2020 Friending Meme

[st_aurafina]

This helped me a lot in early 2017 when Trump had just been elected, and I am hoping we can get the same feeling going again, after the UK election was such a shock.

Connections are important when it feels like the world is getting darker. Fandom is a huge and strong network of people. We don't always get along, but we're stronger together.

Make new friends, reconnect with those who have drifted, enlarge your circle, and know you are not alone.

To play, cut and paste this text into a comment, fill out the details and tell us about yourself. Then go find new people to add.

<strong>DW username</strong>: <strong>Preferred pronouns:</strong> <strong>Other platforms (tumblr, twitter, etc)</strong>: <strong>Active/primary interests or fandoms</strong>: (keep this fairly short, so people will read it!) <strong>If you've seen me around, it's probably because</strong>: (how might people have seen you online / in fandom?) <strong>I post about</strong>: (fandom, real life, or a combination) <strong>I post/check my feed</strong>: (daily, weekly, twice a year, etc) <strong>I want to find people that post about</strong>: (specific fandoms, fandom in general, books, RL, SJ, etc) <strong>I am most interested in interacting with people on:</strong> (DW, Twitter, Tumblr, etc) <strong>My blog is</strong>: (public, selectively public, friends-only) <strong>Anything else you need to know about me:</strong> (A good place to talk about your fandom shipping preferences, characters, type of fic/art/etc you like. Or link to your intro post. Or put a cute photo of your cat.)

If you don't have a Dreamwidth account, you can sign up for one here.
If you're new to Dreamwidth and you've left OpenID comments on DW before, you can link your IDs here: How can I claim my OpenID account with my Dreamwidth account?

Play nice.

And feel free to promote wherever you like with this handy box of linkage:

<a href="https://st-aurafina.dreamwidth.org/287751.html"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/ooqK0gK.png" alt="Let's Stick Together: a friending meme for a new year. Image is two giraffes, one leaning almost at right angles to put their head on their friend's neck."></a>

ETA on Sat morning AEST: This text box was functionally busted a few hours ago, so if you grabbed the code then, you might have an image with no link. It's fixed now, with all new alt text for screen readers. If your promo link is just an image, please replace the code with what's in the box now. Thanks for all the posts, btw! Giraffes popping up everywhere.

Comments

[ng_moonmoth]

I'm a survivor of a roughly thirty-year tech career in Silicon Valley. Likely to cash in on the insane housing market sometime soon and go someplace less hectic.

As for Japan, it's a significant player in the world economy, supposedly wary of outsiders, and has a stereotypical and no doubt exaggerated reputation of inscrutability. I toured there for nearly a month in 2007, which gave me a more accurate impression of the people and some idea of the culture. I would like to know more.

Because you are an outsider who is nevertheless embedded to some degree in their culture, I believe I can learn much from your experience. This also might relate to my own experience as a gender outsider in a culture that places far too much emphasis on gender.

I appreciate your willingness to honor neopronouns and interest in trans and nonbinary issues. I like your dragonfly icon; our yardscape is dragonfly-friendly, and we enjoy seeing them.

[sagemessalina]

How interesting!

Haha, the reason I asked is because I don't often see anyone writing 'gaijin' in italics besides very earnest white people who read James Clavell. It's used as a punchline more often than not by English speakers living here (ie 'gaijin card' or 'gaijin smash,' or anything on the site https://www.therisingwasabi.com/).

Any insights I may have are probably more based on being a highly privileged immigrant than otherness or Japan, but I'm very happy to share!

Apologies if this is irrelevant or eye roll-inducing, but have you been following the Contrapoints drama?

[ng_moonmoth]

>> I don't often see anyone writing 'gaijin' in italics <<

I decided to use romaji instead of digging up the kanji for the sake of general readability. And used italics because that is what I understand as one standard typographical convention for foreign words. I don't think it's become a loan word like "sushi" or "kimono" yet.

>> very earnest white people who read James Clavell <<

White people, yes. Also guilty as charged for Shogun, just like a whole lotta folks around then. And watched the miniseries. And recognized that it was all a bunch of white-guy fiction that really didn't line up too well with how things were then, let alone now. As for "very earnest", I read that as your wondering whether I was pretending to be more knowledgeable about Japanese culture than I actually am. Instead, I was trying to acknowledge my standing with respect to that culture, and the difficulty it will pose in improving my understanding.

>> anything on the site https://www.therisingwasabi.com/ <<

I went over and took a look. It reads like the local equivalent of The Onion.

>> Any insights I may have are probably more based on being a highly privileged immigrant than otherness or Japan, but I'm very happy to share! <<

Interesting status. I may find out more about that as I find out more about you.

>> Apologies if this is irrelevant or eye roll-inducing, but have you been following the Contrapoints drama? <<

I heard some things about it, but hadn't taken much of a look. Found the article posted by Jesse Singal on Medium to refresh my memory. It is indeed relevant, and any eye-rolling is because of the idiocy of progressives using purity tests to tear their movement apart.

There were a bunch of interesting and valid points in the article. Plus further confirmation that Twitter is indeed a Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy. I could go on at further length, but this doesn't strike me as the right spot. Please let me know if you'd like me to PM you my opinions.