[ 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

[(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.

[(Anonymous)]

What exactly are you contributing though? Intelligent discussion? Art? Fic?

[(Anonymous)]

Are you actually contributing, or falling prey to the delusion Tumblr offers that by reblogging other people's stuff you're actually contributing anything yourself?

What's the difference between e.g. reblogging and commenting on a discussion vs. commenting on a forum or a journal? I'm presuming from your post that a lot of these Tumblr discussions are with people who aren't fandom friends (yet), so why the difference between commenting on a stranger's blog or commenting on a stranger's Tumblr? If anything, the blog is more discreet and self-contained (and should you choose to delete your comment, then that's it, it's gone from the one existing source) and if you do get the brush off at least it's not visibly reblogged to a hundred, a thousand dashboards for all eternity.

[(Anonymous)]

This is probably why OP has had issues participating in fandom.

OP: I feel like I'm contributing.
You: I'm going to presume you're not contributing the right way and judge you.

[(Anonymous)]

Or maybe they have issues in fandom because no one's interested in dealing with someone who just takes, takes, takes, and feels as though everyone else is there just to provide them with things.

[(Anonymous)]

You're not the only one, I feel the same way. Tumblr is accessible in a way LJ never was for me. And the people in this thread are just proving why tumblr is so popular for some people: there's a snootiness in the old guard that people who aren't *creating* are not really contributing anything to fandom. But some of us can't do that. For some, sharing things we like and seeing people like it, too, is just what we want and need to feel like we're a part of fandom.

[(Anonymous)]

But you're not contributing. The person who made the thing you're sharing and vicariously getting attention from is the one contributing.

At best you're promoting, but for the most part people who do what you do are only promoting themselves, not the artwork/fic/whatever they're sharing.

NAYRT

[(Anonymous)]

Gotta disagree with you there. For me, some of the people I follow are contributing to my fandom experience simply by acting as filters.

There's a lot of content pertaining to my interests that I'd never see if it required following the original creator, because that would mean putting up with all sorts of other crap that person is into that doesn't interest me. But if someone else following that person reblogs only the kind of things I like, I can follow them instead, give the shit I don't want a pass, and still enjoy the stuff I do. That person in the middle is performing a valuable service for me, even if they never create anything themselves.

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt, but 'creating' does not necessarily mean writing fic or providing art. Plenty of people on the old LJ-days-of-fandom did neither, but some of them wrote meta, people participated in discussions. All of that is content creation. So I don't know where you're getting the 'snootiness' from.

[(Anonymous)]

If it's snooty to be tired as fuck of the "Oh I can't make anything, so I'll leech of someone else for insta-validation!" mentality, then count me as proud of being snooty.

If you can type on a screen, you can contribute something. Comments. Opinions. Feedback. SOMETHING. Riding other people's coattails -- even if it's just slapping a "IAWTC!" on someone's meta -- isn't participating in anything.

[(Anonymous)]

Da. I have never cared if fandom friends created or not, I met them through discussion, which is really hard to do on tumblr.

I have a lot of followers on tumblr, I don't think I've ever made a friend there though. Every other platform that has allowed for discussion (chat rooms, forums, lj, etc) I have made friends with.

[(Anonymous)]

But how are you contributing?

By rebloging the same stuff that has been rebloged so much than everyone else has already seen several time in their dashboards?
And are you really being part of the fandom by getting a few "likes" on a post of someone else's fanart or a random gif you found somewhere else?

IMO your comment here is a bigger participation and contribution that any of those.

[(Anonymous)]

Like the anon above said, there's a difference between creating and promoting something.

That's not to say fandom doesn't need, and in some cases rely upon, people promoting the things they find and enjoy.

But don't confuse that with contributing.

[(Anonymous)]

For the most part, I agree with the other responses. Reblogging isn't really contributing anything. You clicked a button, good job, doing the same thing a zillion other people also did. I frequently see the same post on my dash multiple times, and I only follow twenty some tumblrs.

Saying that, I make an exception for fuckyeah tumblrs and the like. Consistently seeking out fandom/character/ship specific content and sharing it is, I think, contributing in a way reblogging stuff on a catch all tumblr is not.

[(Anonymous)]

I was active in LJ's heyday, so I guess you could call me a member of the old guard if you like. The issue I have isn't saying that lurkers and people who consume art without creating are without value. The point is that if all you have are lurkers and consumers and a UI that isn't creator-friendly, you don't really have much of a fandom. Now, I like gifs and screencaps a lot! But passing around the same gifs and screencaps over and over again isn't what fandom's about, for me.

[(Anonymous)]

I like that you don't have to *join* anything to participate or contribute to fandom. You don't have to be a member of a special group. If you want to participate, just post something and tag accordingly. In that way, BNFs and newbies are on equal footing in the tags. I know I don't look at *who* is posting so much as *what* they're posting.

