fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2923 ]

[ SECRET POST #2923 ]

⌈ 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.

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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.

Are you me?

This is pretty much word for word exactly what happened to me. I burnt out horribly just trying to keep up, because that's the sort of pressurised fannish atmopshere Tumblr creates -- if you aren't churning something out 24/7 then people will move on to someone who does.

Moving to Tumblr was the worst thing I've ever done when it comes to fandom. It's basically left me turned off the whole idea of fandom, let alone of a mind to actually create anything anymore.

Hell, you ARE me O_O that is exactly what happened to me! Right now I'm in this awful writer's block and I'm 99% sure that stressing over tumblr popularity is what brought it on.
And like you, at this point I kind of want to leave fandom altogether... even though I remember how fun it is when it's fun and still want to recapture the magic...
I've got some wips, so I'll probably at least try to finish those >_>
Maybe this'll be the final push towards original writing, but with the way original writing is going (i.e. having to do the online popularity dance) I probably don't have a future there either ._.

ayrt

It's definitely what caused my writer's block. Or my 'I am now terrified of writing anything at all because if it doesn't at least match the last number of notes/reblogs I gained then clearly I am a horrible failure as a human being and have Done Something Terribly Wrong' block.

When I was posting to LJ or one of the fic archive sites, three or four comments on a fic or a chapter would leave me flying high for a week. Now? Tumblr has so devalued the response to the work that I can't even quantify how many Likes it'd take for me to feel that way again. How many notes is the equivalent to a good review? 10? 100? 1000? When posts about fluffy chickens or basic gifsets get 10k+ notes, and when obnoxious BNFs parade out their likes/follower count like trophies the whole system is intensely devalued (and I say that both as an ex-creator and as someone who wonders about the value of their own likes on others' work).

I loathe competing that way. I loathe feeling like I am constantly falling behind and thus just not good enough to keep up. I loathe feeling as though the fandoms I care about and wanted to share and engage with likeminded people have now become nothing more than games of oneupmanship and "I can be a fan of this show/pairing better than you can, so anything you say is immediately invalid!"

So the only way I can think of to escape that atmosphere is to quit bothering with fandom altogether. After I quit my last one last year, I've had absolutely no interest in anything new because I know my avenue for engaging with it/enthusing over it is gone.

And before anyone says "Oh, fandom's always been like this!" I've been in fandom a very a long time and across many, many different platforms but Tumblr's environment is the first time I've felt like this. If I've managed to avoid it thus far, then maybe there's just something about Tumblr that brings out the worst of it.

It's so true, the thing about returns. Everything on tumblr is just numbers - I don't have a relationship with the people who like+reblog a fic, they're just a number. It's not like with commenters or people I actually talk to, where I look forward each time to hearing what they think, and when I write I'll be like "ooh I can't wait to see what ___ says".
And like you say, gifsets get tens of thousands of notes, so what's even the point...
I swear, I feel every single word you're saying T^T

I've also been in fandom a while - probably about 10 years. And while it's true that to some extent there's always been a "who has more comments/favs/LJ friends", I still think that in the LJ days because it took more effort to participate, people valued it more.
Tumblr is the first time in my fandom life where as time goes by in a fandom I get /less/ attention rather than more. Usually I'd start out a nobody, and slowly like-minded people would find my stuff and we'd go from there. Now? It's like I had my short days of fame, and now I'm a nobody, and that's it.

Oof. I hadn't even thought of that.

I mean, I'm pretty prolific--I pounded out something like sixty stories last year, and drew something like thirty pages of comics on top of it, but two a week? I'd be chargrilled in no time with that schedule.

But then again, I'm still poking around with around 250 followers since I joined back in 2011, so obviously I don't know how to tumblr. I'm bad at fandom, I don't care for their brand of social justice, so I mostly just reblog comics I think other people would like, and educational stuff.

See, for a time I was doing ok - I wrote about 140k in the past year, until writer's block kicked in. But I tend to write longer stuff (no less than 5k a chapter, preference for 10k), and plotty stuff, and you just can't keep that stuff going with such a schedule, you know?

I've got a few more followers than you, but not nearly as many as the fanartists who post porn every week, or the ship rebloggers.

ugh tumblr social justice is one of the stupidest things I've encountered.

Oof. Yeah, I write REALLY short, because it's cheaper for my fans. I have become a MASTER of the 1000 word story. It's become kinda embarrassing, because I have a big bookslab on the backburner, but I've gotten so used to writing short, 100k words just sounds absurd!

And yeah, I would NEVER want to keep to that kind of schedule.

I am actually REALLY bad at fanart and fanfic, though people still commission me for it sometimes. When I do write it, I mostly enjoy writing about random unimportant characters going about their lives, ignoring the big epic quest or whatever.

Tumblr social justice... again, the problem is with the UI, which means everything just kinda is all kludged together, and there's no way to filter anything. So there's some really good stuff, but it's mixed in with the really, really bad stuff, and good luck ever finding it again.

WHY tumblr because social justice web hub, when its design is so antithetical to conversation, growth, and changing of opinion, is beyond me.

DA

Another issue with the social justice posts and the overall interface is just how easy it is to disseminate misinformation, un/edited posts etc.

If I see one more lengthy and redundant rant about a post/issue/whatever that was resolved years ago -- and could've been easily found to be the case, seeing as nine times out of ten the original post doesn't even exist anymore -- spamming my dash, I'll start throwing things.

