On LJ and Tumblr and Twitter and How Fandom Communicates

[earlgreytea68]

Time to be totally honest: I haven’t been one of those people mourning the loss of LJ. Back in the old days, catching up on my f-list used to take so much time that I was amazed I was able to do it. If it went back to that now, I think, I wouldn’t be able to keep up, and I’d have to give up something else, and I love Twitter and I love Tumblr and I don’t want to give them up.

So I figured things had happened the way they were supposed to happen and I just moved on.

And posting to AO3 is so incredibly easy that I’m now amazed how many years I spent painstakingly linking chapters back to each other and making fic masterposts and tracking down fics I could read, etc., etc., etc. AO3 is, I think, a much superior place for fic, so I was okay with all of this.

I like AO3 and I like Twitter and I like Tumblr and I feel like I’m still friendly with people and have fun fannish conversations and, I don’t know, I wasn’t feeling the loss of LJ.

But this weekend I read a commentfic. I was never a commentfic person. I was never one of those people hovering around the kinkmeme and stuff. I always waited for fics to be posted on LJ properly. But, whatever, I am coming to the end of the Inceptionfic on every single rec list I have and beggars can’t be choosers when you’re reading in a four-year-old fandom whose heyday has passed, so I read the commentfic. And what fascinated me was how much time I spent *just reading the comments.* It was like this weird little archeological exercise I was engaged in, this frozen moment of fannish squee that just went into overflow, and the comments were brilliant and hilarious and insightful and they played off of each other and the comments inspired new fics, new little commentfics, little snippets of ideas, and then someone else would play off that, and then suddenly there was all of this collaboratively written stuff at the end of it

and suddenly just like that I missed LJ.

Because I’m not sure there is any place exactly like *that* in the replacement websites. I don’t know, I feel like AO3 isn’t like that? It doesn’t seem to be a comment-ficcy place. In fact, it’s not really a place where people seem to have a lot of discussions in the comments. Is that just my comments? And sometimes you get into good conversations on Tumblr but you have to go out and get xkit to really accomplish that and even then it’s still confusing and even worse, it isn’t really archived well. Like, all of that Inception squee I sat and read this weekend happened years ago and how would I ever find that on Tumblr or Twitter? I might be able to find it on AO3, but, as I said, AO3 doesn’t seem to inspire the same sort of fannish debate and dissection and thinky-thoughts. (I think some people have tried to use it that way, tried to stick the meta there and stuff, but I never seem to turn to it for that.)

I have no real conclusion on any of this. Just that I saw people lamenting LJ earlier this year and I am late to the party but I’m telling you I get it. AO3 and Twitter and Tumblr all do really well a bunch of things LJ was terrible at, but I don’t think they’ve totally replaced some of the other things that LJ was brilliant for when it was really working, and I didn’t think about how much I missed that until this weekend.

And, at the same time, I don’t even think I have time for all of the stuff I want to do online, anyway!

Anyway, that’s it. Just musing.

Comments

[charisstoma.livejournal.com]

Yep. It's fun here but there's not as many in the pool anymore.

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

No, it's totally true.

[bulleteyes.livejournal.com]

I was a child when color television was first begun and I remember it well. For years if anything was good it had to be in color.

Then I started watching old black and white films when I was older and came home from school. The good ones had qualities that could not be done in color.

I think of LJ in the same way. Tumblr, the other platforms are fun and fast and have lots of pics and then like you, I see something that will only happen on LJ and it feels just like seeing black and white TV again.

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

Awww, we are just all doomed to remember what we lose with every step forward!

[ladyprydian.livejournal.com]

I still like and enjoy LJ but the number of people here has dropped significantly.

LJ has always been the platform for discussion and debate. Tumblr and Twitter are great for a 'quick fix'. Twitter with it's limited characters, Tumblr for it's ease of posting pic's, vid's, and links. A03 has streamlined posting fic that it's insanely easy.

LJ though, you still need html coding knowledge to be able to post. Especially for comments. That's what hurts this site.

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

That's a really good point.

