42/43-year-old us studying what 19-year-old us knew

A friend of mine is an academic, and they're currently working on a project that they asked for interview subjects for that I jumped at. It's about what they're calling "pre-hashtag" social media, which fir me is just LiveJournal. And I know them from LiveJournal (technically, as they reminded me during the interview, we first met in person which was unusual for them at the time, but it was because I knew their then-girlfriend from LiveJournal). Their username will be in old comments if not entries that I have imported to this here Dreamwidth!

I think the last time I spoke to them in person was when they very sweetly called, from halfway across the country, after my brother died -- so, eighteen years ago. We've kept up with each other a little on Facebook (it's where I saw them make this request for interviews) but I jumped at the chance of the interview not just because their idea seems cool and I wanted to help a friend, but also just to give us a chance to chat again.

It was so fun. We talked for an hour and a half -- and I could have happily gone on much longer, but I was already late for dinner! Their interest is in how this "old social media" shaped or changed people's relationships to feminism, queerness, anti-racism and anti-colonialism. Since we're pretty much the same age and from the Midwest, it was great to talk about these things with someone who understands so much about me that I often struggle to express to most of the people I'm currently trying to express things to.

I fear for having to sign off on a transcript (and I guess I could access the audio or video of our interview, eep!) of all my babbling, but one thing I said that has stuck with me was right at the end, when I said the biggest difference I saw between "old internet" LJ and more modern social media is that on LJ people were always saying they wanted to write more, read more, comment more, or apologizing when they hadn't. Modern social media is understood to be something that's bad for us, that we want to spend less time on, that we need breaks or even "detoxes" from. I hope we can get more internet socializing that we want to run towards, and less that we want to run away from.