Happy birthday, DW!

[melannen]

I was planning to do some sort of thing to mark my ten-year DW-versary but I missed it a couple months ago, so let's all just celebrate together!

And paid accounts get more image hosting space, which I might actually use!

And also more icon slots, which I probably... won't. But I did go looking at what I currently have uploaded for the first time in a long, long time. I do still like most of those! And I could add more from indy comics and SF bookcovers I have more recently loved the art & characters in. (That's basically all I have, except some very bad home-made ones.)

I've considered finding a new indy-comic avatar and taking Commander Valentine off my default because it's been a long time since Tek Jansen fandom was a thing, but I still like the icon, and the less people know about Tek Jansen, the more she works as just ID'ing me rather than a fandom character (or, well, as ID'ing me, the character who hangs out in fandom) - I've been using her since before DW. (And I like Nick Fury a lot *more* than I did when I started using his red-haired expy in space as my avatar; he wasn't even officially Samuel Jackson yet back then!)

But. Can we talk about icons? Can I confess. I never really liked the culture of having a ton of icons and switching them on every comment. Like! I totally support those of you that do, and I think a really cool part of fan culture was lost when that stopped being a big part of fan communication, and if you love it, you do you!

But I ID people by their icons. Very strongly. So other people having a steady icon helps me remember who you are, especially if we haven't interacted a whole lot. Or your username is the same color as someone else's. (Yes, you all do look like your icons. Even those of you whose icons are inanimate or abstract. Especially those of you whose icons are inanimate or abstract. Yes, even if I've met you in person and you post lots of selfies. Sorry, I don't make the rules.) Switching icons a lot doesn't change this, it just means you're also a shapeshifter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

For myself - well, the thing about icons being a really cool and important communications channel, like internet body language, is that communicating is hard! I think I mostly have this "writing DW posts" thing down, but I also don't want to discount the possibility that part of the reason y'all put up with me is that ten years ago I decided to very carefully choose my Commander Valentine (after making some mistakes!) to be a sort of neutral-to-thoughtful listening face that also reads as a nice white lady if you don't look too closely. Most of the other Commander Valentine shots are more... angry, and I really did find that I got really different reactions to comments I posted with them, even if the tone was exactly the same, or even to comments I posted with a more abstract icon.

People are biased and stuff, you know? Emotions are hard. We should all become AIs and upload ourselves into spiderbots. In the meantime, connotatively meaningful icons are an extra difficulty level that I am probably going to keep opting out of. But it does make me happy to see people excited about them again lately!

Meanwhile, if you wanted an update on my "clear out the books" project so far: the books are winning. /o\

The procedure so far seems to be get all the books on DD top-level class together, sort them into piles by subtopic, take a subtopic, pull out all the ones you are definitely 100% keeping, reshelve those, stare at the rest for a long time, then re-sort them into a pile of "keeping after all" and "actually this belongs in a different subtopic, I'll decide then."

Okay, I got rid of two outdated-but-not-enough-to-be-cool local travel guides (but kept the maps) and one biography, but, uh, that's not the 10% I need.

(how do you get rid of books? they are all made of joy. they are all things I care about. they are all hard to replace. [not all books are hard to replace, but that's one of my criteria for buying them in the first place - I keep going 'do I really need this? I can just get another copy later if I do' and then discover that the cheapest Amazon copy is $18 + shipping and it's not in any library in the state and the publisher no longer exists. I'm hoping some of this is an artifact of starting with the local history ones, which is a lot of small local publishers, but the next big category is the 700s, where all the art and craft stuff is, and I kind of doubt that will be all that much better.])

Comments

[highlander_ii]

Yes, you all do look like your icons

lol - i'm glad i currently look like Chris Pine. XD (this might confuse him tho)

i have this thing where i want my icons to stick around where i put them... so i tend not to remove any, or, if i do, i have a new one w/ the same keywords to replace it. (i'm v stickler about this with my RP stuff more than my primary journal)

re: books - welp... i purged out a bunch of stuff i either hadn't read (and was p sure i wouldn't) or i had and i hadn't been impressed by. some i traded to the local used book store for credits/new books; others i toted over to the library, so i could visit them if i needed to, i guess.