[acciochocolate.livejournal.com]

Need to know HTML coding? I'm confused by that statement. I just post and make replies. :) But then, I have no need for fancy formatting; I guess that's what some need for their fics? I do wonder why LJ did away with the Rich Text editor. I wish the site could be more like when Brad still owned it.

ETA: I usually post at Dreamwidth and then it crossposts to here. Since DWidth is run by former LJ staff, it's more like the older LJ.

[ladyprydian.livejournal.com]

Need to know HTML coding? I'm confused by that statement. I just post and make replies. :) But then, I have no need for fancy formatting;
Yes, that's what I mean, to be able to format (italics, bold, underline, add links, photos, vids) you need a small amount of coding knowledge.

This isn't a bad thing, but at the same time, other sites circumvent this.

I have a DW account as well. I made it as a back up for my lj.

[mildred-bobbin.livejournal.com]

I do like LJ more for the having discussions and debates, it's easier to keep track and respond. Tumblr is definitely better for squee and sharing pics or promoting things, but it's also easier (I think) for wank to happen or misinformation to circulate or misunderstandings to grow - it's not really made for thoughtful debate between a defined group of people, things move beyond the circle of context. I also find it much more of a time-suck. I'm just glad some people are coming back here so I can too, and take a break from tumblr for a while.

[acciochocolate.livejournal.com]

I like AO3, but it's not a place for meta. Because of the kudos thing, I suspect that eats into comments that would otherwise be left.

Twitter is fine for info, but not a place for conversation.

I have yet to figure out how to have a dialogue on Tumblr; also, it moves too fast, and I can't spend hrs there keeping up. Who owns it now? Google?

I like the LJ idea of personal blogging and community involvement. It's a great combo. :)

These days, I tend to spend more time on a board related to a game I play, and also on another forum related to perfume oils; both have expanded far beyond what they were originally set up for.

SixApart and the Russians really messed up LJ. But where did the userbase here go?

[miwahni.livejournal.com]

I find it very difficult to have conversations on tumblr and impossible on twitter, and wouldn't even think of looking for them on AO3 which to me is strictly for fic reading. It's so much easier to communicate on LJ, and to get to know people. I like tumblr for the pretty but LJ is my home.

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the sites are all just focused on doing different things differently, really.

[lauramcewan.livejournal.com]

I used to post everyday, several times a day. To the point I had a few friends admit to filtering me out, or dropping me altogether.

I tried to temper it a bit, but I also considered it MY JOURNAL and if a thought came to me then, I'll write it then. It's my journal. The pressure to conform to someone else's opinion on how I should use it was high.

At any rate, once I started working full time, my posting dropped off considerably, and now it feels like no one is even reading what posts I make.

However, we do have tumblr_refuge where the longer conversations can still happen, if you're not a member of that group already.

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I don't know that comm, I'll have to look into it!

[alafaye]

LJ is the best place I think for communicating with other fans. Tumblr and Twitter and AO3 are awesome--and AO3 is the best place for fic, makes it so easy for posting and reading and tracking, etc. and oh, I can download them like an eBook to read on the go--but LJ? Yeah, nothing like it. I made so many friends in fandom through here and never got the same feeling on the other sites. We connect through fandom, but discover and become more friendly through the things we share about our non-fandom life. I definitely do not get that from anywhere else. And it has slowed down, for sure (though I do wonder how these new fans meet and connect with fellow fans now; I don't know how you can anywhere else), but there are new people all the time. (You are newish friend, at least I consider you so!)

I can't keep up with everything; I satisfy myself with the time I do get and learn my limits. Which is what it's all about. Being here even a little bit, meeting new people and finding new fandoms through those people, etc. etc.

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

I don't know how people are connecting these days. Are they just better at transforming Tumblr into a more community-oriented experience? I don't know.

[rifleman-s.livejournal.com]

I only visit LJ and AO3 so I don't know about any others, and I can't really see me giving up either!

You're right about the difference in commenting, though - AO3 is more like a "library" where fics are stored, whereas at LJ, the fics just form another part of each person's Journal.

I've made some fantastic friends here, though - by friending and through communities, so I'm really glad I have both.

