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

[(Anonymous)]

Here from tumblr!

If I can provide a different perspective, I was a lurker from when I first discovered fandom in my early teens (of the "old enough to know what a lemon is, too young when I learned what it is" generation). Fandom was mostly on livejournal at that point, and oh man it terrified me: I'm scared to talk to people online. It seemed that everyone had their friends already and while I completely understand locked posts, from the outside it made it seem like I could never join in. Fandom seemed cliquey to me. And I'm sure it was in some areas and wasn't in others, and other people did feel free to join! But it seemed unwelcoming. I know others felt the same way - I posted about this (https://undercat-overdog.tumblr.com/post/656907112902017024/i-reblogged-with-tags-this-post-about-making) and had a bunch of people reach out, mostly privately, and say that they too were scared to join livejournal too and only delurked on tumblr or twitter (and ao3).

Part of my fear was that I didn't think I could contribute anything. I considered trying to write fic but the thought of actually posting scared me too - this was also in the days when there were a lot of moderated archives and I know that some of them absolutely were cliquey (that may just be my fandom; the main "good" archive site had to have each fic evaluated for "quality" before it could be posted - unless you were a member of a certain crowd). It took until I up and decided one day to write fanfiction, and oh look, now there's an archive that feels safe to me and easy to use and here's a social media site that feels ok. In some ways the openness of tumblr and the lack of private settings made it easier? I didn't fear that I was missing out on the good content because people didn't like me; it was easier for my personal internet social anxiety. Plus I was older, and now had things - fic/meta - to contribute. But even then, had fandom and social media looked like it had in the 2000s (or if it were just twitter), I would have kept lurking.

Fandom in the golden days wasn't golden for everyone and I want to speak for that perspective.

(Also livejournal was absolutely terrible for finding fic. That is not a tumblr and twitter only problem. Tumblr is also the only social media site where I can get non-fandom material (art, long random posts about weaving or tombstones of roman dogs, etc - ok twitter can too but not the long posts and my non-artist understanding is that tumblr has good media hosting) on the same feed so I only need one account: a huge blessing! Well, a discord account too if that counts.)

-undercat-overdog on tumblr. And sorry for the link thrown in as text, but the hyperlink tag didn't go through when I previewed the comment.

[(Anonymous)]

Ack ack! Oh crap, I am sorry. I did not realize the dates!

[vriddy]

I wouldn't worry about the date, you bring a lot of good points!!

Thinking of my LJ experience, I never really interacted much with writers. Definitely a lurker for fic. My fandom was SGA and I don't remember many cliques, there were a couple of closed communities for some nsfw content I think and it was really hard to get over my shyness to ask to join just to read the stuff in there, so I usually didn't.

I never formed connection with writers because I could see they already had their friends in the comments, and I was way too starstruck and thought they wouldn't be interested in anything I might have to say anyway - look how awesome they were being already ;)

However, I did make friends with other readers, people who posted fic rec lists in their journals, and shared their thoughts and hype whenever a new episode came out. Everyooone was on LJ at the time so I even managed to meet a couple of fellow fans at my university deep in the countryside, haha. We've long lost touch, but that was nice. I was a bit older than you, though. There might be a stage of life thing going on there too, with regard to feeling like you have something to contribute...

I think searching for "interest" keywords and/or communities was how to find the spaces where people shared their fic and meta and vids? It's not that much different than going through tumblr tags now.

Since last year, I write fanfic, and through mutual comments ended up befriending a bunch of other writers over time... I feel like "breaking in" to that circle must feel just as hard for lurkers today than it felt for me then. People see groups that seem already gelled and feel left out, don't know how to connect unless they have art or fic of their own to contribute. I see it a lot, in twitter spaces and things like that.

I wasn't writing during my LJ days so I don't remember how difficult it was to "break in," I'm fairly sure I found all the authors I liked through sga slash communities. I'm glad we have AO3 now!!

I just can't get over the feeling of having to be "on" and public speaking I get from tumblr, twitter, discord. It's interesting to see from the perspective of people who find it more freeing, thanks for taking the time to share!