fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2934 ]

[ SECRET POST #2934 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2934 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Sorry about that, working late again.

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 020 secrets from Secret Submission Post #419.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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Okay, so tumblr sucking/LJ dying aside, why do fandoms seem so... averse to discussion anymore? Especially TV show ones. i belong to a comm that's actually pretty active, but no one ever wants to talk about the show. Ever. It's weird. (And I just mentioned it there so now I'm worried I'll give myself away...)

Really? Maybe it's just your fandom. I'm in several TV-show fandoms (Hannibal, Person of Interest, Orphan Black) and I've seen plenty of discussion of the show. In amongst the gif sets and shipping, of course.

In large part, I suspect that discussions have died down because people are afraid of saying something ~problematic~ and being hounded to hell and back for it. It's much safer to just reblog artwork or gif sets or anything cute/fluffy than actually state an opinion.

Because then someone gets butthurt and they spend their time twisting your words so that they can accuse you of some form of oppression.

A thousand times this.

That's why now I only say participate in discussions on anon spaces.

Yeah.

No really, that's it. The young kids that used to gush forever are now used to it being in 3 sentences or less. Tumblr sucks, LJ is dying.

I miss it so much. I feel like now on tumblr people take anything less than praise and agreement over what they've said as offense. Back on lj you could actually argue and discuss things with people. I miss that.

I've also found that you're often assumed to hate whatever you're talking about if you complain or make fun of part of it. I don't know how many times I've had to go "no, no, I love this movie!"

I've encountered that, cranked up to the point that mocking a piece of media proved I approved of infant mutilation.)

(I was mocking Foreskin Man. Yes, FORESKIN MAN. Don't ask me why people take Foreskin Man so fucking seriously, BUT THEY DO.)

Re: Where has all the discussion gone?

sarillia - 2015-01-16 02:58 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Where has all the discussion gone?

lb_lee - 2015-01-16 03:02 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Where has all the discussion gone?

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-16 04:35 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Where has all the discussion gone?

lb_lee - 2015-01-16 04:44 (UTC) - Expand

I dunno, but I noticed it, too, and it saddens me.

I see a lot of discussion on Tumblr. Just have to find the right people to follow. It is hard, but it is possible.

Though, I do agree with the above anon about people watching to avoid getting harassed about controversial opinions (which is every opinion ever).

The only way to discuss a tv show at length anymore is to either a. write an essay about it and post it on your blog and just wait and see if anyone comments or b. find forums or lj communities that are still active and just hope someone responds to you.

Both methods do not work most of the time. It's hard to get anyone to discuss anything unless people want to yell at you for saying something they think is wrong.

AYRT - Ahh, then I need to stir some wankage. :)

(I'm kidding. Really. Wank's worse.)

Re: Where has all the discussion gone?

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-16 03:09 (UTC) - Expand

write an essay about it and post it on your blog and just wait and see if anyone comments

Yeah, I've done this on tumblr. I've gotten likes and stuff before, but rarely any comments. And then few I do get are always some version of "this" or "so true." :(

I'm wondering the same thing. Tumblr has killed fandom discussion for me because everything, and I mean fucking EVERYTHING, is some waxing, poetic, purple prose sodden essay breaking down every two damn seconds of a scene into a melodramatic puke puddle of LOOK HOW MEANINGFUL THIS IS!!1.

I'd actually attribute the decline of discussion to Facebook more than tumblr, because I first saw discussion really falling by the wayside about six years ago (before tumblr was even close to its current prominence). Facebook discussions have always been a bit of a mess, and its scope has pretty severely altered how people talk about anything online, not just fandom. Back in its early days, I noticed Facebook had much stricter comment field maximums, which made it more difficult to discuss anything brought out in a status (an area where a lot of discussion has always happened). I think by the time tumblr really came into play discussion as a mainstream fan activity had already fallen out of favor; tumblr accelerated the pace of its disappearance.

Facebook contributed but this just reminds me that I kind of blame twitter for the downfall as well. Twitter really started the whole "talking into the void" thing and gave you a true character limit so anyone writing even just a paragraph had to write it in PARTS (which in twitter's format is a pain in the ass to read.)

I never really used either for fandom myself and I don't understand how people could.

Re: Where has all the discussion gone?

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-16 03:18 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Where has all the discussion gone?

(Anonymous) - 2015-01-16 13:20 (UTC) - Expand

I don't know what to tell you, OP. All of my fandoms have tons of meta and discussion. More than I saw in bigger fandoms back in the good ol' days, even.

Some of it might be what shows you're following? If the fandoms are smaller, or if there just isn't a lot for people to talk about beyond 'wow that latest episode was really an episode' then you won't see as much. Like, as a proportion of discussion to content something like The Elder Scrolls or Harry Potter will generate a lot more fan chat than Deadliest Catch. Some formats and genres lend themselves better to fandom chat.

The other thing is that people might be chatting about your fandoms somewhere you aren't seeing. idk if you follow any fans on tumblr, or they could be talking in facebook groups or privately on skype or some fandoms even still have IRC channels and such.

The other problem is that discussion on Twitter and in the blogosphere is so same-y and predictable. It'll be the same takes, the same concerns and issues, the same enthusiasms, the same #longreads, all that crap.

Some people write regular back-and-forths the size of college essays, you just have to luck into them.

It really seems to be because of the way navigation works in tumblr/facebook/what-have-you.

In LJ/DW/etc., everything is organized more centrically because of communities and no infinite scrolling (I mean, try to find a particular reblog in a list of thousands, having to click "read more" over and over and over and then your browser freezes...), so you can usually see a list (or various lists, but at least they're grouped together!) of everything and everyone posting, but with tumblr you have to chase reblogs and tags to find like, 1/20th of all the activity in a medium-sized fandom.

You could literally go your whole life without seeing over half of the people and posts in the larger fandoms.

tl;dr:

My theory is that the people who want to discuss have a harder time finding each other (and being aware of each other's discussion-willignness)

You need to find the right ppl to follow - harder to do in larger fandoms as the tags are so busy. Maybe try searching 'fandom name critique' or 'fandom name meta' as a launching point to find meta discussion you like then use them as another launching point to find more as discussion blogs tend to find each other.

My fandoms still have a ton of discussion, even on tumblr. Then again, all my fandoms are pretty much for old literature. I don't really know about TV fandoms.

I never take a part in discussions so I don't care. I'm more butthurt about HL fic archieve disappering with a couple of fics I need asap.

Edited 2015-01-17 00:46 (UTC)

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