modern social media sucks for fandom

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

Sometimes you just need to make a bulleted list.

• all posts are public, leading to epic levels of wank
• people reply at different points in the conversation, also leading to wank but more importantly, obscuring parts of the conversation and also making the full conversation only viewable to the initial poster
• sharing anything automatically shares it with everyone you know on that platform because you can't have subgroups for your content unless you make multiple accounts
• real fucking names
• constantly changing usernames (looking at you tumblr) makes it impossible to know who you're even following/who's following you. it also makes it hard to keep track of friends
• platforms are maximized for "engagement" not for community, so it's all about getting the likes and shares and who cares about deep diving anything
• priority is mostly given to short form content which makes nuance difficult
• everything moves so fast that it's difficult to have a follow up conversation on anything you post because people can't find the initial thought
• everything is presented without the context of the posts that came before and after them - especially on sites that don't give you a date/timestamp
• tags are communal rather than personal, so you never really know what you'll find in there. Everyone wants to organize their own space, but the items they put in their containers might be something you're allergic to (to stretch a metaphor)

I can't do twitter. Tumblr makes me feel more like either a spectator or a performer. Tiktok is every social media experience I've ever had, played through at 100x speed. No option is perfect, but some are way less perfect than others. At least for me.

Comments

[sarken]

everything moves so fast that it's difficult to have a follow up conversation on anything you post because people can't find the initial thought

The speed also discourages you from taking time to think before you reply. "Am I being rude? Am I understanding OP's points correctly? Am I making my point clearly?" All of those considerations go out the window because if you don't reply immediately, your reply might not get read, or you might not be able to find the conversation again later, or you might look like a creepy stalker for interacting with an old post.

I love Twitter, but for livetweeting, not meta. Tumblr is sort of okay for meta, but I hate when the point I agree with is a reblog of something I vehemently disagree with, or even don't fully agree with -- I don't like having to give more visibility to the part I disagree with/the part that's wrong in order to spread the part I think is worthwhile.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

The speed also discourages you from taking time to think before you reply.

I actively use the drafts feature on tumblr and this is still true. And it gets worse when you see something but the page refreshes and you haven't even had time to process it and your reaction to it and you're already seeing something else.

You've got a great point about that speed also leading to harsher interactions. Not only is there no space and no time but people are also under pressure not to say the same point as someone else and be labelled a copycat or wait too long and the conversation has moved past what you want to say.

I only use twitter for animal crossing screenshots XD but the tumblr thing, oof. I feel that. I'm at the point now where I just make a fresh post with whatever point or counterpoint I want to make because I don't want to spread the horrible idea, but then I either have to be careful about including context or I have to deliberate exclude context. More often than not, I choose the latter and I think that's to the detriment of the broader conversation.

[nrgburst]

Ugh, I hear you! I’m so much happier on DW for fannish conversation just because of the logical set up, privacy settings and pacing. People can take the time to make thoughtful posts in reply; to use HTML in their replies; to reply to the distinct branches on a topic instead of doing a weird reblog/regurgitate the previous repeatedly thing. Plus I think most fans on this platform are a bit older and less prone to wank. There’s definitely less content though, so I feel like I have to go a wandering in tumblr/discord/AO3 lands for the new fannish stuff!

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

the time really is the thing that I enjoy the most about DW. tumblr is a pretty big source of guilt for me because my inbox is never ending and I wish I could catch up, but I also find it overwhelming so catching up is an impossible dream

I can see a future where I eventually post here more than over there. I don't need notes and reblogs. I need other people, as few or as many want to hang out.

[vriddy]

Yeah, I've been thinking about this too after seeing one of your recent tumblr posts. I think twitter and tumblr and the modern social media platforms are inherently forcing people to be performative? Because you're never in your own space, you're always speaking in a big courtyard full of people where someone else might hear you and answer, and there's fun in finding new people like that but it's also exhausting in that you always have to be on. Unless you hide something carefully in a post with no tags on tumblr, I guess, which is like whispering into the void because it will be lost in two minutes since that's just the way the platform works, pushing new content on top all the time.

