I have a question

[mbarrick]

Why are people joining my Gothic BC community but nobody ever joined vancouvergothic (Nancie's community that has been around a lot longer)? Why does my GothicBC Yahoo group keep attracting members when all the other Van-Goth spin-offs all started around the same time have long since stagnated? Why do people expect things of me? How come everybody has to show me their new camera? How come a rant I wrote for alt.gothic eight years ago still gets over a thousand people reading it each month and I get people mailing me about their research papers on the subject? How come people tag on to my freaking hobbies so readily? Why do people like Reptar, Daryl, and other psychos actually demand to be included in my idle goofing around? I'm not a promoter. I'm not a DJ. I'm just a net.Geek that likes to look at the pretty lights in the club and have a few drinks every once in a while. I mean really, the photographs aren't even a hobby unto themselves, they are tanget of another hobby - I take pictures so I have subject material to paint. I don't even know how I ended up being called goth in the first place. I just like what I like and do what I do and for some unfathomable reason a bunch of people have latched onto some of it - and not even the stuff I like best. What the hell is up with that?

Comments

[evilyn13.livejournal.com]

as much as you like to think of yourself as a net.geek, you still have something a lot of people don't have, and that my friend, is people skills.
people are usually attracted to someone who can hold an intelligent conversation, and you have good written and verbal skills.
just my 2 cents...
evilyn

So what you are saying is...

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Because I'm not a tard, tards will follow me around? Nooooooo! (*runs away*)

[opium.livejournal.com]

Maybe because Nancie is a twit?

:P

It's cause you smell nice

[logik.livejournal.com]

And have purdy lips boy. Drop 'em pants....

I think Trish is right. Kat and I both get a lot of the same things. DJing can make it worse 'casue you can't be openly nasty to them without really good reasons. Basically dude, here's the deal - you have talent, intelligence, and style. (Damn you are a hansome stud - go look in the mirror right now - Go , DO IT).

You are smarter and faster, and gosh darn it, people like you. Basically, you are going to attract a bunch of people that hope that some of your spiffy polish rubs off on them.

People want to "know the DJ", they want to say that "I know the painter", or pertty well anyone else who actually gets off their duff and does something.

'tards are gonna follow you around 'casue you are not a 'tard...

I was afraid of that.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Now I am going to have to get a lobotomy and stop bathing.

[bitogoth.livejournal.com]

silly boy- you have self-confidence and creative drive... people admire that. this is your chance to expand your cult... go for it brother! ;}

[cheekydevil.livejournal.com]

Well, since I haven't been to Nancy's site, all I can offer is some observations as to how people get/got attracted to gothic.bc and the picture galleries on your website:

They are visually attractive and/or intelligently laid out or run. Thought was obviously put into them, and it hasn't ever been stagnant for an extended period of time, causing people to check it out every now and then for changes and new things. Plus, you actually made an effort every now and then to let friends know about it, as opposed to other sites which just kinda get created and then sit on the shelf hoping for people to find out about 'em.

Like, I said, I didn't even know there was another site that Nancy had created ... and you'd think doing what I do I would've found out about it by now. Whereas yours is not only always being added to here and there, but is also referred to occasionally by yourself or others, who are somewhat regular posters in various forums, prompting people to check it out. I highly doubt as many people would've already checked into the DarkVan thing I just made on ezboard if I hadn't put so much time into it and made an effort to let people know about it, and was a lurker who rarely posts anywhere else to boot....

Anyway, we like ya, Mike, even if you don't work at it, and that's all it takes.

[cheekydevil.livejournal.com]

Oh, and as far as Aaron goes, he probably felt the need to show you his spanky new digital camera for the following reasons - you're one of the few people he knows who has one and uses it regularly, he'll be wanting to touch base with others who know stuff about his new toy, and he's probably been coveting yours for as long as he's known you've had it!

No offense to Aaron

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

I should have said something like "random people". I know Aaron and I know he was excited about his new toy. If I was going to mad at Aaron about anything it would be because the bastard got the model up from mine ;-)

I'm in a really stinking rotten mood today, as if you couldn't notice. I wasn't even thinking about last Sunday when I was posting. In fact I had a good time last Sunday. I was ranting in general terms, not at Aaron at all.

Re: No offense to Aaron

[cheekydevil.livejournal.com]

No worries - I know you weren't relating to any particular incident or person, nor were there any likely any negative arrows headed our way. Just thought it might help to put perhaps a related incident in a less annoying context to maybe assuage the real annoying incidents.

I'm pretty jealous of my bastard housemate. In addition to the camera, his VERY generous GF Christine also gave him a CD burner. Pretty good haul, eh!

Oh well. I'll be buying a new, and my first, computer this month, so I can't be tooo jealous.

And BTW ... yep, there's some freakazoids out there all right. It's funny how the extreme leftists and 'government / corporation challenging champions of free thinking and uprising' radical types often go overboard and have as little understanding and as much close-mindedness as the extreme right. And both just wind up being extremely hard to handle, extremely irritating, and have extremely little credibility, no matter how well spoken or read.