[melannen]

...I did not realize that was Chris Pine with his face covered, I just thought you were a dapper vintage-looking gentleman with a camera. Seems correct!

(That is also something I've noted with icons: people tend to be really bad at realizing what other people see when they look at them, sometimes because you need to know the fandom, sometimes you just need to know context that was cropped out of the shot. There used to be a meme that went around every so often that was like "explain your friends' default icon" and there were always surprises!)

That method of purging did okay with the fiction, but with nonfiction I'm a lot more likely to go "I didn't love it but I will still want to refer back to that one bit" or "I will need it if I ever need to know that one thing".

Our library does not take donations (and it's also REALLY REALLY bad at keeping older - defined as 5+ years - NF in stock.) Part of my problem is that I have far too close a perspective of what's realistically likely to be in the library. (In fact, a lot of these are classic older NF that I saved from the library's recycle bin as they pulled their last copy....)

[seekingferret]

Personally I like shapeshifting every so often, but not more than every year or two.

[melannen]

That is reasonable!

I do sometimes wonder about the fact that I have aged ten years since I got this journal, and changed a lot more in other ways, and Commander Valentine has not. But on the other hand she's been around for the whole journey, so she's changed some if only by association.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I got a new icon! (two, but this is the one most suitable for this post)

I'm one of the people that tries to match icon to mood or message. I do have a posted work with Dr. Shaw in it. ( a WiP. really more of a UFO.)

[melannen]

Hooray, new icons! Hooray, Who icons! I gave up on it after I kept apparently miscalculating it a lot. :D

Let's find out what icon comes up for my Dr. Who keyword, I've forgotten.(Ah, it's the hobo sign for "This building is bigger on the inside".)

[isis]

So am I Medusa, or a doomed sailor? (I think those are the two icons I use most.)

[melannen]

You've had Medusa long enough that I think I just assume that's also her in this one, she just got something nasty stuck in her hair.

[grammarwoman]

If I could have pulled it off, I would have loved to cosplay my icon at Club Vivid. :)

As to the books...I just finished a Connie Willis novella about that premise, I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land, about a man who espouses the theory that nostalgia is not a good reason to keep things that have no use, who then stumbles on a very unique storefront in NYC that has an unusual collection of books, and is confronted by what happens when people assume that there's always another copy to be found. I would not recommend reading it if you struggle with the same kind of animistic attachment to books that I do (my oldest friends!), but actually want to get rid of some.

[melannen]

I have been keeping half an eye out for a cheap powder-blue coverall in my size for years. :D My hair basically does that on its own, so I'd just need an eyepatch, a cigarette holder, shoulder patches and some orange hair chalk and I'd be good to go.

I am always on the edge about keeping objects just for nostalgia, but... there's something to be said about the fact that one of the best methods for improving memory is still visualizing yourself moving through a building full of familiar objects, you know? People store memories in things. So. If you value your memory of your past (which not everybody does!) nostalgic objects do serve a purpose there, they really act as sort of memory-retrieval pointers.

But, yeah, a lot of the nonfiction books I have, I own specifically because I don't know where I'd get another copy. (I need to be better about not keeping them JUST BECAUSE they may be the only copy even if I don't really want them otherwise, though, I'm not actually an archive.)

[forestofglory]

I'm not really good at the whole meaningful icon thing. I mostly just end up using this default one all the time. I guess that's good for you anyways.

[melannen]

Me too. And that is an excellent default icon! You get to look like Christopher Robin, and it's even a picture from a forest of glory, so it matches your username.

[ratcreature]

I've always felt the same about ID'ing people by their icons, and deeply weird about representing myself with other people's pictures, but I also wanted to have fannish ones and mood ones. Which led to my attempt to square that circle with my cartoon avatar doing stuff and cosplaying characters rather than using direct fandom pictures.

[sylvaine]

Which is, for the record, awesome! You have such a distinct icon style and I love it.

