Tumblr: with no ping function when someone replies.

[aquila_black]

There's a big conversation on fandomsecret about the pros and cons of Tumblr, and I what I have to say really belongs on my journal.

Tumblr appeals to me for specific things - it's a very good place to keep pictures that I like, feel comfortable sharing, and am not so attached to that I want a copy on my hard drive. Its indexing feature is reasonable, if what you have basically amounts to a ton of image thumbnails.

Discussion happens, but not in enough quantity or quality that it's worth my while to hang out there. Roleplay happens ... and that's what made me invest the time in learning to use the damn thing in the first place. There is a large, awesome, welcoming LOVELESS cast on Tumblr. Their Nisei, in particular, is to die for. Their Mikado (the badass MOONLESS sacrifice, you guys!) is similarly worth following.

Short digression, but I think some fandoms (and characters) lend themselves to panfandom games, and some just don't. I was so glad to find a place where LOVELESS characters could play with each other, without being outnumbered 100 to 1 by non-castmates. It's a little like this. By which I mean that it has an interesting premise that's worth exploring, but can't be explored if what everyone else in the space wants to know is, "why are you bothering with that? Just cut the gordian knot!"

Back on topic, I more or less quit tumblr because the signal-to-noise ratio is unacceptable to me. There are conversations there I'd like to be in on, but people post so much stuff to their blogs that I'm not interested in (and reblog/like in such a way that I get a ton of repeats!) that I spend most of my time scrolling through ephemera. And I can't. One life, short life, not going to spend it skimming pages at top speed to pull what's relevant to me out of the oceans of stuff that isn't.

I know I'm missing out. I love that there are platforms out there where the fandom is young and opinionated and posting back and forth at a speed that makes me lightheaded. But it's not a medium that I feel any good at contributing to, and the company's idea of free speech is rather conveniently "whatever we currently approve of," so DW will continue to be where I meta, roleplay, and hang out.

Even though I mostly comment rather than journal, chances are, if I'm online, you can find me here.

Comments

[coffeevore]

That's why I don't really use Tumblr for fandom stuff, or track tags on it. There are certain Tumblrs out there that try to be "quality blogs" (mostly so they can get praise and adulation and lots of followers) and don't post much noise among the signal, and I just follow them and look at my dash. But I can't keep up with my dash (and I don't even try).

I don't have relationships with anybody on Tumblr, because I couldn't keep up with them. I just occasionally go sift through my dash, see some pretty pictures, and that's it. I couldn't handle making a friend on Tumblr and then having to make sure I saw all their posts so I knew if they said anything important or said anything to me. People who read their whole dashes, it seems to honestly be their entire life. The main thing they have to do each day after school (or whatever) is to go through their tumblr dash. I can't with that. I spend time on the internet pretty much every day and I STILL just can't with that. I want to be able to look at nice stuff, sure, but there are many days when I want to either skip the unimportant stuff, or skip certain platforms entirely, because there's other stuff in my day and I don't have the time. So I just can't with something that fast-moving. It would eat my life.

[aquila_black]

That's pretty much what I concluded too ... the way it's set up, I can't filter the stuff I'm not interested in, even though I'm only following a handful of blogs. It takes way too much time to sift through everything people two-line-comment-on or reblog. Not to mention, it's hell on my mobile device, always making it hang or shut down when I try to look at my dash. If there's a way to make Tumblr functional, and less choked with babble, I'd love to know of it. Missing E makes it suck less, but I wouldn't even know what to wish for, in an extension that would make it less of a time sink. I'll have to PM my friends and let them know I'm not going back, I guess. And let them know I'll be over here. That's a first, for me - finding a platform obnoxious enough that I won't use it, though possibly because I never felt remotely tempted to try Twitter or Face. :/

[coffeevore]

Twitter seems to be less obnoxious if you follow the right people. Pictures won't choke it up, there are fewer memes... on the other hand, a lot of people talk about uninteresting/unimportant stuff most of the time (the same is true of Facebook). You just have to find people who are willing to only tweet about stuff their followers might give a crap about.

[aquila_black]

Hm. I can see how that might work. Do you use Twitter?

[coffeevore]

Not regularly. I tried for a while, and I keep trying on and off, but... yeah. I think once I get better with Japanese I'll be more interested in it because there are artists whose Twitters I'd like to follow, but right now I can't understand their tweets.