-rama (which I ran out of time and never used, which is why I can't remember its correct name).  They are fun each in their own way, and I like them well enough.  Recently, when there was a scare on livejournal, I reactivated my dreamwidth (why dream *width*?, wny not dream cumulonimbus?), and promptly let it go to weeds again.  And then I dipped my toe in twitter, and I must say that with twitter, I still don't get it.  I mean, I enjoy some of the silliness, like Elizabeth Windsor and ginoclock, but really, I don't really get it, really.

And along comes google+, and I want one, of course I want one, *everybody's* got one so I want one - and now I have one and .... um.

And, I mean, you've got to keep trying things, 'cuz you don't know whether you'll like them until you try them - money not being a barrier, of course, which it is not always of course, of course - 'cuz if you *stop*, your brain will seize up, and you'll start saying "kids today" and other terminal stuff.
 

But the fatal flaw with all of these new things, fun (or not) as they may be, is that you have to already know somebody in order to be social with them.  The amount the social thing knows and shares about a person makes the person a little anxious to just share willy nilly with any old other person that comes along.

The absolutely amazing thing about usenet is that regardless of whether strangers love you or hate you, you can get yourself out there where anybody at all interested in the same thing as you will see.  And you can read the posts of people you would never meet in a million years.  And it's interesting and amazing.

And, except for Facebook, which has become the family nexus of aunties and cousins once and twice removed, the only people that I connect with on the other social media are people I met on usenet.

Nothing like as good.

Comments

[cat63.livejournal.com]

And, except for Facebook, which has become the family nexus of aunties and cousins once and twice removed, the only people that I connect with on the other social media are people I met on usenet.

I certainly started out like that, but I've made some friends on LJ as well, mostly from communities like 100snapshots and 50bookchallenge where I've commented and got into discussions with people. In fairness, most of my LJ friends list is probably usenet people though.

[ciciaye.livejournal.com]

I think Livejournal, Facebook and Twitter etc have their own advantages, but I wouldn't have discovered any of them if it hadn't been for usenet, particularly afp. I met most of my current friends through afp :-)

It's a shame afp itself has changed so much over the years, and it isn't really the newsgroup I know and love any more. (#afp, on the other hand, is still great, and being part of the wider afp/#afp community is lovely)