[rosefox]

I have 197 icons and they all have meaning to me. They are nostalgic objects to me. When I use a particular one, to someone else it's just decoration, but to me it has significant connotations. This one is tagged userpic craft because making userpics is so important to me that I have a userpic for it! And I remember the time in my life when I made it, and the specific associations I was going for, and searching for the base images to use...

I do this with jewelry and clothing too. Especially jewelry. To someone else, I'm wearing pretty earrings; to me they're the earrings I got on my anniversary trip to Alexandria with J, the ones that I picked up and said "These would make me feel like a million bucks", and when I wear them I carry that memory with me and it reminds me that I'm loved and I value myself.

This does make culling some books harder. (Will I ever get rid of the Complete Sherlock Holmes that I read when I was 10 with my legs on the couch and my head on the floor and the book resting upside down in front of me? Seems unlikely.) But getting rid of unread books, which seems to be very challenging for some people, is relatively easy because I don't have strong associations with them yet.

[melannen]

I think that was sort of why I stopped - I would always picked icons based on what they meant to *me*, and then nobody else would understand what I meant, and it got counterproductive. But I am really enjoying pulling them all out in this entry and remembering why I have them.

I tend to get strong associations with unread books because I remember why and where I bought them, and all my dreams of having a ton of free, relaxed time to read them in. (Then I read them, and it spoils it, which may be why so many go unread...)

[extrapenguin]

I didn't really get icons until I got into a fandom that was audiovisual. I'd made some before that, sure, but they were more "labels on which fandom is being talkes about" and "I am wearing my mod hat now". Then Guardian happened, and I actually got into iconmaking! *g*

(My default is only a year or so old. I'm less unhappy with it than with the prior one, but I don't know what could replace it. Who *is* ExtraPenguin, anyway?)

[melannen]

Because I think of icons so strongly as avatars, I've never been comfortable (personally) using icons of actor's faces. Because I know who the actors are, and they aren't me! (I did sometimes go to really ridiculous lengths to find illustrated version of favorite characters, though.) And it can be a problem if I know enough people in the same TV fandom, because I know you cannot all look like Shen Wei!

(The BCE ones don't worry me, though, because after all, literally anyone could be behind that mask...)

(ExtraPenguin is currently one of Cousin It's relatives wearing a hat. In space!)

[kore]

....I'M A SHAPESHIFTER

I used to have one default icon and pretty much never change it. On LJ I was my default Faith icon to most people. (I was just fine with being headcast as Eliza Dushku.) Del was my default for a long time here tho.

[melannen]

You are a particular problem because are/were multiple people who sometimes use icons based on Rosetti's Proserpina specifically, just cropped differently, and many of them have Persephone related user names, and I am pretty sure they are not all you, and yet.

I am trying to remember your Faith one and I can't! I think the one I most associate with you is your old Ripley one.

[boxofdelights]

Yes, you all do look like your icons.

I approve of this message.

[melannen]

you are very adorable, btw.

[novembermond]

I was opening the closet to look for bathing suits and a book fell out... I guess I should start to sort through them.

I'm sorry about the ever changing icons and I tried my hardest to post this with my default, but that's a sexy icon and does not fit the mood of this comment. :(
while I also do the id-ing people with icons thing this has served me ill on tumblr where I constantly mistook people for other people because of icon similarities. The icon range seems to be much bigger on dw.

[kore]

OMG, the way people use similar (and TINY) icons on Tumblr and yet change their usernames all the time drives me nuts. Especially when there's no forwarding, or you get forwarded through five or six name changes.

[sylvaine]

I find the icon thing so interesting. I haaaate when people change their icons on other services that don't have inbuilt multiple icons for that exact reason - I identify people by their icons, among other things! But on here it's never bothered me? Well, if people who don't change their icon change their default icon it's also weird. But it doesn't bother me that some people use many icons... it's odd! I wonder if it's because it's built into the site structure, or whether it's because there's less people I follow here, so it's easier to keep track of people.

(Me, otoh - I have a ton of icons and always want to match my icon to what I'm saying, but half the time I'm too exhausted to change it from my default icon. Still wish the reply box on the reading page had a random icon button!)

