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.
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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.