Randomosity

[mitchy]

1) I used to really miss not being able to read LJ during the day because by the time I got home in the evening to read stuff, people had already commented and moved on. And now that I can read LJ during the day, there's been very little traffic and almost nothing that couldn't have waited until evening. Sod's Law, I hear you cackling....

2) If I see one more post on my flist from someone going "Oh woe, my paid account expires today, I'll miss the polls and the icons!", I am going to post a reply that says "You know damn well that by posting this, someone will stump up for paid time for you; if you're going to beg, at least admit it."

3) Goodness, am I the only person who reacts to crises by, y'know, dealing with them? We seem to be turning into a planet of people who can't cope unless they're on tranqs. I get being overwhelmed sometimes, I've been there, we all have. So take a step back, breathe, rant to a friend, whatever. But to flail and stick your head in the sand, rant on LJ about "OMGMYLIFEISSOHARD!" and hope it'll all go away every time you get an owie boo-boo? Get a backbone, puh-lease. (And I'm not talking about those with legitimate mental conditions, so put the burning torches and pitchforks down....)

4) In unrelated news, I'm getting remarkably intolerent in my old age :P

4a) I may possibly need more soothing tea....

Comments

[commoncomitatus]

Gotta disagree, emphatically, on one particular corner of 3). Ranting on LJ is at least as cathartic as ranting to a friend, and can on occasion be even more so. Moreover, I always find - and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this - that ranting in a blog entry about how one's life is sooo hard often proves to be a first-class ticket to turning around, rereading what you've just written, and realising that things could be worse.

If you feel like it's the end of the world, then what the hell is so bad about coming out and saying that it feels that way. Nobody's saying it IS the end of the world, just ranting about how they feel in a particular moment. IMHO, there's no difference whatsoever in ranting about one's trobules to a friend or ranting in one's blog. In both contexts you're taking a breath, sitting back, and ranting about it, so what's the difference? Ranting is ranting, and if it's okay to rant in one place, then why in the name of all things holy is it not okay to do the same thing in another?

[cookwitch.livejournal.com]

I suspect the lady means things like this:

OMG I HIT MY TOE MY LIFE SUCKS!
or
WAH WAH WAH MY MUM WON'T GIVE ME EVERYTHING I WANT WAH WAH
or
MY LIFE IS CRAP BECAUSE I CANNOT HAVE IT ALL ON A PLATE AND THE MOON ONNA STICK.

That sort of thing.

[severe-delays.livejournal.com]

I agree with this. I'm quite happy to use my blog to rant/whine/go all emo-kitteh because it's MY blog. If others don't like it then they don't have to read. That said, I think there's a balance and I tend to r/w/g a e-k using filters so that only my actual friends or people I think would understand can read it.

It still annoys me that people will use their blog to vent and then do nothing about the situation though. Not even use the writing to reflect or make themselves feel better. Some folks do seem to be caught in a spiral of venting which doesn't benefit them at all.

[cookwitch.livejournal.com]

There's having a good old vent - and then there is having a whiiiiine.
Vent = cathartic
Whiney whiney = boring after the nth time of whining at everyone and not actually doing anything about it.

I'm all in favour of a good old rant.

[oucellogal.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I can only speak for myself, but when I write about something, it is ultimately because I feel a need to write about it. I write, first and foremost, for me. People are welcome to skip over anything they find boring/uninteresting/repetitive/annoying. My LJ is not a consumer product, and entertaining the people who read it, charming as all of you are, is not my chief aim. I'm willing to go out on a limb here and say that I'm not alone. People write about all kinds of things, and some of those things seem inconsequential, but if someone cares enough to actually sit down and write about it, then it's far from inconsequential to them. Yes, I think people can get caught in a constant spiral of whining, but sometimes life just sucks, and those for whom this is true honestly cannot be bothered to care whether their entries entertain the masses. It's a blog, not a novel.

[severe-delays.livejournal.com]

For me the point is not that a particular blog is used to vent/whine. It's that some people continually whine and yet make no effort to better their situation or change their attitude to it. If there is a crisis they don't try to deal with it, they just complain. I really hate that attitude. By all means vent/whine in life - god knows, I do it myself. But don't keep whining about things when you could fairly easily deal with them. In general there seems to be such an attitude these days* that things should be perfect and if not then we are incapable of fixing them without the assistance/permission of other people. Just get off your ass and sort it fercryingoutloud.

*Why yes, I did feel old writing that. What makes you ask?

[mitchy.livejournal.com]

I think I made it clear in answer to another comment, I'm not talking about the sort of ranting that gets things off your chest and is between friends. People on your flist generally know when that happens and they will wander by with tea and sympathy or a kick up the arse as is needed. That's fine and dandy, that's one of the best things about LJ.

What I'm talking about is an endless, endless self-pitying "woe is me"-fest of an LJ that only accomplishes one of two things: everyone reading the LJ has this burning urge to defriend you or else it manipulates the more gullible into feeling sorry for you. I defriended at least one person this year who fell into the latter category when I realised that she'd been given in excess of $800 over the previous 18 months by various people (not me) to help her with her life crises and yet she was not one whit better off for it and was still whining about her life. She had genuine problems (assuming they were true and I was starting to doubt) but I could see no effort to really solve them. I decided to quit before she worked up to asking for more handouts.

Rant away in your LJ, I'm all for it. I do. That's what my post was, fer cryin' out loud :) But there's a line where ranting becomes self-pitying whinging and enough is enough.