(no subject)

lb_lee - 2015-01-04 23:49 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2015-01-05 04:14 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

lb_lee - 2015-01-05 20:45 (UTC) - Expand

I'd say I miss the days when people appreciated long fic, but it's not like there are no long fics in my fandom. They just update at the speed of light, have tons of smut, and the plot is rather like a soap-opera: rife with drama, very little content, and everybody behaves like a teenager.

The thing is that on tumblr, when people spread misinformation it can never become a dialogue, and if you see some post with wrong information going around, even if you correct it, it'll probably never reach the 20k people who already reblogged and moved on.

(no subject)

lb_lee - 2015-01-05 20:32 (UTC) - Expand

Yeah, this. And there's nothing equivalent to LJ's communities, where you could post infrequently and still assume most of your fandom would at least see it. On tumblr you're lucky if a third of your followers are online at the time you post and if you're REALLY lucky one or two of them will reblog it. Otherwise, forget it, people aren't going to see that you even posted something.

da

Exactly. Even if you had a substantial Flist on LJ, you could create filters etc. and prioritize what you wanted to catch up on that had been posted while you were offline. You didn't miss much, even if your friends were prolific posters.

On Tumblr, I can't find something in my dash that I saw half an hour ago, let alone something that was posted in the previous 24 hours.

That's exactly what pushed me to start browsing tumblr through RSS feeds instead of the dashboard. It comes with its own problems, but at least I can easily check what so-and-so has posted even if it was a couple days ago without having to scroll through a bunch of shit I don't really want to look at right now.

(Doesn't say much for the site when you have to sidestep their interface to make it tolerable)

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-05 04:00 (UTC) - Expand

Ugh, yes, it's such an issue. On LJ you could keep up with the fandom, and you knew that you always had the chance of somebody coming across your fic on one of the main comms, being intrigued, and clicking. On tumblr, unless you get reblogs you're ignored - which means that only popularity can breed popularity. It's a cycle.

It's also a difference because on LJ you had to make sure to provide your own exposure to a certain extent, now you're dependent on others for exposure.

One thing I don't get about tumblr is how you lose followers if you don't post enough. It's like... I'm not clogging up your dash, why bother unfollowing me? Maybe I am just weird but I'm more likely to unfollow someone if they post TOO much because I can't keep up.

I mean I'm usually okay because I always gain back whatever I lose (I'm an artist who does drawn fanart so I know my stuff is more suited for tumblr) but I wonder how many tumblr followers I'd have now if people weren't so unfollow happy.

Like I can't always update my tumblr, I'm a pro artist and some stuff I can't show.

I've actually gained followers during a lengthy -and announced- hiatus, so it makes equally no sense both ways.

SA. That happens occasionally to me if someone decides to randomly reblog an old piece. I never understand it either though because I think "this is old... would it even show up in the tags?"

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(Anonymous) - 2015-01-04 23:42 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2015-01-05 02:46 (UTC) - Expand

DA

I put things like that down to Tumblr's pathological obsession with the numbers. "Oh, I've got X amount of followers, but I'm only deigning to follow three people so clearly I'm discerning and not in the least bit elitist!" Or, conversely, the desire not to inflate someone else's follower count if you've decided they're not good enough for your dash anymore.

SA I could see that. I also wonder sometimes if people unfollow me because I don't follow back (I honestly can't follow everyone back though, it'd be entirely too much for my dash on an already slow as hell computer.) I don't really play "tumblr games" with people. I follow who I want and I just hope people follow me because they like my work.

Oh, yeah, I would much rather keep someone on my dash who posts once in two weeks than someone who posts 20+ times a day.

I can follow a few hundred people if most of them are relatively inactive, but if they start spamming, it's a problem.

I have a very random side blog (mostly reblogs) where I might post 10 or 12 times a day on completely different topics, and I'm surprised people follow it. But it's easy on Tumblr to post six times that.

This, absolutely.

When I first joined Tumblr I was fresh and motivated and cranking out fics almost every second day, and it didn't matter what kind of post I made I would be swamped with replies and messages and interaction. I was gaining followers by the hundreds every night.

But then I went through a slump, and now I'm still at 3,700 followers, everyone is still THERE, nobody unfollowed me, but I feel like I'm talking to the void. Every post I make gets maybe a couple notes, I usually end up deleting personal posts because nobody talks to me, they've just stopped caring about me because I'm no longer creating content regularly, which I think is what hurts the most.

I don't even really care about being popular, but this mindset of 'either you create content 24/7 or you're literally so unimportant nobody will spare you a glance' has kind of ruined my experience with everything. The fact that it's popularity or nothing really sucks.

I kinda feel that way too. I only have 1300 followers on my main blog, so nowhere near as many as you, but since I'm working fulltime now and started posting less often, it seems like no one is interested in talking to me at all :\

I feel exactly the same way. I was more for meta posts than personal posts, but switch that part out (and sub 3700 for 1400) and that's the summation of my fandom experience over the past three or so years.

Fandom off/before Tumblr at least gave you the impression that people were talking to you because they were somehow interested in the things you had to say about your shared interest. Now the only kind of interaction I get are anon comments demanding fic updates.

I actually like tumblr but this is so true, if I stop making art for a couple weeks people are unfollowing me left and right, or if I don't make art for their fandoms/pairings...

Huh. In my experience that isn't the case? I'm working on a big fic right now, and I'm at 3 weeks between updates. But not only have I not lost any followers, I've actually gained them during the weeks where I'm inactive.

Maybe it's a fandom-specific thing?

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