December daily meme: fandom infrastructure changes

[resonant]

jedusaur started me off with a great prompt: I will take December fourth, since otherwise your month will be five days late. Can you talk about your feelings on the evolution of fandom infrastructure over the years? I'm only 23 and I feel like a dinosaur when I try to figure out Tumblr fandom.

Still taking questions on the original meme post.

I love this question.

The other day, the kidlet was talking about the fact that one set of grandparents have iPhones and e-mail while the other set don't touch computers, and they said, "Eventually everybody earns the right to stop learning to do any more things." I don't like to think I'm that old as a fan, but I must say that Twitter passed me by completely, and Pinterest lost me by insisting that I sign in with Facebook (pfagh! as if I'm so dull that I'm willing only to be one person at a time!) and I'm totally not using Tumblr as it is used by those in the know.

I'm not the longest-term fan I know -- for instance, I was never involved in Usenet -- but I read my first slash stories in a paper zine, which I acquired by writing someone a paper check and mailing it to them.

When I started out, online fandom was focused on mailing lists, often with companion archives. This had a sort of public feel to me, and when fandom made the shift to LiveJournal and personal websites, it felt like a shift into something -- not more private, exactly, but ... less communal? Like, mailing lists and archives were like a grocery store produce department, where the divisions are: oranges over here, lettuce over there, kumquats over yonder. LiveJournal and personal sites were more like a farmer's market, where the divisions are more like: everything grown on Sue's Sunflower Farm here, everything grown at The Happy Sheep over there, everything grown at Cowgirl Acres over yonder.

When I first got a LJ, I was still sort of in a public-space mindset, and I remember feeling like if I was going to post and use up everybody's bandwidth, I'd better be thinking about what would be interesting to the public. That's thinking left over from mailing lists, where you'd literally edit your subject line so that it would say SEASON 4 EP 3, HEADING OFF TOPIC. Over time, my attitude evolved to, "Well, they're reading my journal, so if they don't want to hear what I dreamed last night or what cute thing my kid just said, too bad."

I am so not an early adopter, and I'm not really involved in Tumblr fandom (other than having like eight Sherlock-themed tumblrs bookmarked so that I can visit them every day). But it seems even less communal than LJ/DW to me; it's great for art and not awful for fiction, but definitely not set up for conversation!

Tumblr-style tags, on the other hand, I often find hilarious, and for some reason it makes it even funnier to me that people are taking tags -- created, with a lot of programming effort, for searchability -- and using them for "john grumbles but he loves it" and "but actually the murder is kind of fluffy" and "what can i tell you it was late and there were jello shots" and other things that are really, absolutely, definitely not for searching! It's somewhere between those Martha Stewart types who make wreaths out of straw hats and planters out of waterproof boots and Marcel Duchamp submitting a urinal to an art exhibition and titling it "Fountain."

edited 2020 to retroactively correct the kidlet's gender pronouns

Comments

[china_shop]

I remember feeling like if I was going to post and use up everybody's bandwidth, I'd better be thinking about what would be interesting to the public.

I feel like that about twitter, even though my account is locked and only about a dozen people follow me. *facepalm*

I enjoy hearing the cute things your kid said. :-)

[resonant]

Lucky for you!

[out_there]

Like, mailing lists and archives were like a grocery store produce department, where the divisions are: oranges over here, lettuce over there, kumquats over yonder. LiveJournal and personal sites were more like a farmer's market, where the divisions are more like: everything grown on Sue's Sunflower Farm here, everything grown at The Happy Sheep over there, everything grown at Cowgirl Acres over yonder.

That is a perfect description of the difference. Mailing lists were very fandom-specific (or pairing specific) whereas LJ and DW focused fandom more on the fen themselves -- you follow and get to know people who have an interest in your fandom, but there's a lot more multifandom crossover these days.

Tumblr-style tags, on the other hand, I often find hilarious, and for some reason it makes it even funnier to me that people are taking tags -- created, with a lot of programming effort, for searchability -- and using them for "john grumbles but he loves it" and "but actually the murder is kind of fluffy" and "what can i tell you it was late and there were jello shots" and other things that are really, absolutely, definitely not for searching

I find the tags funny and hilarious, but mostly because the tags seem to be saying what the post itself usually doesn't. Which I do find odd. The lack of conversation is why I'm happy to browse tumblr for fanart, but I'm not willing to actually sign up. I'm much happier here in my text-based conversational medium.

