One of those days.

[krait]

I'm having an awful week with regards to finding out that fic I love has been hiatus'd/discontinued/abandoned... and I'm not saying anything further, because most of the authors are part of the Tumblr crowd and that seems to be the HQ of I'm A Delicate Snowflake How Dare You Say Anything About My Fic Are You Pressuring Me Everyone's So Mean I Wish All My Readers Were Unable To Communicate With Me At All.

There are several people on Tumblr who don't fall into that category, of course; and I would like to be friends with them/comment to them/babble excited feedback in their virtual ears! But they're on Tumblr, where it's impossible to start a 'conversation' more complex than a 500-character, no-line-separation anonymous ask. *sadfaces*

Also I'm just feeling old, because I still cannot figure out the point of Tumblr -- like, how is it satisfying to just... what, collect a random stream of images and 'reblog this if' memes? What does that do for Tumblr users that I'm not grasping, because to me it's roughly analogous to saying that your hobby is cutting random pages out of magazines. Not articles, or not mostly; not special-interest magazines on topics you enjoy; just grabbing a big handful of random magazines from a dentist's office recycling bin and pulling out random pages to keep. Some stuff's from 2008, some stuff's fun to read, but most of it's just advertising or out-of-context pictures without context. And you spend hours doing this, then for a break you go look through the cutout piles of twenty other people. [/oldfan]

I suspect a third of this annoyance I'm feeling is really me redirecting my frustration at my current painting project, and/or the tension of fighting with the new laptop for hours to get everything set up and copied over and reset and such. Doesn't make me feel better, though.

Comments

[sahiya]

I don't get Tumblr either. It looks cool for some things, but for posting fic? No thanks. And it was recently brought home to me just how drastically different Tumblr fandom and LJ fandom are. Someone who was used to Tumblr fandom took over an LJ comm and eep. Talk about culture shock.

[krait]

Ahahaha, now I wish for screencaps and a F_W writeup, because I bet that was some epic culture shock! :D For all parties, probably.

[sahiya]

We've worked it out. But it took work, believe me.

[pantswarrior]

Posting fics, and having conversations about meta - things that Tumblr is completely useless for.

Oh and GUESS WHAT MY TWO FAVORITE FANDOM ACTIVITIES ARE.

It's really no wonder I gave up on even looking at my Tumblr after like a week.

[krait]

GUESS WHAT MY TWO FAVOITE FANDOM ACTIVITIES ARE

Ha, yes, this! This is exactly where I run into "but what does it DO!?" feelings about Tumblr, because to me fandom is fic and discussion; if you're not doing that, then what on earth are you doing? Especially when you complain that you spent X hours on Tumblr -- doing what, seeing the same fifteen images forty times? (I swear, as if the lack of discussion wasn't enough, the repetition on Tumblr drives me up a wall!)

[pantswarrior]

I fortunately didn't get that much repetition, but that may be because I only followed like ten people that I knew from other sites before giving up, because even though they were interesting to talk to on other sites, I couldn't talk to them there, so all I was doing was seeing pictures of actors from the Avengers movies. I'm not terribly interested in pictures of actors, no matter how attractive most people consider them.

And then there was the "reblog this to win a prize - you can reblog up to three times a day to increase your chances of winning" type stuff. Which some people I know were actually doing. THAT got repetitive, certainly...

[sylvaine]

I spent a couple of months doing basically nothing but tumblr! I have since gotten bored and moved aback to DW, but I do understand some of the appeal.
- much like twitter, it's very immediate.
- it doesn't require as much brain power as text posts on traditional journaling sites!
- endless stream of pretty!
- you get caught up in the general fannishness squee - like, it's nice to see that you're not the only one flailing about [thing]!

Anyway that's how I used it. It's not really much use if you're not a fan of visual media much! And it can get really tiring because it feels like you HAVE to check your dash every day. Possibly multiple times a day. Because everyone posts so much and OMG what if you *miss something*?!

Also :|||||| at you're favorite fics being abandoned. I hate when that happens.

[krait]

Heh, well, it's probably very telling that I took one look at Twitter and knew instantly that it wasn't for me. 140 characters? That's not even an entire sentence for me!

And I guess the 'endless stream of pretty' just doesn't... do anything for me? At least not compared to the frustration that builds when I want to A) comment on the pretty, or B) not see the same bleedin' pic twenty-five times because the person keeps 'replying' to something said under it!

And since most of my flailing is textual, I suppose I just can't feel the squee on Tumblr. When I like something, I talk about it! Not just, y'know, look at pictures of it. But then, you're right too about the 'limited to visual media' thing: a lot of my fandoms aren't very visual! I'd be super-screwed if I wanted to squee about, say, the next Foreigner novel or my recent re-read of the Chanur series. To squee with me about that, people have to type. :D (Dear Tumblr people, it's not hard, I promise! Just, y'know, move your fingers! It's probably easier than posting an image!)

I hate when that happens.