I don't know if you noticed, but I made you a moderator at Dark Van since I respect most of the calls you make... I probably should've asked you first, but I figured if it didn't make a difference to you one way or another you could make use of it or not and it would be pretty casual either way. I can just put you back to normal if you want... basically I don't think any bouncing of posters will ever need to happen over there as any retarded posts will just cause everyone to gang up on them or people will just avoid areas where this might happen and go elsewhere on the board. Having the forums and multiple areas of discussion is good for that. I was more thinking of someone who might be able to think of other good forum topics when I 'moderatored' you... I think people will be able to police themselves.

Anyway, you now have proved your ultimate goth-ness by denying it. Your are forever dooooomed!

Cheerio!

Darkvan

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

Actually, thanks on that. Like you say, I don't have to use it. And besides, a bulletin board is a whole different beast than a mailing list, every message doesn't get mailed out to every user.

And just to clarify from the main post, it isn't the Gothic BC website that I was talking about in relation to VancouverGothic. It's an Livejournal community I just started. LJ communities are sort of like shared journals that more than one person can post main entries in.

But the whole goth thing... I'm not really prone to denying it, I just can't figure out how it happened. It feels like I was just plugging along, doing my own thing, and this whole other thing called "goth" just happened. I started listening to the music because I couldn't take disco and I wasn't always in the mood for punk. I read an article about Siouxsie in "Smash Hits" and decided to give her a try. I started wearing black clothes in art school because I kept getting charcoal all over my clothes in drawing class. I started going to the goth clubs because I stood a better chance of making it home without needing stitches. It all downhill from there.

Re: Darkvan

[cheekydevil.livejournal.com]

I totally know what you mean about the goth thing. I have a vast and expansive taste in music and exist simultaneously in many 'scenes'. My 'goth' friends are a small percentage of the people I hang with... but I've always been interested in theatre, non-mainstream music, more discordant, experimental stuff, art, and grey and black look better on me than colour. So I like to have weird haircuts, so what. Then the goth tag arrived... even as I looked more like a cowboy than a spooky kid. What the heck? And I NEVER would've predicted even 5 years ago that I'd end up as a 'goth' DJ and promoter. Life's fulla surprises, eh.

[saturnina.livejournal.com]

You're smart and have charisma. The big reason I didn't create my van-goth LJ community is because of all the headaches you and Lorra have to deal with. I have been getting van-goth in individual emails ever since day one (literally) until the last week. I am tired of the endless crap, and I'm ever so glad I'm not the one that has to enforce something as basic as the oneliner rule. You are sooo appreciated. Don't forget it.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

There is one of the reasons right there that it just isn't fun anymore. In the beginning it was just us few. Now most of the people I like best have stopped posting or have bailed completely. Out of the 300 people on the list I'd say about 275 of them are total strangers, or at least, I wish they were total strangers. I could have gone my whole life not knowing Reptar from Adam.

[sleeplessknight.livejournal.com]

Well, it was fun while it lasted. ~_~

I'm glad I found the list, (I joined during the sudden unexpected explosion of popularity the previous year, all some weird coincidence! O_o) and I'm grateful that I've made so many friends and learned so many things from being there. Thanks Mike and Lorra, for hosting such a great place. ^_^ I don't know where I'd be now if I hadn't signed up on Van-goth. And while there's a lot of shit being thrown across the list and the bunch of airheads that post nonesense on there. There will always be the small ratio of less desireable peoples around in relation to the rest of the total population. But at the very least we can identify them by stupid things they've said on-list and try our best to avoid them. I'll stick around the Van-goth list although now I mostly just lurk, observe, and throw in my two cents into legitamite topics. I really don't find it to be worth my time and energy to join in on a flame war of any sort. But hopefully things will get better at some point and some lost soul, not unlike myself over a year ago, will find the list when it's clamer, and find good friends in this community. ^_^

Of course there's also the DarkVancouver EZboard that Issac's set up. I'm sure that will work out great as well. ^_^ Because of how the EZboards are set up, it should be much easier to filter out the noise in there while ignoring the antagonizers as they run around loose without annoying everyone. There are different aspects of both the message board and mailing list that are appealing to some and not to others. Also, extending the arms of the community might make it able to catch more people who might otherwise either miss the van-goth list, smokepit, or DarkVancouver.

Yahoo groups makes for a very sloppy message board, but it is more direct and handier for certain people as the E-mails do come directly to someone's inbox. The problem is with the replies you have no idea what you're going to read. And once again I'm thankful to you and Lorra for keeping the noise down lower than it would've been without you guys.

You guys rock. Thanks. ^_^

Thanks, Mike.

[mbarrick.livejournal.com]

This was a great reminder that not everything about it sucks. The funny thing is I was in a similar fed-up state back when the list first exploded. At that point the only thing that kept me around was Lorra making me a moderator because she was too fed up herself to deal with any of it. It was at that point Van-Industrial, Van-Divothead Van-Rivethead, and my GothicBC mailing list all spun off Van-Goth. Which goes back to the orignal question - for no reason that makes any sense my list, the one that is in my opinion the most redundant of the three, remains the most successful.

But, yeah, I've met some good people - including you - that I might not have ordinarily met. The list has its place. I'm just sick of babysitting it for now.