[ SECRET POST #2609 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2609 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 076 secrets from Secret Submission Post #372.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[elephantinegrace]

Tumblr is, at best, average. It's only belittled as the "LOL wurst websight evar" because its userbase is mostly young females. I already wrote about this a couple days ago, so I'm just going to C+P it here with a few minor grammatical/spelling corrections:

Everything that's popular with almost exclusively females, especially teenage females, is universally shat upon. Sure, 50 Shades and Twilight aren't classic literature, but FSoG is one of the first mainstream erotic novels depicting a BDSM relationship (albeit an inaccurate one), and the Twilight Saga is one of the first popular novel series that objectified male characters just as much as the female characters (and the movies had actual Native American actors playing Native American characters instead of whitewashing them like a certain sci-fi movie that everyone seems eager to defend, even on Tumblr). Hell, certain shows that shall remain unnamed have been canceled because their viewership was mostly girls rather than the boys they were marketed toward. Tumblr has a very strange and at times impossible format and the same subset of crazy users that every website has, but damn if it isn't refreshing to finally be able to call people out on their shit without being roasted under an immediate deluge of 'not all ___ are like that!!1!' or 'they weren't being my idea of __ist so it doesn't count.'

Teal deer says, 'Tumblr is no different than any other website other than the fact that it's populated largely by teenage girls, therefore it must be a piece of shit.'"

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

Say rather the same subset of crazy users that every popular large website has. Because I do think there's a relationship between community size and that whole kind of thing.

Agree that people do seem to hate certain things more than is really merited. Like, I wouldn't say anything positive about Twilight or 50 Shades Of Grey - they're pretty much shit - but not shit in an especially unique way, and they do seem to get a disproportionate amount of hate compared to other things of similar quality, mostly for the reasons you outline.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think the amount of Twilight/FSoG hate is disproportionate. Of course people will hate, IDK, some obscure novel less than a huge popular shittily written book. They get a lot of hate because they *are* popular and shittily written... because they're *both,* not just one or the other and lots of people don't get why the hell anyone would like that crap.

I can't think of any series that is A) just as popular as those two franchises with B) equally terrible writing. Can you?

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[elephantinegrace]

Yeah, Twilight and FSoG are average, at best. I despise the "fetal life>all else" message in the first one and the abusive relationship framed as normal BDSM in the second, because I have actual experience with both, and it scares me to think what might have happened if those things had happened after I read those books because media consumption very much influences our personal views. But, neither book is unique or even extreme in those messages, and if it were just the dangerous lessons they could teach, the criticism would be about that. Instead, the criticism is about unrealistic expectations of romance or vapid characterization, which leads me to side-eye most of the critics.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

I'm a woman and I've plenty of reasons to hate Tumblr, none of them related to the female userbase. The idiocy that is not only allowed but encourage on Tumblr (and one of the main reasons why I hate them) isn't socially accepted in most online communities.

If I acted like Tumblr people do in the communities I belong to, people would attack me and tell me to fuck off and stop acting like an annoying underage kid.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[elephantinegrace]

There was an episode of The Simpsons where cameras and speakers were installed all over Springfield, and Ned Flanders became an overseer, and lectured everyone on their behavior when he saw them doing something he disapproved of. There was a single blind spot in the Simpsons' backyard, and at one point I think Chalmers was dancing ballet dressed at a goat.

Now, you don't have to imagine the internet being incredibly hostile to women and girls. You've experienced it. But let's say you found a place where you could get away from that. Everything you can't say, that you've buried inside you in a pressurized bubble of resentment and anger, finally has an outlet. Tumblr allows you to express that, and since it's letting of steam, people get burned. That's just kind of how the site works.

(If you have an account and are willing to come off anon, I could use a different analogy that's a bit more private and a LOT closer to what I'm trying to say.)

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, same here.

I find it bizarre that the various other fandom communities I'm in, on LJ and Twitter and so on, are almost universally friendly and supportive and genuinely nice places to spend time, but the fandoms for the exact same shows on Tumblr just turn into huge piles of wank and end with a bunch of people yelling at each other, and sending anon hate, and hating on anyone with a different opinion to their own. Sometimes this is even the same exact people as in the other fandom communities.