Like, in theory just as many people could be reading and listening here on DW... but I think that comes with more awareness that you are lurking, this isn't your space. And there's nothing for you to "win" here - you can't make yourself look good by reblogging/retweeting interesting content or by disagreeing outrageously with a Bad Take (which may be genuinely bad, or maybe just too easy to take in bad faith.)

And there's nothing to "win" in terms of engagement here either. There's no like or anything. If people want to interact, they have to pause and write some thoughts - and there's no internet points to win there either, just a quality connection.

Haha, I think I was going somewhere with this but I didn't sleep well and I have to scoot off to a meeting now 😂 I'm having a lot of thoughts about this too, and appreciate having yours to add to the murky pond swirling at the back of my mind as well.

[301beq]

Okay but same. I feel performative when I post anything personal to my tumblr blog, and I don't want to reblog some of my mutuals stuff to my bigger blog because idk if they want more people to see it.

I always feel nervous when posting my opinion too, because I'm worried about discourse, even if it doesn't happen much anymore on tumblr.

I think it might just be the general vibes/culture? Or my anxiety lmao

[wolfish_willow]

For real, though. Tumblr is okay and I am grateful that it was around after LJ stopped being viable, but it can feel a lot more lonely. On top of having to be so careful about what you reblog or comment on to avoid getting hate sent your way (I have made that mistake a time or two apparently haha).

I still don't get how fandom is on Twitter. It seems so much less built for it than tumblr is. I still only use it for movie news lol.

[vriddy]

I'm slowly finding my way around my corner of fandom twitter, but it's definitely a strange and fraught kind of experience and I'm very careful about Not Having An Opinion about anything because wow do things escalate quickly, and always in terrible ways. It can be fun to connect with readers: I post about fic updates, and some people who've never left a comment before seem more comfortable doing that over there. Same for connecting with fellow authors, it's a lot easier to have warm little conversations with people there than on tumblr, or that's been my experience so far. I'm, huh, not a tumblr expert either 😂

But then no one tags anything and you've got The Algorithm shoving stuff in people's face that they don't want to see, so they decide that whatever ship or whatever it is shouldn't exist at all since they can't otherwise escape it and that's how things can spiral down scarily quick.

Would love to find more chill communities here on Dreamwidth!

[301beq]

True, I have so many mutuals on tumblr who I swear I know more about, but since I don't recognize their username or icon I just. Have no clue who they are.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

SO MUCH THIS

[pauraque]

Tell me about it. A lot of this is why I left Twitter, and never got into Tumblr in the first place.

[mistressofmuses]

AMEN.

The metric of success (and design) being "engagement" is ABSOLUTELY a huge deal. It removes so much nuance or in-depth exploration, because getting notes/shares/retweets/likes/whatever is easier done with something short and emotional, which isn't great for a lot of complicated topics.

Also, algorithms can fuck far, far off. I want options to find new content and people and groups... on my terms and when I'm interested. Not when a site decides a person/page/group has paid enough to show up on my feed.

The way things like tumblr (and maybe twitter, idk, I've never figured it out) work with people engaging with different parts of a convo is REALLY hard for community. I don't know that I'd thought about that particular thing (a particular reblog chain taking off, even if it misses some really interesting and insightful parts of the conversation) as part of what makes *fandom* hard on tumblr, but it's kind of obvious now that you pointed it out.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

it wasn't obvious to me either until I had an epiphany the other night while lying awake in bed at 2am. everyone is so desperate for ao3 comments because they don't have anywhere else to have a conversation with someone. I think that's also the reason why everyone tries to treat ao3 like social media when it's not. they need a platform that allows for this style of conversation we're having right here, and the closes analogue to a lot of people seems to be ao3 - because they don't know other options exist

[li_izumi]

And of course, you add in "for profit" into all the social media aspects, and that adds a whole other aspect of it all.

I like aspects and dislike aspects of all the major ones, and really wish there was a way to AO3-ize a social media site.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

don't even get me started on how capitalism has screwed up fandom


... I'll probably post about that at some point too XD

[kadharonon]

I think the fact that it's really easy for a post to escape your local circle of friends is one of the things that modern social media just... it's rough on a fandom. It's easy for things that are inside jokes or someone being ridiculous on purpose to get taken completely seriously and at face value, and for a lot of wank to grow up around that.

