Looking for ex-LiveJournal users (and lurkers) for my study on the old web!

[thearchivestudent]

Hi everyone!

First of all, I'd like to apologize for posting my first message here instead of in the Introductions section. I swear that as soon as I'm freed from the shackles of my MLIS, I'll do a proper one and become/stay active as a member of this community! I'm just not supposed to actively participate right now for research integrity reasons.

So, I'm currently writing a Master's thesis as part of my MLIS degree completion, specializing and training in web archives. I am passionate about preserving web history and am currently in training and my research is more specifically on platform migration and digital practices of former (or even current?) LiveJournal users who were involved in fandom in any sort of way. For the purpose of this study, lurking and reading content *does* count as involvement. I'm looking for people who would be willing to take part in an interview about their experiences, so, if that sounds like you, please feel free to send me a private message so that I can send you my e-mail!

I'm mostly interested in 25+ individuals who were on LJ back when it was active, but if you're younger and regularly explore LiveJournal archives, I'd be interested in hearing from you too!

Also, feel free to send this post to friends of yours who might me interested!

Note on privacy: Every interview will, of course, be anonymous unless requested otherwise. If you are concerned that any information you give me might make you identifiable, we can review together your transcribed interview and talk about how we can further obscure possible identifying details.

I will of course provide my name, university name, and thesis surpervisor's name to every participant beforehand.

Thanks to everyone in advance!

[xixxii]

sounds interesting! my only livejournal posting was in a couple of roleplay communities, but i did plenty of lurking and reading and browsing as well in a couple of different flavors of fandom. i'm 29 and was on LJ frommm like 2007-11, ish? something like that, anyway... my memory isn't super great, but i'm happy to help a bit.

[grubbyfox]

I was on LJ since around 2005 up until uhm 2020? 2022? (Migrated my journal over to DreamWidth). I wasn't active in any communities and such though, so probably not relevant for ya! :) I simply wrote in my journal and nothing else, lol.

Or actually that's not completely true. I remember one time I requested a fic around when The Hobbit came out (in some fic request master post at some open community thingy), and I was in a very small community just to post links to my AO3 for a slightly relevant audience lol. But I was def not a part of any community in the way maybe many other LJ users were.

[thearchivestudent]

Hi, sorry for the late reply - work was overwhelming the past two weeks. Thank you so much for all the replies - here and in my private messages - I'll get in touch with all of you in the next few days!

[bees]

If you need more volunteers, I'm in! I spent so much of my teens on LJ, I joined in 2004 or so and left in the early 2010s.