memorizingthedigitsofpi

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I'm trying to decide what I want to use this space for, and I'm kind of tempted to use it for the posts that I tag as "thinky thoughts" over on tumblr.

tumblr's great for a lot of things - obviously, I've been blogging there for almost a decade. But it can also get overwhelming sometimes.

My personal account there is semi-dormant since I tend to think of that as a place where I can hyperfixate on my fandom of choice and interact with other people in that fandom - but I don't currently have a fandom that I'm obsessed with the way I was with my last one.

I do miss that feeling, though. A lot.

So I think I might use this space to dump all of these thoughts that I have about social media and fandom and the various discourses that keep me up at night. This is a better forum to have those kinds of conversations. Even when I reblog other people's opinions on tumblr, it feels too much like I'm an audience member watching a conversation rather than an actual participant in it. Especially when so many of the speakers are actually just whispering in their tags.

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Sounds like a great use of the platform! Right now I use mine as a sort of organization hub and a way to track fandom events that are ongoing. I think that

fictional_fans might be a comm that interests you, too! It has discussion threads about fandom in general every few days or so depending on what the community is thinking about.

I totally get that! I definitely feel like Tumblr is something I Look at, rather than participate in. Can't wait to see your thinky thoughts.

That would be cool! It would give people way more space to talk to each other, as opposed to tumblr where, sometimes, I feel like I shouldn't add my commentary to a reblog cause it almost feels intrusive (thank the gods for rambly tags xD ). And sometimes reblogs can totally derail the topic, so having a space for actual comments and responses would be nice, and it keeps everything in one place.

I think this is a great use for DW! I was originally intending to do something similar—I started writing a post about my relationship with (possible addiction to) stats, but I got a bit bogged down and overwhelmed by all the things I wanted to say and life happened, so I haven't, yet.

And, yeah, I definitely agree that tumblr feels more like observing, rather than participating. There seems to be a culture, or attitude in some circles, that people should start their own post, rather than add discussion, and I never know if the OP of a post I might want to add something onto will welcome it or not. And, yeah, when you've got the culture shift to whispering in tags that's come in the past however many years, it can lead to a lot of awkward feelings about whether or not to add to the conversation in a reblog.

And with threaded comments it makes it sooooo much easier to join in a conversation, rather than having to reblog 3 million versions of the same post XD

(As an aside, I was also thinking of using DW for maybe DVD commentary and/or research posts for my fics, but I haven't decided if it's the best platform for that, or if tumblr works fine so people can reblog the references if they want to save them)

Oh, sounds like a super cool topic!! I'm thinking a lot about social media and fandom too lately, mostly because I left/disengaged with that part of fandom around the time LJ imploded and DW was created, and everything is so different since I'm trying to get involved again as of last year.

And it's already so cool to see the comments on your posts!! Cosy good conversational vibes :)

Oooh, agreed! Can't wait to hear your meta thoughts about fandom. :D

This is a great space for that just because conversations can be parsed by thread and it's just so much neater/easier to follow than the unwieldy long thing a chain of reblogs can quickly become! Also you can tag your posts and keep them organized. Discord has its merits, but I think thoughtful discussion there can be hard just because statements gets washed downthread so quickly sometimes, and if there are like, 10 people commenting it can turn into a chaotic shouting match in seconds.😬

Chiming in mostly to echo everyone else!

I often don't feel comfortable actually commenting on Tumblr posts or reblogging with comments (not just yours, pretty much all of them) because I've seen so many people get piled on by the 'general public' on Tumblr who've misunderstood (wilfully or otherwise) the point they're trying to make, and I just don't have the mental energy to deal with that. So I'm an inveterate whisperer-in-tags, where it doesn't really show up but I can still ramble a bit. I think in some ways it's slightly too easy to comment on Tumblr, so people do it without thinking, whereas here it's a bit more of a process and a bit more structured, and maybe that encourages slightly more thought before pressing 'post comment'.

I've had the same experience with Tumblr, with Thoughts on a post, but not wanting to verbalise them for fear of either derailing a discussion or dogpiling from other people. Even reblogging with thoughts in the tags is no longer a guarantee you won't get negativity, not now those get sent to the OP as well.

And then I saw a link to your other post on a Tumblr post someone reblogged and felt very excited at Dreamwidth being a thing again and realised what I'd missed. So, er, here I am. I don't know if we share fandoms but an awful lot of the general meta applies cross-fandom, and DW is so much better for actual conversations. I hardly had to block anyone on LJ, but on Tumblr I seem to be doing it every five minutes.

This is an interesting thought I don't know if I would have had pre-pandemic and remote-world, but the culture of adding commentary in tags on tumblr almost feels to me like the same thing as commenting in the chat in a Zoom meeting instead of speaking aloud. Some people will see it, there might still be conversation in the chat, but it flies under the radar and it feels like a more "acceptable" way of speaking - feels more like shouting into a void than actually adding your voice to the conversation.

I am wondering whether you might perhaps be interested in the upcoming sunshine challenge: https://sunshine-challenge.dreamwidth.org/

It is a sister challenge, I believe, to the Snowflake Challenge that runs on Dreamwidth in January. They encourage thinky thoughts and are not fandom-specific

Isn't it the worst when one is between fandoms to hyperfixate about? I always feel somewhat adrift….

Hi! It's A Beautiful Wasteland from Tumblr. Glad to see you over here; I love your thought posts. I haven't figured out how to make Dreamwidth 'go' myself in terms of community, but I like it here. It could be a really great community if I could figure some features out probably. And probably if I could scrape together more energy to blog myself LOL.

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