sorry, it's time for cranky!Krait again.
Jul. 20th, 2014 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kraitSo.
This week I keep running into people on Tumblr ~*~lamenting~*~ how Tumblr is so hard to have fannish conversations on, how the old LJ/webring/whatever days were so much more interconnected, how much harder it is to find stuff or keep stuff on Tumblr, how it's harder to control who sees what and thus some stuff has to go unsaid, how deeply they wish they could tell people "I liked that" or "I feel that way, too" and talk to people like they used to...
and they're posting this on Tumblr.
IF YOU MISS THE INTERACTION SO MUCH, POST TO YOUR BLEEDIN' INTERACTIVE SITE OF CHOICE!
Ahem. Sorry 'bout that. But it really does drive me up the wall; I want to shout at them, "The power is within your grasp!" Crying about it on the very platform guaranteed not to open a meaningful dialogue about it suggests to me that you don't actually want those things, you just... I dunno, actually. Want to feel sad for a while, and any cause will do? Want to brag about how Experienced In Fandom you are? Are having a bout of I'm old and nobody understands and couldn't resist whining?
Why would you complain (in some posters' cases, deeply and comprehensively) about how hard it is to do fandom now that it's (partly) on Tumblr, and then proceed to ignore any of the ways you could fight the shift/help the parts that aren't there?
Nobody says you have to pick Just One Place to be fannish in! Crossposting is a thing that can happen. For that matter, use one as a simple alert system for the other -- remember how we used to do fake LJ-cuts for outside links? Yeah. Post somewhere that allows for discussion, and then make some fake Read-Mores on your Tumblr that link to your LJ, or whatever you use! If your Tumblr posts are generally short, do a "daily roundup", ML digest style, to consolidate them in one DW post.
There are tonnes of ways to be interactive, not just whatever it was you used Back When Everything Was Great. But if all you do is use the "most popular" option, then you should stop complaining about it -- you're part of why The Ways We Used Before aren't as active, and it makes you look disingenuous at best.
NB: Yes, I really am done complaining now. I really appreciate all of the people who don't do this sort of thing, y'know -- thank you, all of you who continue to use other platforms for fannishness because you prefer that communication style! People who know what they want and refuse to follow the crowd when it makes them unhappy are people I'm happy to read and squee with. ♥
NB2: The fake-readmores thing is something I've been vaguely considering doing with my own DW for a while now, actually! Anybody with more familiarity with Tumblr want to chime in with whether this seems feasible? (I know I post infrequently; would I be seen at all, or would I be swept away in the jetstream too quickly?)
This week I keep running into people on Tumblr ~*~lamenting~*~ how Tumblr is so hard to have fannish conversations on, how the old LJ/webring/whatever days were so much more interconnected, how much harder it is to find stuff or keep stuff on Tumblr, how it's harder to control who sees what and thus some stuff has to go unsaid, how deeply they wish they could tell people "I liked that" or "I feel that way, too" and talk to people like they used to...
and they're posting this on Tumblr.
IF YOU MISS THE INTERACTION SO MUCH, POST TO YOUR BLEEDIN' INTERACTIVE SITE OF CHOICE!
Ahem. Sorry 'bout that. But it really does drive me up the wall; I want to shout at them, "The power is within your grasp!" Crying about it on the very platform guaranteed not to open a meaningful dialogue about it suggests to me that you don't actually want those things, you just... I dunno, actually. Want to feel sad for a while, and any cause will do? Want to brag about how Experienced In Fandom you are? Are having a bout of I'm old and nobody understands and couldn't resist whining?
Why would you complain (in some posters' cases, deeply and comprehensively) about how hard it is to do fandom now that it's (partly) on Tumblr, and then proceed to ignore any of the ways you could fight the shift/help the parts that aren't there?
Nobody says you have to pick Just One Place to be fannish in! Crossposting is a thing that can happen. For that matter, use one as a simple alert system for the other -- remember how we used to do fake LJ-cuts for outside links? Yeah. Post somewhere that allows for discussion, and then make some fake Read-Mores on your Tumblr that link to your LJ, or whatever you use! If your Tumblr posts are generally short, do a "daily roundup", ML digest style, to consolidate them in one DW post.
There are tonnes of ways to be interactive, not just whatever it was you used Back When Everything Was Great. But if all you do is use the "most popular" option, then you should stop complaining about it -- you're part of why The Ways We Used Before aren't as active, and it makes you look disingenuous at best.
NB: Yes, I really am done complaining now. I really appreciate all of the people who don't do this sort of thing, y'know -- thank you, all of you who continue to use other platforms for fannishness because you prefer that communication style! People who know what they want and refuse to follow the crowd when it makes them unhappy are people I'm happy to read and squee with. ♥
NB2: The fake-readmores thing is something I've been vaguely considering doing with my own DW for a while now, actually! Anybody with more familiarity with Tumblr want to chime in with whether this seems feasible? (I know I post infrequently; would I be seen at all, or would I be swept away in the jetstream too quickly?)
no subject
Date: 2014-07-21 05:55 pm (UTC)Something I saw later in use was the labeled fake cut. It would say "Fake cut to my journal" or something. I thought that was a decent compromise; it still looked like a real cut, but told you where it was going, or at least that it wasn't necessarily leading where you might otherwise think. Any thoughts on that part of the phenomenon?
no subject
Date: 2014-07-22 05:20 am (UTC)Well, as long as they weren't actively trying to rickroll me to their journal, whatever makes them happy.
It was more amusing to me than anything? (At least it seems that way now, in retrospect.) Like, you could see how we'd got there.
1. Someone wonders if they'd get more follow through to their journal by formatting a link like an LJ cut.
2. Other people: I guess this is how links are supposed to be formatted?
3. Complaints from people annoyed at being mislead by fake-cuts start circulating.
4. Oh no, messing with the audience's expected behaviour of things that look like LJ cuts isn't *actually* the point, better put in a "follow the fake cut!" warning (but still format them like fake-cuts because. Because? See #2??)
5. Now let's not even format them like cuts anymore, just have bare links with "follow the fake cut to my journal!" warnings attached.
Number 5 is my favourite because of all the different confusions that have to go into it all at once.
I'll admit I started bolding links more, at around the fake-cut trend. I agree the bare ones aren't very eye-catching.
no subject
Date: 2014-07-25 04:30 am (UTC)(Follow the fake cut to read!)
*edit* YEsssss, I still remember how to do that! :D