There's just something about the format of Tumblr that leads to a kind of fandom that I, at least, don't find it fun to be a part of.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

stop acting like an annoying underage kid.

Accurate description of 99% of the Tumblr userbase IMO.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

I know plenty of women who hate on teenage girls specifically, your gender is not an argument. That aside, are you talking about the general humor on Tumblr or something they actually do?

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

There's some truth to this but I think it's probably also true that tumblr's structure works in a way that gives more emphasis and weight and visibility to that kind of stuff.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

I think the reason why female media gets so much hate is because it gets hate from both men AND women. Ask any women with taste if they hate Twilight and they will tell you 'hell yes', most of them will say that not only because of the quality but because it's an unhealthy relationship.

With crappy media for men, good luck finding men who criticize them as the problematic piece of shit most of them are, sexualizing and objectifying women.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

You're exactly the kind of insane sjw OP was talking about. Nice load of bullshit everywhere in your post, by the way.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

I have no problem with what you're arguing but I have to say, re: Twilight, that Twilight wasn't one of the first popular series where the male characters were objectified as much as the female characters. I remember reading LJ Smith back in the day and it was all "Long black eyelashes" this, "Lanky frame" that. So, just to toss that in there...

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[elephantinegrace]

I've never heard of LJ Smith or anything she's written, though. I don't think she's as popular as you think. Or maybe she is and I'm just pop culture illiterate.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

You are arguing that the reason people hate tumblr is because of misogyny.

That is not why people hate tumblr -- at least, it's not the main reason for most people.

And then you draw this weird line between that and hating female-oriented media in general. They're not the same thing.

tumblr sucks because it's fostered a culture of intolerance in the guise of progressivism and spreading outright misinformation in the name of proving how enlightened they are. Most of the noisiest ones are very Americentric as well, pasting white American POVs on other cultures and countries, and presuming to tell POCs and other minorities how to feel.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[elephantinegrace]

The fact remains that Tumblr is the only website I've seen where this kind of discussion even comes up, though. I have never gone anywhere else where people debate Frozen for POC or feminist representation. I'll take a wankfest that has a few gems over multiple polite threads that have nothing I'm looking for.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

Huh? No they haven't, OP said F!S was more SJW-y, not smug and self-congratulatory.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[kamino_neko]

Indeed. They also said absolutely nothing on whether hate directed at tumblr was justified.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

It's only belittled as the "LOL wurst websight evar" because its userbase is mostly young females
I disagree. Under the majority of circumstances are considered bad when they're bad, not when they're directed at/enjoyed by women. I can think of plenty of things "meant for" men that are widely hated (porn, for example. Or the Star Wars prequels).

I don't hate Twilight, so I can't speak to that (though I don't think at all that it was anywhere near the first book to objectify men. Tacky romances objectify men all the time, and have since the beginning of the genre); I hate 50 shades of grey because it's phenomenally poorly written, but more because it's a best-seller and hailed by tons of people as being incredibly sexy when it's just bad; and I hate tumblr because so many of the people on it are incredibly pretentious and refuse to acknowledge the possibility that they're wrong. Of course, to be fair, pretentiousness is a common trait among teenagers of both genders...

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

Not to mention it's a Twilight fanfic with the 'serial numbers filed off' so to speak.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

I agree. thanks for your comment!

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

Excellent post. See also: Sex and the City.

I get where you are coming from, but I have to disagree.

[nyxelestia]

Because up until a few years ago, most of that last type of fandom conversation you described - discussing racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. in popular media - was already happening. Talking about the nature of gender distribution in characters of a show, talking about the influence of racial tensions in movies, how homosexuality plays such an important hidden role in modern culture...all of this was happening way before Tumblr, and while it was happening in many places I saw it most on LJ and DW. The thing is? Back then, it was an actual discussion, and it was happening everywhere. Nowadays, it happens predominantly - in some fandoms, only - on Tumblr.

