Let's Go Masquerading

[roadrunnertwice]

There's interesting talk about userpics going on; I caught it at damned_colonial's "Icons as representation of self" post. (And she from isis: mini meta fest: userpics.)

Userpics are one of the things I've come to find most interesting about the Dreamwidth/Livejournal format over time. What a strange and wondrous convention! As near as I can tell, they were introduced as a rich feature with a poor schema, so they've been free to develop into... well, hell, all kinds of stuff. So anyway, I started trying to classify my own shit, and isis and damned_colonial's schemae didn't really seem useful for what I'd accreted, and since I'd built up my icon habits in a fairly animistic and ad-hoc way, I didn't have any sort of key ready to hand and had to actually think about it for a few minutes. Here's the best I was able to come up with:

Self-representation (literal and metaphorical)

When I use these, the person in the icon is meant to represent me. (At that particular moment in time. Prices may vary. See anima for details.) Male:female count: 4:4. Actual self count: 2. (And I'm not ultra happy with either one, but I don't have many interesting portraits sitting around. ANYWAY.)

Hexdrivers

More or less single-purpose tools, with varying usefulness. These illustrate some process, a specific (as opposed to pervasive) emotion, or some other transitory internal or external state. Or they just make a joke or cuss some.

Lamps

The most versatile and abstract tranche. More like Tarot cards than anything else, these tend to reflect some less-than-effable gestalt.



And through the whole thing, of course, there's a sort of system of references that identifies my tribe and standing, but at the moment I'm finding strategy less interesting than tactics. Anyway, what'cha all got?

Comments

[roadrunnertwice]

Wow, the distribution of visual noise there is really kind of striking. I hadn't noticed that until I posted it.

[damned_colonial]

Huh, yeah, that's what I noticed too when I looked at your set. I could see something a bit similar in mine, too, but it's just that my non-human ones had a swathe of more monochromatic/paler pictures for some reason... nowhere near as distinct as yours.

[chronographia]

EEiiiiiinterestinkk. I will have to do some thinking about this, because my long history of icons has been sort of a Venn diagram of your categories. Quite a lot of overlap in certain areas. (i.e. My Fandom Talks To Rocks is as much representational of me being lecture-y and misanthropic as well as relevant to general science fiction/artificial intelligence/space clothing™/gratuitous use of hexagons.) After having my icons become more and more condensed on LJ, I don't think I have many metric hexdriver type icons anymore.

::runs off to make Venn diagram::

[chronographia]

Ok. I tried. I tried really hard. It turns out that too many of my icons are mutitask and flip back and forth between "self-representation" and "relevance to journal entry" and just plain have multiple layers of meaning. I think it's a by-product of my art school training that Thou Shalt have multiple layers of meaning and Thou Shalt not waste space with things that don't. On the up side: really visually coherent.

I can say that my flist has come to the conclusion that I am equal parts Steerpike, Violet and a broken watch. (Just ask any of them.) And I'm pretty comfortable self-identifying that way too.

Regarding isis category of child/pet: I don't do that kind of thing. Ever.

[roadrunnertwice]

Oh yes, definitely with the overdetermined icons. I am all about. 'Course, I was much more about 'em when I was strictly on an unpaid LJ account and was limited to six. (The "Castrol" icon and the BF campfire one in particular were real workhorses, as far as my emotional range was concerned. Actually, they might be the whole gamut.)

Now that I've been able to let the clutter spread out and breathe a bit, I think my icons fit this ad-hoxonomy imperfectly (for example, over on the LJ, M-Funk and Kate pointed out that Hagrid is representational much of the time) but noticeably.

---

(Y'know, I have no idea who Steerpike or Violet are, and had been thinking of them as "the hardass" and "the quiet one.")

[chronographia]

(Heh. I go for somewhat esoteric and outdated fandoms. Mervyn Peake's Steerpike is my favorite amoral villain, who really drives the Gormenghast books, much more than the designated hero. I suppose "the hardass" is a reasonable summation. Violet Baudelaire tends towards quietude if only because she is thinking of how to engineer things.)

[nightswatch.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that is the first time Hagrid has ever been referred to as part of "some less-than-effable gestalt."

[roadrunnertwice]

The crow, on the other hand, has got used to it by now.

[gyladia.livejournal.com]

I think I picked up on the self representation thing, and I totally thought Hagrid was part of that.

[katealaurel.livejournal.com]

Ditto.

[roadrunnertwice]

Hmm. Yeah, he might be, at that. These things tend to slide around, and there are a few up in Representation that get used as Lamps half the time.