[resonant]

I'm getting interesting insights in the comments, actually. It's a lesson to me: it doesn't make sense to say, about anything, "That's not good" -- you have to say, "That's surely good for something; now let's figure out what."

[isagel]

I love this post!

[resonant]

I love this meme! All of a sudden everybody's talking!

[majoline]

I was reading someone's technology + magic original fic and was swept up in a wave of nostalgia for phone phreaking, sheesh. /feels dated.

Anyway, I just don't feel like I have anything to contribute to tumblr and my crappy internet is keeping me the rest of the way off it.

[jesse_the_k]

I never phreaked myself, but a roommate did, and so I made calls over a seized line. See icon.

[majoline]

"Those were the days, kids, when individual CALLS were EXPENSIVE..." *sigh* Hey, at least we're still here, right? :)

[jesse_the_k]

Sometimes I'm in awe.

In my health care I interact with folks our age who've been computerized without consultation and sadly many of them feel they're undergoing a zombie invasion. Why is it some of us delight in computer-mediated everything and others feel their autonomy undermined?

[majoline]

I was always a tinkerer and a hacker, so maybe it's just growing along with the technology for me. Computers are a whole different world, it feels like sometimes, and to have all that learning stretch ahead is pretty daunting.

[resonant]

Every time an operating system upgrades, or every time I get tricked into upgrading iTunes, I am full of sympathy for people who hate computers. I already knew how to do what I wanted to do! Why are you making me learn again?

[resonant]

Wow, that's a new one to me -- I don't even recall ever hearing the term!

[majoline]

It's an old (!) term now, when we used to crack the phone network to make free calls, because those were the days when phone calls were incredibly expensive.

[riverlight]

It's somewhere between those Martha Stewart types who make wreaths out of straw hats and planters out of waterproof boots and Marcel Duchamp submitting a urinal to an art exhibition and titling it "Fountain."

That is the most delightful recap of tumblr-style tags I've read. *g*

[resonant]

Fandom is all about repurposing!

[armadillo1976]

Hi! Could you maybe share the "like eight Sherlock-themed tumblrs" you mention? Because I have no problems locating Sherlock tumblers, but I keep feeling they are not THE Sherlock tumblers for me :-( Given how I love everything you write, your taste might be more closely aligned to what I am looking for. Thank you!

[resonant]

Well, they're not definitive, and some of them are much less Sherlocky than they were when I first started following them, but for what it's worth:

Romantic Chamber of the Heart is liviapenn's carefully curated collection of artifacts related to all the Sherlock Holmes canons, from Conan Doyle to the Great Mouse Detective.

Reapersun does wonderful artwork, mostly but not entirely Sherlock-related, frequently x-rated.

Other artists I like: Inchells, archiaart, Marika, seki, doublenegativemeansyes.

Vatican Cameos 13 posts a lot of set photos, so beware of spoilers. There's also quite a lot of Hannibal content, which I have mixed feelings about (in the sense that I love anything with Gillian Anderson and am squicked by everything else).

Other Sherlock-heavy multifannish tumblrs I like: Sweet Little Kitty, The Blue Geranium, Jill and Sarah (The Married Ones).

I like Cumber-Porn, but I have technical difficulties with it -- it has that page design that automatically loads more entries when you get near the bottom so you never have to click a Next button, and I have an older laptop, and it always ends up locking my computer up. If you go there, be aware that this is a tumblr that keeps the Penis Friday tradition in high style and will be very nsfw on Fridays.

[armadillo1976]

Thank you so much! I'm now very much looking forward to checking them out.

[cesperanza]

Your description of TUmbler tags is hilarious and I'm stealing it. :D

[resonant]

... for what?

[sara]

I want a platform with words AND pictures. I don't know, nothing seems quite right at this point in time.

But then, any more I either feel like I'm culturally but not practically fannish, or that everything I'm fannish about, only people much younger than I am are into, and I don't want to be That Creeper unless I really can't help myself.

(No, really: the Homestuck cosplayers were back in the park last week and I had this whole internal dialogue in which I talked myself out of going over and fangirling at them because I don't want to be That Creeper. *sigh*)

And the things that I'm fannish about that are work-related I can be fannish about in public and nobody cares because being fannish about urban planning is socially acceptable.