Yeah, every fandom has its share of crazy userbase. The reason why people hate on Tumblr, though, is because that crazy userbase more often than not takes over the fandom, or at least takes over the discussion and turns it into an all-or-nothing shouting match. The structure of Tumblr is great for spreading things fast, but it is not one that enables deep discussions (those that happen usually do so in spite of the website, not because of it), and it is one that is ultimately based on people shouting into a metaphorical void and hoping someone shouts back (which doesn't always happen, depending on what tags you use and how many followers you have).

One of the arguments I've heard in favor of Tumblr is that it "gives everyone a voice". I call bullshit on this because a.) most other fandom spaces already gave everyone plenty of voice and b.) this particular fandom space isn't one that gives people 'a voice', but gives certain voices the most attention and drowns out everyone and everything else.

I'm not saying Tumblr doesn't have its upsides. Half of us commenting on this thread have a Tumblr, myself included, and Tumblr can be a lot of fun. The thing is, though, it can only really be fun within reason, but it can also be incredibly stressful, if you say the wrong word, get the attention of the wrong user, and then BOOM you're being bombarded with hundreds or thousands of vicious ask messages and no one listening to you if or when you explain yourself or apologize or correct a misunderstanding. It's not that they don't care - it's that they don't see, because the entire structure of Tumblr makes that the hard part.

And, I'm not saying other fandom spaces don't have their downsides - for all that I've been on Tumblr, I have yet to be driven out of it due to exclusivity and BNF-ganging-up, something which has has happened to me on a private archive-forum site. LJ and DW have seen their own fair share of crap, too.

The reason why I come down harder on Tumblr, though, despite the fact it has the same things as all these other fandom spaces? It's because of how much weight they give to the pros and cons.

Yeah, every fandom space has its share of crazy users, but Tumblr is where they get the most attention and (negative) influence. Yeah, every fandom space has its share of wank, but on Tumblr the only thing you can really do is wait for it to die down - most every other site, there are also ways to counteract the wank, diffuse the tension, or open up a genuine discussion that involves everyone in a given community, not just whoever has the most followers. And yes, I am well aware that Tumblr has just as much benign things like fic, art, etc. on it as other fandoms - but not only are these so splintered and difficult to find in comparison to other sites, but they get drowned in wank much more easily, and in many fandom circles it is much harder to avoid them while still being able to access the fandom content you want.

All of this, by the way, comes before the fact the Tumblr user interface is kind of ridiculous and one-track minded, yet expected to somehow still be used for every track and everything in fandom. Yes, I know there are extensions, but the fact that there are so many is a sign of how messed up the site is, and makes the site inaccessible for those whose computers don't get along with extensions, and honestly still leave way too many problems that are ultimately rooted in the structure and interface of the site.

And I really do get the frustration of how if something is only liked by young women, then no matter how popular or successful it is, it gets derided for ridiculous reasons that male-popular media just doesn't get, even when they're pretty much the same. The fact that so many people blame Tumblr's nonsense on its young female userbase is irritating as hell, sometimes downright infuriating...but that many people point fingers at them doesn't negate all the other, much more valid, reasons to hate on the site.

I'm not even saying the site is worthless - again, I have a Tumblr, and I actually use it every now and then. But like many other fans here, I resent that it's become the primary fandom platform, because it has had a far greater and far faster effect of change on fandom than almost any other platform, and this change is one that did bring a few pros but brought a lot more cons to fandom overall. I don't think it's the death of fandom, but I am eagerly awaiting for when fandom moves on from Tumblr to something a little easier and more pleasant to interact in and with.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[(Anonymous)]

I have my issues with Tumblr, but not for the same reasons that you beautifully backhanded with your post. Bravo.

Re: Thank you, F!S, for proving OP's point

[caerbannog]

FS is the only place I've seen active hate on tumblr, the majority of which (like OP) I'm half convinced are trolls...but then maybe I'm just missing it in other forums because I do not frequent them as much.

That said, interesting and slightly depressing thing to think about.