Also, ignore the "what are you contributing?" responses. As long as you're making people in your fandom happy, you're doing fine?

[(Anonymous)]

You do realize you've just contradicted yourself, don't you?

"I know I don't look at *who* is posting so much as *what* they're posting." is not exactly compatible with "Also, ignore the "what are you contributing?" responses." You yourself are clearly looking at the CONTENT of what someone's contributing.

[(Anonymous)]

LOL, no.

There's a reason most post get the most likes/reblogs when a BNF reblog then and not when they show up in the tags.

[(Anonymous)]

You do see that there's a distinction between participating and contributing to fandom though, don't you? I'm going to guess so because that's the way you phrased it.

If I lurk in a fandom, I'm still participating. Consuming the fic, art, meta, manips, analyses etc. people contribute is still an act of participation.

If I reblog other people's already-created fic, art, meta, manips, analyses etc. then I am still participating, but still not contributing because all of these things still exist whether I reblog them or not. I am not the one who put any of them out there, therefore I have not contributed to them.

Can you make someone else in the fandom happy by doing the latter? Of course you can (look at the followers for tumblrs that literally only reblog fanart)! And sharing the love and enthusiasm is essential. But calling that act 'contribution' is inaccurate.

[(Anonymous)]

No, you're not. I was in web-based fandom before LJ became the hub for it, and frankly I always, always felt LJ sucked ass compared to the forums and mailing lists and fansites. I honestly feel like tumblr is sort of a return to how fandom was in 'the good ol days' where people could feel like they were a part of fandom just by participating in a discussion or posting a little bit of meta or sharing some cool fanart they found.

LJ fandom was really cliquey and circle-jerky, and I and most of my friends never felt comfortable participating in the various 'communities' there. Now that fandom's jumped onto tumblr, most of us are back into it and posting our fic and art again.

I'm sure it was great for anyone who had an established circle of friends, but it was incredibly unwelcoming for new-comers and fucking IMPOSSIBLE to navigate to find other comms or fandom projects. If your fandom wasn't lucky enough to have an aggregator of some kind and you didn't know who the BNFs were, you were SoL.

With tumblr all I have to do is go into the tags to find interesting people to follow, and I have multiple meta posts and discussions come up on my dash every day. And those discussions aren't gated behind separate LJ communities with rules or membership requirements, literally anyone who wants to contribute just has to reblog and add their piece.

[(Anonymous)]

If you think Tumblr is some egalitarian Nirvana where who you know is no longer important, then ohhhh, you have a rude awakening coming any day now.

[caffeine_buzz]

If it helps, I actually kinda see what you mean. I have my issues with Tumblr; I really wish there was a proper commenting system and a way to make communities, and I feel like fandom is often stretched thinner and breaks easier -- like I have old fandoms that LJ kept alive long after the series ended but I feel like a lot of my Tumblr fandoms will probably die pretty quick once the new content stops. But on the other hand, I'm not a very social person and I felt like LJ was sometimes difficult for me in ways that Tumblr isn't. I like that I can contribute but don't necessarily have to keep up with long threads of discussion where I don't feel like I have anything to say but feel pressured to reply because I don't want to seem unfriendly. And I like that when someone follows me on Tumblr, I don't feel the same pressure to follow back that I did when I was friended on LJ -- and I don't have to ask to follow people on Tumblr either, I can see a complete stranger's blog, think 'Oh, this is cool!' and follow it and no extra interaction is required. (And for the anons above -- I do create content. I write fic, I occasionally make gifs and such, and a while back I wrote a huge meta post for my favorite character and now get pretty regular asks from people wanting to know my take on different character relationship stuff. And actually, I don't know if I would've felt as confident making that initial meta post on LJ as I did on Tumblr, though even on Tumblr I did need a little push for that one.)

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly I prefer tumblr because everyone has separate blogs for different interests, and even their "personal" blogs are usually kind enough to put personal angst posts behind a read more. My god, I'm glad Livejournal is dead and I don't have to scroll through 20 pages of teenage "woe is me~!" posts just to see some fandom content.

[(Anonymous)]

LJ had filters and the ability to manage your flist so you could separate people into different groups depending on how frequently you wanted to read their posts. It sounds like you simply didn't know how to use it to best suit your needs.

[(Anonymous)]

In what world are you living in when a Tumblr dashboard isn't precisely 20 pages (and fucking more!) of teenage "woe is me~!" posts?

I have to scroll through and blacklist shit like this every single day just to make it through a handful of fandom reblogs. I never used to see any of that crap on LJ, because when I friended someone I could, as the other anon pointed out, filter them into custom groups, and also be safe in the knowledge that I didn't have to ALSO see the wangsty drama from their friend's friend's friend, which is what I get on my Tumblr feed on an hourly basis.

LJ was shit, don't get me wrong, but it sure as hell wasn't shit for that. That was actually one of the few things it did right.