Fandom Snowflake 2020 #5: Say Hello
Jan. 9th, 2020 08:11 amChallenge #5 asks us to comment where we've never been before, or to subscribe, give access to, or friend/follow someone new.
That said, there is a way of going into a new conversation with at least a few ideas in mind of what to talk about:
That's the secret I have to going and talking to people. If you just throw me in a room of people I don't know and say "Go talk to them," that's going to fail miserably and produce significant amounts of anxiety. But if you toss me in a room full of people who are in the same profession, or at the same convention meetup, or who are wearing something that indicates an interest, the conversation becomes a lot easier to initiate, because there's something there to talk about already on display. I own a conversation-starter tool that disguises itself as a "real-life adventure" game called Morton's List, and despite the fact that I found out way later in life that it's strongly associated with Juggalos (the followers of the group Insane Clown Posse), it works extremely well as a conversation-starter, because it provides an immediate hook to use. If you have a bunch of bored people and an hour to work with, some dice get rolled and an activity to pursue for the next hour is chosen off various tables. By the time you're done, you've had conversations and done something together, and so you've gotten to know people who were otherwise strangers to you. Pretty simple premise, and it works better than most types of ice-breakers that I've seen put to use.
While that doesn't work quite as well on Dreamwidth and other places as it does in embodied space, it's worth noting that the principles are often the same, and that there are things like profile interest lists, sticky posts, and tags that can make it easier for someone to find something neat to talk about with someone else. Possibly in some other space to start with, like a community's comments.
So, I'm going to borrow from![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
teigh_corvus (and others) and last year's challenge and say that, in addition to the posts linked above, this post is a welcome post for anyone who wants to stop by and say hello. And possibly pick something from the magic sweets bowl that always has exactly the thing you most want and can have without consequences.
Some of us may have a huge circle of friends, others may have one or two really close fannish companions. Being in fandom is always a chance to interact with new people and potentially make new friends!Which is great for people who are more inclined to say hello to others, however that gets accomplished. For others, who find peopling exhausting or who worry about having nothing to say, it's not that easy to add people to your blogroll, especially if they're the kind of people or communities that want a lot of interaction.
That said, there is a way of going into a new conversation with at least a few ideas in mind of what to talk about:
An easy way to accomplish this one is to head to the new communities you’ve found as a result of Challenge #3, or check out people’s responses in Challenge #1, 2 and 4, and meet some more new people. Or take someone up on their offer of a Discord invite, or send a message to a new person on Twitter or Tumblr. Perhaps use the ‘Network’ feature in DW. Who knows, you might just find some new kindred spirits!Since we've done a significant amount of talking about ourselves already, by way of introduction (Hi, I'm Silver, I write fic and curate links and I love comments), talking about our history (I've seen a lot, played a lot, and read a lot, from a very early age, and I wrote a fair bit, too, which makes it hard to say where fandom started), gesturing at our wider communities (mine are mostly, although not exclusively, related to fic exchanges,) and laying out goals (or, in my case, engendering some new habits), there are a lot of hooks available for someone to pick up and use as a conversation-starter.
That's the secret I have to going and talking to people. If you just throw me in a room of people I don't know and say "Go talk to them," that's going to fail miserably and produce significant amounts of anxiety. But if you toss me in a room full of people who are in the same profession, or at the same convention meetup, or who are wearing something that indicates an interest, the conversation becomes a lot easier to initiate, because there's something there to talk about already on display. I own a conversation-starter tool that disguises itself as a "real-life adventure" game called Morton's List, and despite the fact that I found out way later in life that it's strongly associated with Juggalos (the followers of the group Insane Clown Posse), it works extremely well as a conversation-starter, because it provides an immediate hook to use. If you have a bunch of bored people and an hour to work with, some dice get rolled and an activity to pursue for the next hour is chosen off various tables. By the time you're done, you've had conversations and done something together, and so you've gotten to know people who were otherwise strangers to you. Pretty simple premise, and it works better than most types of ice-breakers that I've seen put to use.
While that doesn't work quite as well on Dreamwidth and other places as it does in embodied space, it's worth noting that the principles are often the same, and that there are things like profile interest lists, sticky posts, and tags that can make it easier for someone to find something neat to talk about with someone else. Possibly in some other space to start with, like a community's comments.
So, I'm going to borrow from
teigh_corvus (and others) and last year's challenge and say that, in addition to the posts linked above, this post is a welcome post for anyone who wants to stop by and say hello. And possibly pick something from the magic sweets bowl that always has exactly the thing you most want and can have without consequences.