Yeah, I... I really do! There's a reason I never used to read WIP things; Homestuck being such a new fandom, though, practically everything's a WIP! But learning that Hemostuck's now on indefinite hiatus was a pretty huge blow, and I ran off to DW to sulk and feel like a fandom grampa, grumbling about kids-these-days and haven't-got-the-gumption-we-had-back-when. :D

And SeasonsStuck is indefinitely hiatus'd, too; and 'Jewel in the Scarlet Crown' appears to have been abandoned; and 'Isolation'; and...

A bit of good news today, though -- I was beginning to worry that 'Season' had been abandoned, but it just updated! :D

[sylvaine]

Yeah, I see your point! If you're not much of a picture person then most of tumblr is utterly *useless*. :-) (Though people do post some really interesting meta there, too! Which is kind of a shame, because it's so difficult to have an actual discussion on tumblr.)

Yay for Season updating! \o/

[krait]

Yes! The other huge problem with Tumblr is that, when something really cool does happen there, it's impossible to find it! :P

[cumuluscastle]

As an artist I find a constant stream of attractive images to be very inspiring. But then I have my tumblr set up to my liking and there aren't many reblog this memes or advertisements that I see. But it is very hard to communicate with anyone on it and I don't think I'd find it satisfying if I was doing a lot of writing/reading on it.

[krait]

Oh, yeah, I can see that if it were *just* images, not memes and so-called conversations, it might be a great "quick, gimme inspiration" type thing! I could almost see setting one up just to give me an unending stream of cute animals. :D My need for MOAR CUTE BATZ, let me show you it! It's really the fandom side of it that baffles me, because I associate fandom with interaction, and Tumblr seems a terrible format for that!

[cumuluscastle]

I know what you mean, yes. I follow a few fannish things, but I don't really 'get' that side of it either to be honest. It just seems not to work too well.

[alchemia]

While I'm a 'picture person' also, I still don't get tumbler. It frustrates me to no end to see/read something but not be able to comment on it. I don't WANT to repost it; I just want to tell the author/artist something.

[tropicsbear]

For me the appeal of Tumblr is seeing the fanart/GIFs relevant to my fandoms/official art of my fandoms. Plus, depending on your fandom, it's a good way to get updates sometimes.

the Tumblr crowd and that seems to be the HQ of I'm A Delicate Snowflake How Dare You Say Anything About My Fic Are You Pressuring Me Everyone's So Mean I Wish All My Readers Were Unable To Communicate With Me At All

THIIIS. I've seen some people make a big fuss out of deleting their account and saying goodbye to all the people they've met on Tumblr, just because they received a couple of critiques or someone reblogged their stuff and added how they don't really agree with the OP's POV. I mean, I get you'd be upset or irritated, but WTF it's the Internet.

[krait]

THIIIS, indeed. My general impression of Tumblr fandom is that the median age is somewhere between 12 and 15.

[blnchflr]

What I understand of tumblr is that there's very little communication, so I have no interest. But I definitely sometimes think I'll soon be left almost completely alone in livejournal-clone-fork-based corner of fandom :)

[feuervogel]

I don't use tumblr for fanfic or meta, just for looking at pictures. Today I reblogged: a video of the free kick that got us a draw in yesterday's match and a gifset of Gollum writhing captioned "favorite character is dead." Not much today.

Sometimes I reblog cute animal pictures, cool photos, political stuff, boobs don't work that way, and the Hawkeye Project. I don't mind the repetition--I can scroll. (I also scroll past the huge gifsets of football teams I don't follow or actively hate. I suppose I could install tumblr savior and make my life easier...)

[edenfalling]

What I use Tumblr for is basically to read supplementary world-building blogs for stories/writers I already like, look at pretty/fun art, read random interesting stuff people post links to, and sometimes get updates on fics I'm following faster than AO3 can process and email me about said updates.

Also I like Tumblr's "like" button because I am a massively lazy person and appreciate a way to say "hey, this is neat, thanks for posting it" without having to actually type those words over and over. Plus you can do the equivalent of giving kudos for each chapter update on WIPs, whereas AO3 will not let you give kudos more than once to any single fic regardless of how many chapters it has, so it's also a useful way to signal to a writer that people are, in fact, still reading a multi-chapter story... again without requiring me to actually type up a comment when I have nothing to say beyond "hey, still reading this."

[krait]

I guess I have no problem posting "Yay, new chapter!" to let someone know I'm reading? *wry grin* At least every other chapter or so. If I feel repetitious, I can alternate with "Hurrah, update!"

Confession: high on the list of Tumblrs I drop by to read regularly: the worldbuilding ones for Hemostuck and Seasonsstuck. Of course, now both series are on hiatus, and the blogs have followed suit, so I don't have many worldbuilding blogs still operating to follow! Alas. D: They were so great, when you were craving more and the next chapter hadn't happened yet; it was almost like another fic.

I totally do skim a few Tumblrs to check for fic updates, too. :D Best way to catch some authors.

[fandork]

Re: Tumblr, Hemostuck

I feel you, bro. I feel you.

[krait]

Thanks. *feelings solidarity high-five*

I am trying not to wibble, here, but -- Hemostuck!