And now, Martin’s latest figurative casualty-the severed LiveJournal-serves as a brief reminder of the platform’s ascendance and the decisions that brought this blogging icon crashing down. Instead, a stubborn userbase and questionable business decisions harried those ambitions. But, as many of its former employees attest, LJ ultimately had the opportunity to become one of these “second-generation” social behemoths. LiveJournal, or LJ, as its users lovingly called it, was a different kind of social media service, one that is almost unrecognizable in a world dominated by the anonymity-shattering power of a Facebook or Twitter. And based on candid conversations with some of the figures who made LiveJournal what it was, it turns out that impression isn’t far off. As a teen, I never actually knew anyone who had one, but I heard whispers and rumors about drama on the service all the time. Growing up on the Web at the dawn of the social media age (circa 2007), it felt like all the connectivity-obsessed sites forming the burgeoning core of the new Internet were haunted by a faded spectre called LiveJournal. So while the author may never finish his most beloved literary series, his simple act of Web hosting logistics truly marks the end of an era. Described as “the last holdout” by longtime LiveJournal volunteer-turned-employee Janine Costanzo, Martin’s blog was perhaps the once-blogging-giant’s last bond to the world of great pop culture. For a certain strata of enthusiasts, however, this was a far more momentous move. For casual Game of Thrones fans, it was a minor hiccup at best-most clicked the new link and never looked back. Martin announced that he was hoisting his ancient blog from his moldering LiveJournal onto his personal website. Last April, famed writer and hero-murderer George R.R. Enlarge / No spoilers, but with the departure of a certain high profile fantasy writer, LiveJournal seems to have been left like Jon Snow here.
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