[resonant]

Posting pictures on DW is kind of a pain, isn't it? and they tell me reposting in Tumblr is a one-button affair.

[sara]

Yeah- I am increasingly graphical as technology catches up to my inclinations, and DW is just not there yet. But you can't have a conversation on Tumblr!

[paceus]

When I joined Tumblr one of the first people I followed there said, coincidentally, that she loves Tumblr because it's so great for real-time conversations. I was surprised because I thought there was no conversation on Tumblr, but apparently there is. So is that just not the kind of conversation you're looking for? (I'm asking genuinely -- I wanted to talk about this with someone in case a) they didn't know this happened on Tumblr in addition to the mass of pictures and b) I was simply missing the point and the Tumblr type of discussion isn't what people are usually looking for.)

Here's a collection of pictures people discuss right below them.

Here's another thread that's just like people reccing stuff to each other on LJ/DW.

And here's a long one about race in Disney movies. It's difficult to read, at least in this layout, and because the names and what the people are saying are so far apart from each other, but it's a conversation -- isn't it? You can see that the same person has replied at least twice.

[kass]

Your kidlet is wise, and also, I am right there with her -- I am 38 and I can't figure out why Tumblr is great! <3

And oh, I remember what it was like when I first got on LJ in 2002. I had that same thought -- if I'm going to post, it had better be worth everybody's bandwidth. Funny how that's changed.

I am also with you on the tumblr tags, which are clearly not useful for searchability but are kind of hilarious in their own way.

[toft]

I had a tumblr breakthrough when I was like "But it's impossible to have conversations!" and someone said "The great thing about tumblr is that you DON'T HAVE TO TALK TO ANYONE." I've since worked out how to use it as a way to get curated fanart. I don't try to attach personalities to the feeds; I just scroll through the pictures when I'm too tired to interact.

[elynross]

Yes, this, exactly. I remember at my fannish-on-LJ peak I had a separate journal to subscribe to just icon journals, so I could scroll through and find awesome icons to use, and I was all about the icons! Scrolling through tumblr for me is like just going through and looking at the pretty, without much care for who's doing it.

[resonant]

I can see that! I never thought of it like that. And people who maintain both a journal and a tumblr, in the same name, probably go back and forth: go here for a picture, go here if you want to talk about it ...

[toft]

I really love the distinction between a supermarket and a farmer's market! That's so accurate.

[resonant]

There might be oranges in multiple different places, but if your orange seller offers you kumquats, you might try them just because it's her.

[elynross]

First, I absolutely adore that description of free-form tagging, heeeeee. And this could be me:

I must say that Twitter passed me by completely, and Pinterest lost me by insisting that I sign in with Facebook (pfagh! as if I'm so dull that I'm willing only to be one person at a time!) and I'm totally not using Tumblr as it is used by those in the know.

I was very interesting in Pinterest, until I realized I had to have a FB, which, bleah. But then I ended up on FB due to the existence of great nephews and pictures, thereof, so I figured, wot the hell...and I've never bothered to get around to actually doing anything with it.

Tumblr is basically a flow of pretty/interesting pictures, but it's not at all fannish for me, even if I'm following fans, or follow mostly fannish tumblrs. And then there's the fact that I never remember to actually look at it.

And finally, I was just thinking yesterday about how, when I got on LJ, it felt much more like "performance art" than mailing lists did. Lists felt interactive, and varying levels of public, but for me LJ was like walking through a space where different people set up and performed for varying sized audiences who might or might not know each other. It amuses me that on mailing lists, I would get annoyed when people went OT to blather about non-fannish stuff, lives and shit, but on LJ, that's what I'm mostly interested in, at this point.

[resonant]

Me too! And I have subscriptions to authors on DW, so by the time someone posts about a story on their journal, I've usually read it already. I'm there for the off-topic.

[azurelunatic]

Twitter caught me as my IRC channels were waning, in much the same way as lists/groups were topical and LJ was personal. Same size text, same content, but all in my own space instead of "hmm, which of these topical channels is most appropriate for me to go off-topic in?"

[jesse_the_k]

I appreciate, and share, your insights into The Way the World Has Changed. I wish your offspring ran the world (maybe some day they will)!

[resonant]

She might! I'd vote for her!