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SUP pretends that sex and fanfiction don’t exist on LiveJournal

Written on March 16, 2008

I can’t say that I had much joy when reading the news of SUP taking over the whole of LiveJournal back in December. There is something fishy about SUP and I wrote about that way back in 2006 in IHT. That their funder has very tight links to the Kremlin is, of course, deplorable, but now it turns out they are trying to re-classify the quirky LiveJournal demographics to make it more appealing to advertisers. A LJ user Stewardess reports here and here about SUP’s recent reclassification of user interests on LiveJournal. It seems like just a minor thing until you look at the categories that they decided to remove (those who are not familiar with LiveJournal: most users specify what they are interested in on their profile page; this then also helps to find new people).

So, SUP removed the following: Sex, Boys, Guys, Girls, Fanfiction, Yaoi, Hardcore, Porn, Bondage, Faeries, Pain, Depression, and Bisexuality. Some of them were actually quite popular (”porn” and “fanfiction” were both over 80,000). Here is table reproduced from the Stewardess’s post (the comments in the table are from the original post):

Livejournal Most Popular Interests May 14, 2007 March 15, 2008 Sekrit Number!
Movies 1,024,163 1,069,850  
Writing 658,827 717,724  
Sex 266,004 Censored 277,319
Harry Potter 245,587 268,051  
Boys 244,643 Censored 250,292
Guys 161,476 Back as of 03/16/2008? 162,130
Girls 150,168 Censored 154,529
Women 135,036 137,038  
Kissing 133,821 135,334  
Lord of the Rings 132,207 134,674  
Johnny Depp 115,662 118,393  
Cuddling 98,840 101,045  
Men 92,244 93,771  
Icons 86,819 94,730  
Fanfiction 85,886 Censored 96,200 Ha!
God 83,326 87,003  
Beer 79,493 83,186  
Alcohol 73,170 75,604  
Death 64,870 66,295  
Slash 63,481 68,795  
Blood 62,242 63,699  
Yaoi 54,973 Censored 61,674
Hardcore 51,134 Censored 52,870
Porn 49,806 Censored 50,997
Jesus 48,712 50,224  
Bondage 47,438 Censored 48,895
Making Out 46,711 46,663  
RPGs 45,534 47,259  
Drugs 45,200 47,051  
Smoking 39,615 41,408  
Faeries 39,212 Censored 39,878
Pain 37,898 Censored 38,346
Europe 36,764 36,764  
From this point on, the most recent numbers appear to be broken. The 56
interests following Europe have values unchanged from 2007. I include a
few anyway, because two were censored.
Depression 31,092 Censored 31,092
The Matrix 16,658 16,658  
Bisexuality 16,359 Censored 16,359

Well, porn and boys&girls aside, the remove of “fan fiction” is a serious blunder, all the more surprising that now SUP has recruited a top-notch advisory board which includes the likes of Lawrence Lessig and danah boyd (I wonder if she has been aware of this?). I understand SUP’s logic: they want to make their users more appealing to advertisers. It’s kind of hard to sign up great brands to advertise to people who state “bondage”, “depression” and “bisexuality” among their interests. But it’s hard to deny that it’s precisely the “freaks and geeks” who have shaped the LiveJournal culture over many years, particularly outside of the former Soviet Union, where LiveJournal is the platform for choice even for the elites.

That SUP may not really understand this is obvious; it’s a Russian company with a local outlook, so I can forgive them for not knowing what “doujinshi” is, but I am still wondering what use they then make of all these fancy international advisors that they signed up…During the previous turmoil about fanfiction, Ethan Zuckerman wrote a nice post about the need to recognize the norms of the communities before making a blunt “delete” decision, particularly of communities as complex as the “fanfic” ones, where the obscene often borders on the artsy and vice versa. It seems that SUP didn’t really heed that advice..

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  1. Comment by Doctor Science:

    I don’t think it’s the Russians doing this, necessarily. They also removed all but one Russian interest, after all. I think they’re trying to make the list palatable to … who? Random American parents wondering “what this livejournal thing is”, is my guess. It can’t be aimed at investors, advertisers, or members, because leaving off the Russian interests is actively counterproductive for those groups.

    March 16, 2008 @ 11:20 pm

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