And the communal rather than personal thing... well, okay, I actually entered fandom in the message board days rather than LJ. I did a lot of message board roleplaying, and I still have friends from the Redwall Fan Fiction board back in the day. And that was sort of communal, but you'd also have sub-forums for different types of conversations, and conversations that didn't belong in a specific place could be moved or removed by moderators, making it easier to tailor your experience in that communal space. And it's just impossible to do that on Tumblr or Twitter in any meaningful way.

I think that there's also sort of an entitlement to certain interactions that would make it hard to do the same sort of thing these days; I could see someone pissed off that their thread got locked starting a hate-brigade, and a moderating team just getting flooded with nonsense.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

I never participated in the forum parts of fandom (well, only as a lurker) but you're definitely not wrong

[dressure]

Honestly, what kills me the most is just how damn present I have to be all the time in those social medias.

I feel like if I want to participate, ESPECIALLY on Twitter and Discord, if I am not right there at the second something happens, it's just... not possible to go back easily to the topic. On Discord, any server will have moved on from the topic you want to talk about, and you will have to go onto 200+ messages just to SEE what they were talking about. On Twitter, you won't see shit in a time-matter and now you have a weird vague tweet for 14 hours ago, another one from 3 hours ago, and then three days latter you will see another tweet from three months ago that actually was the pivot to anything.

Like... that's so tiring. I don't WANT to be engaged in fandom all the time, and when I do, I feel like I got to play catch up with a bunch of bullshit just to see some damn headcanons, and that is IF the algorithm let's me see them in the first place.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

I've always been one to sort of stay mostly in my little corner of a fandom with my friends and my ships or fave characters. I've never tried to keep up with the actors or the behind the scenes or the powers that be etc. If I see that stuff, that's fine but it's not something I actively seek out. I wouldn't even know how to do so if I wanted to :(

[(Anonymous)]

My first instinct was to defend the almost non-community aspect of Tumblr being more welcoming to people who aren't as comfortable interacting with communities. I'm a lurker by nature, and Tumblr allows for a more passive interaction with content and people that I'm more comfortable with on a day-to-day basis whereas forums and more community-oriented socials have the pressure of being somewhat active and seeking out other people to have conversations with. I tend to play my fic ideas close to my chest and don't do much in the way of meta and analysis, so I also don't feel like I have much to say.

But then, I started wondering a bit. I'm a fandom young, comparatively speaking. I wasn't on LiveJournal, I was late to FFN, and Tumblr, and Ao3. The only forums I've ever been even remotely active on were NaNoWriMo forums. A lot of my resistance to more community-based fandom locations is because of the drama, fighting, and how quickly things can just explode, and when it comes down to it, the unspoken social rules that I worry I might break are a small drop in a very large ocean.

I kind of wonder if that's in part because I've only ever experienced fandom "community" through Tumblr, and social media in general through the major socials, where everything is very out-there and you have to sacrifice interaction for privacy and any misstep is very quickly and harshly punished. IDK, just some thoughts really. Also a possible reason why places like Pillowfort and here tend to be populated with older fans than younger, community's scary when all you know is Tumblr

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

I also tend to play things fairly close when I'm in a fandom. I follow people and reblog stuff, and I try to be generally friendly. But I also only have in depth conversations with a dozen people out of the several hundred I might follow. And those conversations happen on over text or DM or private discords.

For me, tumblr is where I can find the people. Group chats are where I can get to know them and have conversations with them.

Like you say, everything on the modern platforms is public and while drama definitely did happen in the forum and LJ days, it was always more contained than it is now. You might here the rumblings far off or you might be completely unaware, but it wouldn't explode all over your timeline unless you were fairly directly involved with it or were friends with someone who was.