Also I definitely associate your icon with you, like, it's clearly you! Not whatever fandom character! Nope, orange haired eyepatched comic person who I've never noticed is smoking is melannen, obviously. :)

[melannen]

She doesn't always smoke! Sometimes she has a candy cane. :D

I kind of think of the smoking icon as the warning that this is not a "think of the children!" blog. (I have also had people yell at me for 'promoting things that could harm children' but completely fail to notice that I'm promoting smoking every time I post, which I think is a good summary of their logic. :P)

(I've never smoked but... I'm still kinda a sucker for the 'powerful woman with a cigarette holder' aesthetic.)

[sewn]

Icons are difficult! I brought my default LJ icon over and I quite like it (and am flattered to be identified by it) but I do wonder if I should change to a more neutral one sometimes - I don't have extra icon space, so if I want new icons I need to switch, and I end up losing the old ones. What if I've posted on some sensitive and/or tragic topic and the post now has my silly default icon, oh no...

Books are also difficult. I try to cull my library periodically -- and frankly, I don't have that many books -- but I actually end up mourning the loss after a while. I once threw away a guide to farming quail, which is about as far from my interests as possible, but I still remember it.

[melannen]

I think part of the reason that I don't use my icon collection as much is that yeah, I try to keep the keywords of my old icons around (afaik, it still works the way LJ did - if you have a "sad" icon keyword, and you delete that icon but give the "sad" keyword to something else, all the things previously keyworded "sad" will use the new "sad" keyword. And you can have multiple keywords for the same icon.

This can lead to a messy situation where you have one icon with fifteen different keywords you have previously used for sad things, though.

I have some books on worm farming! Those are tough because on the one had, you will probably never use the info, but on the other hand, who else has a book on quail farming?

ETA: Hah, it still works! I'm not sure what the "rename keywords" ticky is about, but you don't need it for that trick.

[nyctanthes]

I rotate icons, but I associate myself with this one, even though it's not my default. So much so that when I came back to fandom after a fourteen year hiatus I ported it over from my livejournal. (Along with a lot of older ones; old school icons are awesome.) I use it on Ao3 too.

[melannen]

...I have no idea what fandom that is from.

I think I mostly think of you as abstract colors floating in space, tbh!

[umadoshi]

I'm one of the people who loves all the shifting icons here (due to the variety, not the actual shifting) and gets very confused when people change their default pics elsewhere. ^^; But I've been in love with icons since I first joined LJ however many years* ago.

*17. I think.

Good luck with the book pruning? It's so hard.

[melannen]

Ug, I may just figure out how to fold space to fit more shelves instead. (Or I could... move to a bigger space... but "I am paying x hundred dollars a month because my book collection defeated me" just. seems wrong.)

I love icons as an art form! I'm just not great at keeping track of people. I think it is easier on DW, though, because I tend to have more context for who the people are.

[batrachian]

Speaking for myself, the majority of mine are...okay not the same icon but I at least try to keep things related? Because yes. People are so very much their icons.

[melannen]

You are so definitely a frog to me that it just occurred to me that I've been assuming that "woggy" is some kind of dialect term for frog, but the only reason I have to think that is that I know a frog named woggy.

[sophia_sol]

Oh man, yeah, I depend so much on icons to identify people that I still regularly struggle on tumblr with two people I follow who both have black-and-white icons, because they're so much harder to visually distinguish from each other!

browsing the comment section of this post is like I've stumbled into a different universe because I keep on not recognizing you :P I do really admire people on dw who always have the Perfect Icon for a given comment though, I absolutely think that's a valuable artform and addition to the conversation and wouldn't want people to stop doing it

Every time I've changed my default icon I've been careful to announce it so people know to look for something new for me, and at this point I don't think I could change default icons again. I guess I'm Combeferre forever now!

[melannen]

You are Combeferre forever to me! You are one of the people who looks most like your icon, I think - every so often I stumble on some of that art on tumblr and I'm like, wait, why did they draw sophia-sol in with all these fandom characters?

