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

[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.

[yume_hanabi]

Yeaaah their moderation plan seemed... a bit optimistic? from what I saw. Not really a concrete plan in place. But I thought, it can't be worse that the current platforms XD;
Mainly though, I like that you'll be able to choose different privacy settings for your posts (a bit like here), that's something that is badly missing from the big T's.

What don't you like about the tags?

Mostly tbh I just like the idea of a platform by fans for fans. The main problem with Twitter and Tumblr (and instagram and facebook) is that they're big social media that fandoms just happened to move to, but were never designed to be for fandoms. I desperately want a "fandom first" place.

Dreamwidth is really nice, but it's missing the ability to reblog, which is so useful when you're trying to reach a maximum of people. And there's no one here anyway (speaking for my fandom in particular, others might be more active).

[vriddy]

I'm not familiar with Fanexus and their plans, but I feel like the ability to reblog is one of the issues with current social media because you end up having to perform/put on a public face on all of your posts, because it might end up pushed under the eyes of many, many people including ones you hadn't meant to reach.

Maybe if it was a special permission on some posts ("reblog allowed") though, or a community/board that if something is posted there, it can be reblogged...? Not sure if that's what encourages more passive consumption rather than actually forming connections either.

Hear you on not finding it hard to find people from your fandoms on DW though :')

[yume_hanabi]

"I'm not familiar with Fanexus and their plans, but I feel like the ability to reblog is one of the issues with current social media because you end up having to perform/put on a public face on all of your posts, because it might end up pushed under the eyes of many, many people including ones you hadn't meant to reach."
It's true, but it's still an extremely useful feature for some things that are meant to be shared (for a personal example, I'm currently co-organizing a couple of fandom events, and having people reblog the promo posts has been invaluable in putting them under people's radar; participation took off beyond our expectations, which would probably never have happened if people didn't have an easy and effortless way to spread the word).

Privacy features that enable you to limit your posts' visibility to a chosen group of people should already (in theory at least) limit this need to put on a public face, since you can avoid random people seeing them. But being able to lock the ability to reblog would be the most ideal, I think. Doesn't Pillowfort have that? I made an account a while ago, but I must admit I haven't used it much ^^;

Basically, the ideal social media platform for me would be like a mix of DW and Tumblr: encouraging communities and discussions through comments, without completely doing away with reblogs (but having lots of options for privacy and limitations). Of course, even if the perfect platform were to magically appear tomorrow, it'd be no use if people didn't adopt it... So in the end, I'm just following the herd anyway XD

[eoa]

Pillowfort has a function for that - when posting, you check/uncheck the 'Rebloggable' box. In general, I think that Pillowfort nailed down what made the reblog function good and eradicated the bad - reblogs on there are the same post, without any additions (comments - threaded ones: god, since when is that not the usual :( - are for discussion). Another positive is that you can choose to only view 'Original Posts' or 'Reblogs'; by default, you view both.

[vriddy]

Ah, that sounds really neat!