[drawnecromancy]

It's interesting because as someone slightly younger whose first fan experiences were on Instagram (yeah. i know. it wasn't great, and the absolute absence of warnings on anything were uh. Interesting!), and who then migrated on Tumblr (and couldn't get into Twitter), it feels like I've never had the personal/actual talking parts of fandom.
But yeah, for me on Tumblr sometimes reblogging things isn't what I like doing because even if I do have somewhat of a tagging system for my blog... it's still kinda showing everyone who follows me the Thing if they haven't blocked a specific tag. That and it's a lot like screaming into the void sometimes. (I'm also realizing maybe on Tumblr I like using tags to ramble because it feels more like whispering to myself than, like, the actual post.)
Twitter ? That thing scares me. It doesn't feel like there's a lot of context to anything on it, you can't have nuance in 240 characters, and I am afraid of posting literally any kind of fanart over there because of this.
(I'm not sure if I'm even on topic at this point i am very tired)

The most sense of community and actually discussing stuff with people online I've had was on a roleplay forum in 2014- I've kept some lifelong friends from back then. There were both the roleplay and longer posts and a real time chat box! It was great. Discord, to an extent, have given me some Actual Discussion Time but only in one or two specific servers.

Honestly ? This is why I decided to join Dreamwidth when you started talking about it because. uh. I wanted to try out actually talking to people for once. Which is something I've barely done in online fandom spaces simply because... there wasn't really a way to, unless my friends are into the same thing. I'm glad I found someone who encourages me on my fanfic endeavors irl, and also likes the elder scrolls and laughs with me about my wacky headcanons. I don't think I've found any place where something like that could happen yet.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

I can't even imagine fandom on Instagram. And the fact that there are people who do it on pintrest and tiktok just blows my mind. I get that humans are great at adapting things to serve their own purpose but... damn.

I hope you like it here on dreamwidth. It's a very different kind of space to the major socials. Much slower and quieter which is good for someone like me who needs a bit of asynchronous communication and can't keep up with the pace of things. :) Also, I can't tell you how much I've missed having a place that is mine

[pegasus143]

Honestly the thing I dislike most about social media is how difficult it is to find that one incredibly specific thing that you lost. Like, let's say you remember a post that mentioned a specific character, location, and random fun fact. If you try and search those things together on any social media site, you're not going to get any results, even though the post containing all three of them is right there on the site!

On ao3, you can kind of get that to work, since you can search for specific combinations of tags (assuming that the work author tagged those things), but other social media sites don't let you search tags in specific combinations. This also can lead to some issues -- let's say you have a favorite character in a fandom, but they're not a fandom favorite. If you go in that character's tag, here's what you're going to find:

1. Posts about the fandom favorite that are tagged with every character tag (you could technically eliminate these by blocking the tag for the fandom favorite, but you usually enjoy posts about this character -- just not, you know, when you're looking for posts about a different character)

2. Pretty pictures, gifsets, incorrect quotes, etc. -- all the stuff that's easy to make and pretty (or not-so-pretty, but you know what I mean) to look at

3. Character analysis, meta, fics, etc. -- the meaty content

If you're in a mood for only meaty content about this character... unless you know someone who's reblogged a lot of that sort of thing and has literally the best and most specific organizational system ever, good luck finding what you're looking for. You'll either be stuck in the character tag scrolling past stuff you don't want to see, or in some other fandom tag (such as meta) scrolling through stuff you don't want to see.

[feast_of_regrets]

This! This is the thing that gets me! I am forever in the mode of "Now where did I see that?" If you don't reblog something immediately to your own blog on Tumblr, hell help you ever find it again. And even then, did you reblog it more than 200 posts ago? Hope you remember a striking phrase to help Google site search your blog! (I know I saw a tool for seeing truly every post you've ever tagged something on your blog somewhere; I think I even reblogged it last time I saw it. Haven't tried it though.) And all of that is without factoring in changes in site policy (like the 200 post thing) that suddenly make old content a lot harder to find. Or purges. It's just very frustrating sometimes.

[razia]

The way people are incentivized and rewarded (with likes/rts/follows) for starting drama is one of the big reasons for putting me off social media lately. I tried my hand at Twitter for a few months, and those were very, very miserable months. I was constantly bombarded by tweets of people I didn't follow and subjects that don't interest me at all, either because someone I follow liked it or because the algorithm thought I might like it.