And I had to nod most vigorously and agree with your comments about never having time to read everything one wants to at LJ - it truly would be a 24/7 thing!! It's very addictive, though . . .

The beset thing about AO3 is that you can 'bookmark' something to read later; I have about 182 fics waiting to be read - I'm slowly getting through them and perhaps one day (when I retire maybe!) I'll have time to read them all!

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

I love the bookmark thing, too! Every once in a while I look at them and I'm like, "...When are you going to read all these fics? YOU WILL NEVER COME TO THE END OF THE INTERNET." And that's a good thing. :-)

[xgraciela.livejournal.com]

Yes. I totally agree. I was there, in the first row, crying over LJ when the majority of people and my friends relocated to Tumblr. I didn't want to let it go and didn't want to believe that it was ending. (LJ was my very first platform for fandom when I started in 2006)

I was trying to keep my community running and live, but seeing the disinterest because of the new "shiny", I just literally gave up. And I'm still sad about it. But I had nor time nor energy to stay both on LJ and Tumblr when I felt no interest from more people.

Now, Tumblr is great for certain things and is fast and glittery and gif-fy. Kind of like the modern age. But I hate it so much sometimes!!

It's impossible to keep up, because there just comes the time when you no longer can check your dash all the way to the last post you saw the day before. It's just not possible if you follow more than let's say 50 blogs. That's what I don't like. Because when I follow someone, not everything on their blog may interest me, and apart from tags and blacklisting, there's no way to filter, so I end up with endless dash where I see certain things multiple times and some things not at all.

On LJ there used to be wonderful communities. HOW I miss them! I hate that we've lost (at least for me) the sense of community on Tumblr. Because now it's just one big mass of people bumbling around, posting stuff at uncontrollable speed.

When I was watching a community on LJ, I didn't have to follow certain person's blog to see their post in the comm. Which is a win-win, because the comm was about our shared interest, so we could just tune in the comm instead of the whole blog.

Impossible on Tumblr.

Also, I have constant feeling that I'm missing something on Tumblr, because you can't just follow every blog.

And it goes both ways. If your blog isn't popular/followed enough, you just don't matter - so to speak. You just exist somewhere in the big space of Tumblr, but whatever you post, interesting or not, just doesn't get any recognition, because so few people see it on their dash.

And this is me speaking as a person with cca 600 followers, not all of them active, so my posts tend to just disappear in space.

But this is not me moaning for attention, this is just me realizing that there are millions people in the same possition as me and that I'm never going to see their stuff, however relevant to my interests/fandoms it is, and all just because they are not popular enough. It's sad.

On LJ no one had to be "popular" to be able to post to comm. And when they did, every member of the comm could have seen the post and interact.

And here we are getting to what you also mentioned: comments. COMMENTS!!

How I miss these....:(( Also discussions. About anything. Comment parties. Tag fics. Comment fics. Kink meme. Anon fills!! (we are never gettign this on Tumblr)

Seriously, I tend to think there's almost more bad than good about Tumblr, but as they say: "When in Rome, do as Romans do." So I feel kind of forced into Tumblr still, as I have no other choice if I want to be "up to date" with fandom.

And I should mention that I feel all this at the age of 25. I can't imagine how hard it must be for older folks. My mum (50) used to have LJ and she could do it just fine, but she claims that Tumblr and the likes are just too fast for her. And I can understand her very well.

Ups...sorry, wasn't meant to be that long and ranty...on your blog. It's just that when I hear about stuff you dmentioned here, I always get the feels..

Anyway, I totally agree that every platform has something to offer and that we can't have all in one. I'm just sad to see the masses migrating instead of keeping a bit of both.

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

I hear what you're saying. And I really do think we could strike some kind of balance. I actually love Tumblr a lot for exactly what it is. I don't try to keep up with everyone, I just use it to amuse me and look at pretty pictures, and I'm happy with it, I truly am. I just wish there was some way to balance what Tumblr gives us with what LJ gave us.

[develish1]

Completely agree, because while I DO use AO3, twitter, and now even I've fallen into the tumblr black hole, all of them are really pretty useless for having an actual conversation.

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

Truth.