numb3r_5ev3n (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
numb3r_5ev3n) wrote2017-05-14 10:21 am
numb3r_5ev3n) wrote2017-05-14 10:21 am
Entry tags:
Agreed, fuck Tumblr.
As per a conversation I had elsewhere - yeah, fuck Tumblr.
I left a flounce post letting people know I've pretty much fucked off back to an actual blogging site. (Also Ao3, Twitter, and Facebook. BTW I am currently Yves Adele Harlowe on FB until they make me change it again.)
And I've pretty much come to the conclusion that if DreamWidth is to take off and have the success that LiveJournal did, we kind of need to be the content we want to see until other people start coming over. Yeah, it's a lot of work and can be a pain in the ass, but that's how it began 2001-2002 during the Great Migration from Yahoogroups, and that's how it can happen again.
It also tends to follow specific fandoms. LOTR and Harry Potter are the fandoms that really precipitated the move from Yahoogroups to LiveJournal. If a franchise goes viral and its fans who are major content creators start trickling over here, others will follow them.
I know that DreamWidth's image hosting/sharing features are where LiveJournal's were in 2008-2010, but you know what fixes that? Money. And how does DreamWidth get money? New subscribers.
I think one of the main attractions to Tumblr 2010-2011 was the fact that it could be used as a content dump area, because around the time it was created, LJ's image hosting/sharing features were still not ready for prime time (Photobucket/Tinypic, anyone?) but I've been using Imgur for that over the past year or so, anyway.
But really, Tumblr was created as an image-sharing service. You know those image macros that were popular in the late augties, the ones with text of some sort of platitude about life, or a dark personal secret, superimposed over a picture of something like a sepia-toned swingset, or a sunset, or a clothesline, or a picture of flowers? THAT was what Tumblr was created to be - a "hipster secrets" macro aggregator. It was also trying to be Instagram before Instagram was a thing. Well, Instagram *is* a thing (and I'm also over there, but to follow very specific people - and I'm not giving out my contact info over there just yet.)
Tumblr's format is conducive to conflict instead of discussion and debate, ("le discourse" my ass) to context getting lost, and communication breaking down. Its primary use now is to perpetuate "callout culture." It's been that way since 2012, six months or so after I started using it (I joined at the end of 2010 and then just let it sit for a long time.) But it's not getting better. It's never going to get any better. The way the platform and the site and service itself are set up are part of the problem.
I started using it to follow the Tron and Homestuck fandoms. Not to get into 24/7 shouting matches or "discourse," or callout posts over the internet - or to see other people's shouting matches and callout posts played out so much that they drown out the content that I actually came there to see - like a film I was enjoying suddenly cut to one of those David Attenborough shows where a hapless gazelle is being ripped apart by lions at a watering hole (which is exactly the thing that led to this decision, today.) I went there originally to consume fan created content for Tron and Homestuck and other fandoms I like, PERIOD END OF SENTENCE.
Fuck Tumblr. I honestly hope people go back to actual blogging sites - or that The Next Big Thing comes along and squashes it, and people abandon it en masse like they did with Yahoogroups starting around 2002. You hear about people going back to LJ and DW from Tumblr...but you never hear about people going back to Yahoogroups. That's the fate I wish upon Tumblr.
I left a flounce post letting people know I've pretty much fucked off back to an actual blogging site. (Also Ao3, Twitter, and Facebook. BTW I am currently Yves Adele Harlowe on FB until they make me change it again.)
And I've pretty much come to the conclusion that if DreamWidth is to take off and have the success that LiveJournal did, we kind of need to be the content we want to see until other people start coming over. Yeah, it's a lot of work and can be a pain in the ass, but that's how it began 2001-2002 during the Great Migration from Yahoogroups, and that's how it can happen again.
It also tends to follow specific fandoms. LOTR and Harry Potter are the fandoms that really precipitated the move from Yahoogroups to LiveJournal. If a franchise goes viral and its fans who are major content creators start trickling over here, others will follow them.
I know that DreamWidth's image hosting/sharing features are where LiveJournal's were in 2008-2010, but you know what fixes that? Money. And how does DreamWidth get money? New subscribers.
I think one of the main attractions to Tumblr 2010-2011 was the fact that it could be used as a content dump area, because around the time it was created, LJ's image hosting/sharing features were still not ready for prime time (Photobucket/Tinypic, anyone?) but I've been using Imgur for that over the past year or so, anyway.
But really, Tumblr was created as an image-sharing service. You know those image macros that were popular in the late augties, the ones with text of some sort of platitude about life, or a dark personal secret, superimposed over a picture of something like a sepia-toned swingset, or a sunset, or a clothesline, or a picture of flowers? THAT was what Tumblr was created to be - a "hipster secrets" macro aggregator. It was also trying to be Instagram before Instagram was a thing. Well, Instagram *is* a thing (and I'm also over there, but to follow very specific people - and I'm not giving out my contact info over there just yet.)
Tumblr's format is conducive to conflict instead of discussion and debate, ("le discourse" my ass) to context getting lost, and communication breaking down. Its primary use now is to perpetuate "callout culture." It's been that way since 2012, six months or so after I started using it (I joined at the end of 2010 and then just let it sit for a long time.) But it's not getting better. It's never going to get any better. The way the platform and the site and service itself are set up are part of the problem.
I started using it to follow the Tron and Homestuck fandoms. Not to get into 24/7 shouting matches or "discourse," or callout posts over the internet - or to see other people's shouting matches and callout posts played out so much that they drown out the content that I actually came there to see - like a film I was enjoying suddenly cut to one of those David Attenborough shows where a hapless gazelle is being ripped apart by lions at a watering hole (which is exactly the thing that led to this decision, today.) I went there originally to consume fan created content for Tron and Homestuck and other fandoms I like, PERIOD END OF SENTENCE.
Fuck Tumblr. I honestly hope people go back to actual blogging sites - or that The Next Big Thing comes along and squashes it, and people abandon it en masse like they did with Yahoogroups starting around 2002. You hear about people going back to LJ and DW from Tumblr...but you never hear about people going back to Yahoogroups. That's the fate I wish upon Tumblr.
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