Also, it might just be my very personal experience, but people also seem to be nastier on Twitter, if only for the fact that you have very few words to use, and need to be as snappy and concise as possible. Not that Tumblr is much better, but at least it has a bigger character limit. It's also exhausting to be in public mode all the time, knowing that at any point anyone can stumble upon your words, and try to spin some drama out of it.

[vriddy]

Ah, yes, I really feel that: having to be in public mode all the time, and always thinking about how anything you write could be misinterpreted if it gets out of the small circle you meant it for. "Rewarded for drama" is definitely the antithesis of anything meant to enable community building...

[ms_katonic]

Indeed. Facebook has the filtered posts but has your real name and face attached to it so NO. Everywhere else has the lack of privacy and you feel more like you're performing than actually talking to anyone.

Still. Your posts are helping me forgive Tumblrites for being... well. The site they/we are on encourages the worst of fandom, not the best. Doesn't excuse the excesses and abuses, but the worst offenders would either learn to behave or not be able to do as much harm on a more humane platform.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

yeah, the more I realize how broken the platforms are (at least for fandom, I can't speak for other subgroups), the more I realize that it's not completely their fault

when I found out that putting the tag #anti-ship or #ship hate would drop your post into the main ship tag? 😬 that's when I decided to either keep my thoughts to myself or not tag them at all

[yume_hanabi]

Twitter's been good to me in terms of interactions--it seems like it's where most of my fandom hangs out, and people respond more freely to tweets than to tumblr posts. It's the main reason I'm staying on that platform, because I hate everything else about it.

The "everything moves too fast," though, I feel that. I always feel like I'm constantly trying to catch up, and it doesn't help that I have to wade through countless tweets I don't care for. At least tumblr tags make for an easy blacklist (this is why I've made it a rule to only follow people who tag consistently over there), but Twitter's muting system is a joke.

I also feel like the character limit on twitter, and the fast pace of those current social media, really impacted the writing of long, thoughtful posts negatively. I used to write long meta and headcanon posts a lot on Tumblr, but I barely do anymore. That's something I've really missed, and want to try doing again.

There are things I do like about those social medias, but I really agree they suck for fandoms.
Fanexus seems promising, as it looks like it'll combine the best parts of each, but it's still in beta, and I'm afraid it won't really take. I would love for fandoms to move to a dedicated site.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

I'm wary of Fanexus. I want to see a more robust plan for how they're going to moderate and deal with abuse of their platform. Also, a lot of the stuff I've seen about tagging made me wince, if not cry. But then again, I haven't checked in with them in several months. They might be on a better track now than the last time I looked in.

[jelasdax]

I’m actually very glad that you’ve been reminding people about Dreamwidth, because I am one of those people who used to use it a decade ago and then stopped when it became clear that people were migrating to Tumblr. Looking back at earlier blog posts makes me glad that I started this account up from scratch a few years ago. It’s amazing what a decade will do for personal growth.

But I hate tumblr as a community space for fandom! I only use it to look at pretty gif sets, and when there’s discourse it all seems so exhausting to try and navigate. Actual conversations are challenging in that space.

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

the closest I've come to conversation in post format on tumblr is reblogging additions to my posts. And in that situation, I'm not actually participating in the conversation because I'm so aware of how long those posts get. I'm just hosting the conversation, presenting it for other people to participate in but never really doing anything myself beyond answering the initial ask.

[petra]

I enjoy Tumblr but it is terrible for actual conversations. Twitter is better for talking to people, but it is exhausting to keep up with.

I miss the Good Old Days of LJ when it was possible to maintain a conversation over the course of several days without losing it in the general flow of balderdash. But then I occasionally miss usenet, too, because I am a Fandom Old.

[stealthbaguette]

(Following from Tumblr.)

