This post calls for a little bit of a backstory.
This weekend, I was on the way home for a small party that mainly consisted of my friends from my old Lolita circle. It had been a while and we had a good time. The next day, I was on the way home, and during the train ride I and a friend, who had joined me for some of it, got talking about the status of the Lolita community, both global and here in Denmark. It is obvious that everything has moved to Facebook. We do not know if this is just the case of the US and the danish Lolita community, but I suspect that this is pretty much a global thing. I know you may be having a bit of a deja vu, as I spoke about something like this in this post a while ago, but please stay with me here.
We discovered, that while the community has moved on to Facebook to become more "private" and a little more meet-up focused, the community has also lost some of the "involvement" that it once had.
(This might just be a case of "Back when I was a newbie, the grass was a lot greener..")
Even if Facebook has made communication a lot easier, quicker and moved the community into the "everydaysphere" of the members so you can get constant updates from your Lolita pals, alongside pictures from your cousins birthday, communication between Lolitas has become a lot more scarce.
I suspect is has to do with lazyness. You don't really engage, if you don't have to make a conscious effort to do so.
Facebook has taken away the spirited discussion of Lolita, and I suspect, killed a little bit of the magic that I felt when I first started out. If you don't share how you feel in Lolita, exchange views on new releases or the funny little situations you get into, or have gravely serious discussions about the "Rules" vs. "Guidelines", the 'science' of Lolita dies out. And of course I use the word 'science' with a loving, satirical tone. Of course Lolita is not 'seriouz businezz' in the big scheme of things, but isn't it to us, just a little bit, because we're passionate about it?
I think social activity and sharing help keep that passion alive, and that's what I've been missing.
I may be contradicting myself a little bit. I'm a big advocate for the "personal Lolita lifestyle", which many of my longtime readers already know. Lolita is something deeply personal to a lot of people, and that's how it should be. The important point in Lolita fashion is how you feel and see yourself, but this does not have to be disconnected from the social aspect of the fashion.
Engaging in conversations about Lolita can fuel your fire, make you consider new aspects of the fashion that you have not known before, and rekindle your love for corners of the fashion that you had forgotten all about.
Drama is what kills it.
Either I'm becoming a nostalgic Old Schooler trying to bring back the good ol' days, or I've pinpointed an actual flaw in the new community system. I guess I'm gonna find out, for I've decided to start up a Forum for my local communities. It feels like I've brought back the 00's.
People are even making old fashioned "Introduction Posts"!
I'm not saying we should shut down the Facebook communities. They're great for arranging meet-ups, making quick, fun updates and sharing videos. But they're horrible for conversation, and even worse for long, well-thought out posting.
So, how do you feel about this topic? Is Facebook a step up from the old platforms?
Should we bring back the old communities?
This weekend, I was on the way home for a small party that mainly consisted of my friends from my old Lolita circle. It had been a while and we had a good time. The next day, I was on the way home, and during the train ride I and a friend, who had joined me for some of it, got talking about the status of the Lolita community, both global and here in Denmark. It is obvious that everything has moved to Facebook. We do not know if this is just the case of the US and the danish Lolita community, but I suspect that this is pretty much a global thing. I know you may be having a bit of a deja vu, as I spoke about something like this in this post a while ago, but please stay with me here.
We discovered, that while the community has moved on to Facebook to become more "private" and a little more meet-up focused, the community has also lost some of the "involvement" that it once had.
(This might just be a case of "Back when I was a newbie, the grass was a lot greener..")
Even if Facebook has made communication a lot easier, quicker and moved the community into the "everydaysphere" of the members so you can get constant updates from your Lolita pals, alongside pictures from your cousins birthday, communication between Lolitas has become a lot more scarce.
I suspect is has to do with lazyness. You don't really engage, if you don't have to make a conscious effort to do so.
Facebook has taken away the spirited discussion of Lolita, and I suspect, killed a little bit of the magic that I felt when I first started out. If you don't share how you feel in Lolita, exchange views on new releases or the funny little situations you get into, or have gravely serious discussions about the "Rules" vs. "Guidelines", the 'science' of Lolita dies out. And of course I use the word 'science' with a loving, satirical tone. Of course Lolita is not 'seriouz businezz' in the big scheme of things, but isn't it to us, just a little bit, because we're passionate about it?
I think social activity and sharing help keep that passion alive, and that's what I've been missing.
I may be contradicting myself a little bit. I'm a big advocate for the "personal Lolita lifestyle", which many of my longtime readers already know. Lolita is something deeply personal to a lot of people, and that's how it should be. The important point in Lolita fashion is how you feel and see yourself, but this does not have to be disconnected from the social aspect of the fashion.
Engaging in conversations about Lolita can fuel your fire, make you consider new aspects of the fashion that you have not known before, and rekindle your love for corners of the fashion that you had forgotten all about.
Drama is what kills it.
Either I'm becoming a nostalgic Old Schooler trying to bring back the good ol' days, or I've pinpointed an actual flaw in the new community system. I guess I'm gonna find out, for I've decided to start up a Forum for my local communities. It feels like I've brought back the 00's.
People are even making old fashioned "Introduction Posts"!
I'm not saying we should shut down the Facebook communities. They're great for arranging meet-ups, making quick, fun updates and sharing videos. But they're horrible for conversation, and even worse for long, well-thought out posting.
So, how do you feel about this topic? Is Facebook a step up from the old platforms?
Should we bring back the old communities?
I like both; blogs are really my favorite thing, I like reading long posts and making long posts, but Facebook has made sure that I have friends in my local Lolita community. At the same time, forums are definitely the best for discussion, and I wish that there were more of them: being part of an active one makes me realize how inactive EGL is. But ultimately... blog posts and youtube videos are great!
SvarSletI think the problem has less to do with Facebook, or more to do with the complete lack of an international forum! EGL is still around on Livejournal, but that system is so outdated and honestly just not very practical for searches and keeping topics alive. A forum would allow topics to constantly be updated whenever someone posts by bumping their thread to the top instead of allowing it to die after a couple days and overall would be so much easier to navigate. I really do not understand why a forum has never been used or why Lolitas seem so adverse to the few that have tried to crop up and inevitably always fail.
SvarSletI think some people have tried making a lolita forum, but it fizzled and died, probably since the mod didn't collaborate with anyone on design and format. http://eglforums.boards.net/ The people who organized Lacebook wanted the privacy feature, however it takes a lot of bandwidth to host such a big site and you have to be really committed if you want to get something going. Another thing could be that EGL mods are less likely to organize something and if you want something done, you have to do it yourself. My local comm is pretty open about discussions and such though! Good luck with making lolita fashion feel more like an open community!!!
SvarSlet