[ SECRET POST #2923 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2923 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 065 secrets from Secret Submission Post #418.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

02. http://i.imgur.com/xg3q5vR.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

I know the feeling. :(

[(Anonymous)]

I know the feeling. Being involved in an online fandom has become something of a habit that because of its evolution is becoming hard to maintain, but I still miss it.

[lb_lee]

I hear that. The tumblr UI is just so poorly designed and such a resource hog that I deeply regret that it seems to be where my subculture all hangs out on these days. I still post there out of necessity, but am trying to pull back on reading.

Like, I hear people kvetching about the social atmosphere on tumblr all the time, but if you ask me, that would be way more bearable if the UI wasn't so fucking SCREWED. On LJ, it's easy as hell to filter out things, and it's common courtesy to put things behind cuts. On tumblr, all the videos autoplay at the same time and cuts are practically impossible for non-text posts, so it FEELS way louder and more overwhelming, for me anyway.

*gets off soapbox*

[(Anonymous)]

Yup. Preach. Maybe one day fandom will move back to a platform that we will allow us to be sociable again.

[(Anonymous)]

I seriously miss forums...

[(Anonymous)]

Tumblr is super if your only goal is to share and view images. For all other things, meh.

[helenadax]

MTE. Tumblr is great if you're looking for gifs, but I miss the old days...

[(Anonymous)]

I agree that Tumblr really is shittastic communication-wise, so what drove fandom there in the first place, and why did so many follow along? Like so many lemmings to the sea....

[(Anonymous)]

You can’t really have discussions there. You can’t reply to someone without reblogging their posts and to just to see replies you have to scroll through thousands of empty reblogs and click them individually.

[diet_poison]

While I kinda relate to this and definitely think it's a shame fandom has completely migrated to Tumblr, I'm confused as to why this is a secret since I know many people think this and we've also had probably more than half a dozen basically identical secrets in the past year or so...

[elaminator]

I miss the olden days of LJ too, and that's why I come here; you can still easily find people to discuss your interests with. I like tumblr, a lot, but for the art and the gifs...it isn't a platform I know how to make friends with or engage in conversation on. In many ways it feels more casual and I can certainly understand the appeal of that (I can easily lose track of time scrolling through a tag), but sometimes it isn't quite enough.

Message boards (and the like) are nice too, but it can be difficult to find good ones. (darkmanifest mentioned the Dragon Age reddit the other day, and I'll second it; if you like Dragon Age, it's great.)

[(Anonymous)]

This is me too, OP. I'm not really in fandom anymore except for here.

[(Anonymous)]

Idk, I think it's a mixed bag. As other people have already said in this thread, tumblr's UI is terrible for communication - which means I'm more likely to exchange contact information (usually my skype username) than in the times of LJ. When I was in LJ I mainly had internet "friends" who I only interacted with through one or two comments in their posts a week. Now we chat in skype in real time every day and I know more about my friend's lives than I ever did when I interacted mainly through LJ.

Which does make for more cliqueish relationships, I'll admit.

[ketita]

What depresses me about tumblr is that nowadays I feel this constant pressure to create. Like if you're not spewing out fics at least two per week, you lose followers and people forget about you. I've been trying to maintain presence, and I think I just burnt myself out.

... I mean, aside from all the other stuff I hate about tumblr, which I've already ranted about in the past.

[merkuria]

Yep, all of it.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm probably the only one here who doesn't think this way. I've always been a lurker during lj's days as the fandom frontrunner site. I could never commit to discussions like others, and making friends has always been difficult. Opening a tumblr account worked wonders in ways lj never did for me. I may still be insecure about making fandom friends or having discussions, but I'm contributing and it makes me feel happy.

[culturevulture73]

Like everyone else, I hate Tumblr's UI and lack of engagement. I miss email lists (I'm still on a few) and newsgroups (alt.tv.x-files) and LJ (Law & Order peeps!). On Tumblr, I really don't see the fandoms I want to follow - the friends I follow are in fandoms I don't care about so I spend hours scrolling past pics and gifs. I do love some of the pics and vids but I'm not seeing much fic and there are no cuts! And when there are, it turns out, it's not really a cut - you're seeing the whole post and the link is just a link.

Sigh.

[sabotabby]

I keep meeting these amazing people on Tumblr (not just fandom people) and I would like to get to know them more, or have more in-depth discussions, both about fannish things and about politics, etc. And read their fic and check out their fanart if it isn't archived. But Tumblr's horrible UI makes it impossible.

[iggy]

The discussion aspects being more difficult is really frustrating. That being said, one of my main fandoms right now is small enough that pretty much everyone follows the tag, and discussion is really pleasant and easy in it because of that. Everyone knows everyone, and there's definitely a good sense of community. It's made tumblr a lot more enjoyable for me.

Unfortunately for my larger fandoms, it's still difficult.

About your friends leaving fandom

[(Anonymous)]

Just a thought, your older fandom friends may not have drifted away as you suspect. It's possible they are indeed on Tumblr, you just don't recognize them under their new usernames. Especially if they're in fresh new fandoms, with fandom-related URLs that have nothing to do with their old lj usernames.

I know for a fact some of my lj friends from years ago (2008 and earlier) have migrated early to Tumblr, at least a couple of years ahead of me, while I stuck with lj for some reason. We don't talk anymore because we're in different fandoms and they've found new friends in the meantime.

Even folks who've said they're "totally leaving fandom!" because they can't get used to the new platform, have come sneaking back after a while. ;) You wouldn't recognize them as ex-livejournal fans now. Heck, it took me ages to figure out I knew them in the past under different personas!

I'd say there's a high possibility the same has happened to at least some of your buddies. Maybe they started missing fandom after being away for a while and they believed Tumblr was worth a try afterall? Food for thought.

[(Anonymous)]

I think around these parts, it would be more of a secret to say you *like* Tumblr (like that poor anon getting dogpiled upthread).

[starfleetbrat]

I agree with this.

I also miss email groups/communities like y!groups back when it was egroups.com. Waking up to a couple of hundred emails full of fannish discussion/fic = fun times.

[(Anonymous)]

What bugs me is less the UI (there are extensions and add-ons that can help fix some of its worst deficits,) but the Tumblr social conventions that seem to be designed to actively shut down attempts at meaningful communication.

Ooooh, don't add a comment to someone else's post! That's rude!! Put them in the tags instead, where nobody will ever see them unless they're following you, or have an add-on that shows them, or they're actively going around checking out the tags on every single reblog of that post, and where the only way to reply to them is by copying and pasting the comments--either into a new post where nobody can see what the hell you're talking about, or tacked onto the end of the original one where it's frowned upon to put comments.

Don't say anything negative in a tagged post where it might be seen by people who disagree with you and spark a debate!

Don't post anything lengthy unless you put it under a cut (but go right ahead and reblog one of those 'color of the sky' gifsets that take up eight pages on peoples' dashboards, that's perfectly fine.)

[cakemage]

I understand that feeling all too well. I like tumblr well enough for what it is, but I miss the discussions I used to have in fandom comms on LJ and here on DW. I can't really blame tumblr too much for their loss, though, because most of my favorite LJ/DW fandoms/comms from back in the day died long before tumblr was even a blip on the radar.