(no subject)

[hatman]

You know, it's kind of interesting how different the comments (all from females) about the "beautiful card" are on DW-side vs LJ-side.

No idea what, if anything, I'll end up doing about it, but thanks to everyone who provided thoughts and perspective. :)

Comments

[erinptah]

Wow. That's a surprisingly sharp divide.

Me, I'm somewhere in the middle. I don't think I would personally get pinged by the creepiness factor -- but then, I have a pretty low radar for creepiness in general. (As in, will cheerfully say hello to people who greet me on the street, then later have a companion say "You know those folks were completely plastered, right?")

The biggest concern that strikes me is that you never know when the person you're approaching has a history of being stalked or harassed, which would make the attempt at joy-spreading backfire horribly. An offhand, specific, friendly compliment ("Hey, I really love your hairdo") is probably safer in this regard than a pre-typed card containing sweeping declarations of the person's virtues. Ditto for an anonymous pay-it-forward type of card (I always like finding things of that kind tucked in library books), which is much less likely to come across as you having a specific personal obsession with the recipient.

[hatman]

Yeah, one thing that's clear is that individual reactions will vary greatly, and there's no way to tell beforehand whether the recipient will feel a warm glow or an icky creepy feeling. Seems like the cards, as I'd kind of expected from the start, is a better idea in theory than practice.

But anon pay-it-forward could be cool. "Thanks for brightening my day. Pass this card along to the next person who makes you smile, if only for a moment." Or something like that. Hmm.

But this isn't the first time I've seen a sharp divide between my old friends on LJ and new people on DW. It's a different atmosphere.