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

[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!

[wolfish_willow]

Not Having An Opinion seems like a safe bet for sure! Though the same can definitely be said of tumblr as well. Lots of jumping to conclusions everywhere, I guess.

The algorithm is so strange! I don't know what makes Twitter think I want to read a tweet from some random person that has nothing to do with any of the accounts I do follow haha.

I've got a friend who does a lot of fandom stuff there, though, and it seems to work well for them. I think I'll stick to movie news myself XD

[vriddy]

Wise! 😂

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

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

when it comes to the rise of antis/puriteens/fanpol or whatever you want to call them, I think this right here is the prime cause

[wingedcatgirl]

Honestly, it feels like the only reason fandom is on Twitter is that they had to go somewhere after Tumblr banned porn, and... well, we can't figure why they picked Twitter instead of Dreamwidth, but they sure did that.

[wolfish_willow]

Man, so many of them have probably never even *heard* of Dreamwidth tbh. I bet I could mention this place on my tumblr and a decent amount of people in my current fandom would have no idea.

I *do* enjoy that Twitter has allowed more of the nsfw stuff even if I don't ever go looking for it. People should just be able to share their work ;_;

[memorizingthedigitsofpi]

there's a reason why I'm flogging a dead horse over on tumblr about this place XD

(blogging a dead horse? nah)