Chinese Novels

I was feeling that old yearning today for early 00's BJD culture, defined by a simpler, sparser marketplace and a dearth of networks.

Related to this, but not exactly the same thing, are two other yearnings. These two yearnings are for things that I feel like have revived or reinvented themselves after my years for pining for them, and seeing the new communities hurts my heart, because it isn't what I took from those things, it isn't what I want from those things... and I feel more at sea and confused than I would if these two things had not been reinvented or revived on the Internet.

So... I hope you will hear me out. I want to be fair and balanced in my assessment, not criticize the creative visions of others. Also, if you have a thought about this at all, I would be interested to hear about it, because I go around and around about it in my mind. If it keeps haunting me, I will probably have to take it to Reddit... and I don't know how that will turn out.

Well, early 00's BJD culture cannot, I think, ever be revived. It has gone on and on uninterrupted for over two decades now. Even the end of Den of Angels will not significantly impact it, because the culture has been largely social media dependent for so many years. 

If someone were to ask me what I wanted with my BJD hobby, participation, and activities, I would have a very clear and detailed response. Then, if they were to follow up, asking why I had not really done those things for the majority of those twenty years... this queasy feeling at the pit of my stomach, that I first got after I looked at Ophelia and Shelley 20+ years ago and felt the stillness and waiting in the room... that fear of creating... that's the answer. In short, I don't need anyone else to do anything differently in order for me to do my BJD hobby the way I want to. I need to find the courage to do it. I think that's the first time I've admitted that in this journal, too, and I've had this journal for 8, nearly 9 years now. So maybe this is a new beginning.

Anyway, the other two yearnings are gothic subculture and early 00's personal home page building. 

I'll start with the web building. Okay. I know there has been a massive revitalization of early 00's web design. There is Neocities, and there are even other sites like that that I've seen. It's quite big. These sites are so intrinsically different than web sites from the early 00's that it hurts me deeply. They are different in terms of design as well as content. So different that if I were to make a site the way I thought it should be made... which I don't even know if I can because there's no discourse to be a part of... I would look like an old fart on Neocities. 

These nostalgia-driven sites are so busy, so multi-layered, so multifaceted, deeply embedded in discourses and ways of being that really did not exist in a pre-smartphone world. It really struck me when I looked back at sites I found on places like Angelfire and Tripod that haven't been edited since they were left there by a teen 25-30 years ago, and everything about the sites including layout, language, images, etc. spoke so painfully as hallmarks of my generation, Generation X, that it really cut me to the quick to think of sites now, and how they are, in every way, a hallmark of a generation (Generation Z) that is so very, very different from my generation. Sorry, I know I'm leaving the millennials out, and most of my contacts here are millennials. Honestly, in ten years, ya'll might see and recognize something like what I am seeing now, a new generation sort of riffing off your identity, and be rather cut to the quick by it, too. You don't really know until you see it. 

Sometimes, I feel yearning for my old homepages, and to make new ones, like I did. But I don't know what to do with that yearning. Because I don't want to enter the discourse of Neocities or similar sites. The webrings and things I belonged to... were really different, and those kinds of themes and aesthetics are not around now.

The last yearning is about gothic subculture, and this is more of a full-on complaint combined with actionable material on my part.

Gothic subculture was one of the first things I discovered on the Internet. I was drawn to it like it was my true north. Not really in the sense of dressing the part, though. Gothic literature (old literature), and eventually gothic rock music, romantic gothic aesthetics, deep interests in compassion for animals, social and environmental justice, things like that were all things I associated with gothic subculture. It truly seemed to me, from about the year 2000 and for the next 12 years or so, and I could be completely wrong, that you could in fact totally "be a goth" recognizable to others with a similar mindset without ever needing to dress more flamboyantly than a band T-shirt, or something somber and black and/or romantic, or something grungy. You didn't need to know anything about hair or makeup. You just needed to have the interests, the feelings, the discourse, the gothic sympathies, as it were.

Well, what "gothic subculture" looks to me now is this: very, very intense makeup that very often includes whitefacing and blacking out the neck, a kind of almost cookie cutter eyeliner and contouring look as well, extreme clothing with nails sticking out, bondage straps, lots of skin showing... and... most importantly, be some kind of social media influencer. It's like... there's no music I've detected in it, no love for old literature or paintings, no living your authentic grungy life... it's very aesthetic, and it hurts me to see the "influencers" and feel like there's nothing behind them. 

There has always been something a little contentious about calling anything or anyone "goth," especially yourself, and it could be that the kind of people I'm thinking of have just sort of ducked out... like they must have done in the BJD scene, now doing... who knows what. Connected to their close friends, but not to any kind of hub like there once was. I don't know if I'm making any sense...

But... ha ha... I'm out of time and have to make some hummus now, so this is it for now. 

I had a good weekend...

Nathan put together the new laundry hamper furniture, and I watched and provided moral support, for most of Saturday. I gave him my dark brown bookcase for his singing bowls, and he took out the light brown bookcase. And he put up the new brackets for the new curtain rods, and I put those up. I'm going to take out a section in each, because they're too long.

Friday night, we ate at a new restaurant... so good and unique to what we've had before in the way of Indian food. There was not even a sign on the old building it was in, so it definitely felt like our old adventures, going to somewhere unfamiliar and opening the door... not sure what we will find. 

I resurrected my photo-taking this weekend too, and visited three cemeteries: Wyatt's Chapel (in a shopping center parking lot), Grimsley, and Calvary, which is right behind a Market Street. Grimsley was definitely my favorite... secluded and tree-shaded, with many very old graves.