I keep not recognizing me! It's so disconcerting. I'm almost out of extra icons though, all I have left are angry ones and this one. :P

[stultiloquentia]

I've had this icon as long as I've had a blog. I photoshopped it myself. I kind of rely on it identifying me even before my name registers -- doubly so on the one platform (Twitter) where I'm not stultiloquentia.

I don't mind when people select cheeky, topical icons for their posts, but there are definitely certain people I recognize principally by icon, and seeing those icons float by makes me happy. Yours is one of them.

[melannen]

You are definitely always a can of soup to me! (I know we've met even but the can of soup totally overrides any memory of what you looked like, sorry.)

[megpie71]

I tend to be one of those people who will try to match the icon to the post (if possible), and lately I've been playing around a lot with the "random icon" setting. So yeah, cheerful metamorph is me. Then again, I've pretty much settled on a collection of icons, and they haven't shifted much in the past gods know how long, so I'd assume there's a certain amount of recognisability in the overall set?

(This is actually my default).

[kore]

I also love when people share cool icons, like this London 7/7 one or all the Community Organizer ones that went around or Obama icons (hmm, seems to be mostly political ones?). Or when someone uses iconomicon's and I'm like "I REMEMBER THOSE"

[thenewbuzwuzz]

"Yes, you all do look like your icons."
Fair enough! I keep meaning to play with multiple icons sometime, but this is definitely something to keep in mind.

[melannen]

Is that actually you in your icon? I've wondered!

[jesse_the_k]

My multiplicity of icons helps me get over the “who wants to read what I have to say?” Internal weasel. In fact, I have three icons perfect for this comment.

I tried the “maintaining keyword” strategy, and ended up with ghost keywords I can’t delete :(

You’re definitely red-haired and one-eyed in my head casting.

[melannen]

That is an excellent icon for this post!

Can't delete as in tech bug, or as in don't dare delete them even though you never use them before? I think I got rid of all of my old saved ones (Except 'me' for the actual-portrait one) a long time ago because I was tired of going through a long list in the drop-down - it would be really neat if we had a way of marking keywords 'inactive' to get them off the list.

[sheliak]

My default icon is one I'm really attached to--I'm happy being an abstract wool-on-linen-on-metal representation of the planet Jupiter--but I do like swapping icons out. (And sometimes I almost have to, because some DW styles don't do well with not-square icons.)

I kind of think of my DW icons as like earrings, sort of? They're flashy, I swap them out by mood but I also have my favorites that I come back to... And I make icons, so it's fun to show them off that way.

(And then again, there are some sites where I don't use Jupiter as my icon, because it's a little too personal, I guess? So on Tumblr I'm Jame of Knorth in an impractical but neat-looking dress, and some other places I'm a ghost lady with a ghostly hawk, or a mushroom...)

[melannen]

Oh, it's textile! I've been wondering about that for ages - I had mostly settled on "Sand art", but now I see I was wrong. That is definitely who you are!

I think it makes a lot of sense to think of them like jewelry, in terms of how they're part of what you show the world (and like jewelry, of late I've decided it's too much trouble and never get my collection out anymore. :P) Y'all are tempting me to load back up again, though, even if I never use 'em.

[pensnest]

I'm late here but have just seen a reference to this post, and I'm interested in icons, so, here I am.

I like having a whole bunch of icons. I like finding the right one to put with a post or comment. I also like the Random Icon button - actually, I love it - if I'm feeling too lazy to pick the perfect icon out. It doesn't always choose the perfect icon, but quite often, it really does!

I used to make a lot of icons, when my beloved fandom was more vibrant, and I enjoyed seeing them about the place as others used them.

However, I also know what you mean by identifying people by their icons. When the first Camp Sparkle happened - a mini-con for European popslashers - I printed off badges for everyone, with their default icon, LJ name and actual name. It helped a *lot*, as nobody had met more than three of the others beforehand.

I did look like my icon, but it was a very long time ago!

[alwaysbeenasmiler]

I AM TOTALLY FINE WITH LOOKING LIKE MY DEFAULT! Totally...