Just a random thought on the fandom spaces thing: I like to think where most of us are is at the online equivalent of a table at a foodcourt. Some conversations, even in public, are really only meant for just the ones at that table, but because we are in a public space, strangers can overhear what we say and join in, whether we want to or not. Which is a bit of a bummer when things are misunderstood due to lack of context because the context is on the other side of the court, or not even in that same mall. And in those instances, I at least have wished we could opt for a more private booth with the curtains drawn.

#mood

[feckyeslife]

"platforms are maximized for "engagement" not for community, so it's all about getting the likes and shares and who cares about deep diving anything" big #mood for this. I'm usually therefore AWFUL at knowing how/if/when to interact with people on sites because everyone's expectations are really varied. If I put my thoughts on my own reblog of something, is the OP going to roll their eyes and wish that I had shut up? Are my own followers going to skip back to the previous post(s) to reblog from instead of what I added? Is the conversation even open to people that aren't already friends? It's such a wild west and I haaaate it.

Ramble-y Thoughts

[justapotatowriter]

Excuse my rambles. DW makes rambling feel easy.

My first fandom community was on FFN way back when I was 11 or 12, where I befriended a few people through replying to their reviews and talking about all sorts of things. I spent more time sending PMs than I did reading fics. Even though we don't talk anymore, these people stayed in contact with me for years. We were around the same age, and we interacted with each other's stories regularly. Only when I started uni that I became too busy to talk as often. Most of these people are no longer on FFN, and some of them might have changed and we might not get along anymore. But it was a fun time back then.

Tumblr feel so....different from that. I'm starting to think that my feelings of low self-esteem were because I missed that feeling of having friends in fandom. My writing has improved, but I'm not as happy.(AO3 only began to feel weird when people started adding stuff like "if you ship X/Y gtfo" and "in this house we stan/hate X" in additional tags. Idk, it just makes me feel weird.)

I have some people on tumblr who interact with my posts about OCs and my writing, with reblogs and reactions in tags and all, but sometimes I just post when they're not online, and who knows if they'll ever see it. Self-reblogging feel....sad lol. And I can't just message them and ramble because the message box thing is so small and annoying on desktop, and rambling in reblogs is just me constantly throwing rambles on people's dashboards (One time I rambled with someone about my OCs, and they rambled about their OCs, and it was a very long post.)

And the Wank™. Boy oh boy, I've lost interest in so many fandoms because of the widespread hate towards certain characters on basis of applying morality to fiction, which we all know is the only valid way of interacting with fiction, because fiction affects reality and stanning a 'literal abuser' is way worse than taking the side of his son who is a murderer in canon. /s (I'm never gonna stop being super salty about the BNHA fandom. Like, I get if you (general you) don't like the character, but let others do their thing????) Not to mention how interacting with other people who share your views isn't a guarantee that you won't somehow find yourself dragged into discourse, because like you said, posts are public.

(I mean, I guess I can thank fanpol for motivating me to create my own original content. Can't have fanpol if what you write has no fandom. Problem solved! :D)

That being said, most of my social media experience is on tumblr. I don't have a lot of interest in social media.

Am I still even on topic? My brain is thinking of too many things at once.

Re: Ramble-y Thoughts

[vriddy]

Aw, man, I feel you so much on the bnha fandom wank, I know you're not using your journal right now but don't mind me following in hopes of maybe seeing BNHA mentions on DW someday too, haha! I had to filter out all bnha meta on tumblr because it made me sick to read. It's so weird because meta has so many nuances, and yet when it comes to some characters suddenly it's absolutely black and white, there is only Right and Wrong and whether that character is hated or not.

[(Anonymous)]

I feel as though the likes/shares also end up making things into a competition because it's how you get seen. So instead of building community, it might just foster competition. How can you/your own thoughts reach a community if they're always pushed to the bottom by more popular users? I think that my desire for likes/shares just comes from a hunger for community, to be able to reach and talk to people and hopefully give them something they like. And that's the only metric that's the most available in fandom circles to rate how much people liked or saw my work. But it's isolating because all it is, is numbers. Not connection.

[hannah]

The constantly changing usernames is absolutely one of Tumblr's weakest points. The link rot alone makes me shudder.

[mekare]

Oh yeah. Bookmarking things and a couple of months later they are just. Gone. Horrible!

