#and like even compared to insanejournal

[mangled-by-disuse]

It IS, but because of the much more RP-focused (and less fandom- or life-focused) nature of Dreamwidth, it's noticeable that the icons are much more often "an image of a character, without text or additions, made to look nice and convey An Specific Emotion".

Whereas even fandom icons on Livejournal were dominated by "a funny quip or quote", "artistic filter", "pretty frame", or "I have drawn on this to convey A Thing".

and making icons now is largely a much more bulk operation. Idk if people remember this but on LJ, an icon batch was usually like, 15-25 icons with unique editing, sometimes multiple ones from the same screenshot. These days (and tbh for the last decade and change), a publicly posted icon set is likely to be HUNDREDS of icons made from as many different screenshots as possible, with the main edits being to make them clean and readable.

(to be clear, this is still a skilled endeavour! Honestly, I think it takes more skill, because it means you can't skim past scenes in bad light or low res, you have to git gud at image correction. I'm biased, because I do occasionally make icons on commission, but still.)

Anyway I just think it's fascinating how even where the surrounding tech and system is very similar, icon culture has changed SO MUCH IN the "Livejournal clones" space.

there's a post going around asking for your most millennial take and mine is that the livejournal icon ecosystem was essential for a certain type of fan and this loss of critical habitat is why the bios of so many people under 25 are Like That