[chocolatepot]

One of the worst things, I've found, is the algorithm. I very very rarely make a text post on Tumblr because when I do ... who sees it? My fannish account has 231 followers, which to little ol' oldbie me sounds like a lot, but it's not enough to give what I say the kind of boost that would actually make my posts show up in the tags and get any kind of discussion going.

(Also, the idea that "if you have something to say you should put it in the tags, and wait for someone else to excavate it out and share a screenshot, potentially without your name attached" is SO TOXIC. I don't know who came up with this or why so many people accepted that posting your own thoughts on a reblog is arrogant or out-of-touch, but just thinking about it gives me the heebie-jeebies. And yet I tend to confine myself to the tags anyway, because I don't want people to point and laugh at my self-assurance.)

[krait]

These are ALL good points, but others have covered a lot of what I feel about the speed and privacy issues, so I feel particularly sympathetic to the one about constantly-changing names. As someone who has had maybe four usernames in two decades of fannish life, I don't think I'm ever going to understand the rapid-fire name-changing that younger fans do! 'I'm in a new fandom now; time to destroy my old account and make a new one' - what?? Or even name-splitting, which I also see all the time: people who will admit that they have one account for porn, one for gen, and one for exchanges, or some other set of divisions.

It's such a marketing thing that I always have a bit of a flinch reaction. The impression I get is that their fic is a product, and their name is a brand, and the brand must deliver a promised product and only the promised product with no surprises - on pain of being sued for breach of contract.

On a personal level I hate it because no, if I like five of your fics I would love to be able to find the rest! Why hide them? It's not as though nobody in the world could possibly enjoy both gen and romance, or casefic and curtainfic; the fact that you're writing all of it is pretty much proof that people can like all of it, right?

On an emotional level I hate it because no, that's not what fandom is supposed to be about; this is a hobby, not a job, and a friend group, not a networking event. You haven't promised anybody anything; if you want to write tentacle porn one week and modern-AU fluff next week, you should! How can you make friends and enjoy your hobby if you're carefully slicing yourself into market segments and pretending to be three different people with singular interests? How can you keep friendships if every time you find a new interest you vanish from the old one?

I see this on smaller scales, too: a couple weeks ago I saw someone say they had deleted a fic a couple months after posting it because it hadn't 'done well' and that was obviously embarrassing. D: I couldn't help but think, a couple months? But what if the fan who would have loved that fic is someone who won't get into this fandom for another five years?

There have been so many fandoms where I was late to the party; sometimes by a couple of years (Nirvana in Fire!) and sometimes by decades (Starsky & Hutch)! The idea that a fic has to 'do well' to justify its existence is strange enough to me, but the idea that a couple of months is a sufficient window for a fanwork to be judged by is unfathomable. Yet this seems to be How People Do Fandom on large social media sites now, whether it's a fic or a whole persona being assessed.

I don't get it, and probably never will.

(While I'm at it, I'd also like to register my PROFOUND disapproval for sites that don't provide timestamps! Why is this a thing. Whom do I shout at to make it stop.) D:

[vriddy]

I set things up to get notified of new messages on this post since everyone's made so many interesting points, and so are you now!! I've got a post percolating somewhere around commercialisation in fandom, and what you mention about marketing really connects with that.

Like, I'll be reading a fic on AO3, and the end author note will say "Twitter saw it first!" because building engagement/followers is so important...? I don't remember seeing that kind of things before, it feels different than just dropping a link to your blog so people can chat with you.

Or something else that keeps making me go "this isn't my experience of fandom" is people circulating the first few pages of awesome fanart/comics they write, and at the end explain how you can buy the rest because it won't be shared on social media.

And I understand people need to make a living and capitalism is so tough on people, but this is so foreign to my experience of fandom. This isn't what I come here to do. And I don't know if it's something new or if it was always there and it's just accelerating now. I think maybe people always sold merch and fanzines and fanart at conventions? I do remember buying postcards with cool fanart. But I don't remember that exhausting marketing push at the time. Maybe I'm just more tired nowadays...??