Snowflake Challenge 3: SCREAM into the Void

[impala_chick]

I read through a lot of the comments/posts others made for this Snowflake Challenge, and I was feeling pretty down. It's so sad to hear how people have been bullied and harassed in fandom spaces. I went away for just a bit, and watched some comfort shows, before I typed this. Because a vast majority of the time fandom makes me happy!!

-I am very fond of fic exchanges. BUT I don't think they encourage engagement the same way other events do. Bring back comment fic challenges and watch/re-watch reaction posts and kink memes where people can keep commenting and building on each other!! On that note, I wish more of us were watching the same shows!! There are too many shows and they finish airing too quickly!! If it drops all at once, I have to get through the whole show before I can engage with fandom!! (because I don't like major spoilers)

-I get SO annoyed on tumblr when I see all those posts about how reblogs are important and "likes" mean nothing to them and they get mad about the ratio of likes vs. reblogs. The OPs seem to think we don't get that reblogs share the content and likes don't? That's not the case, I know how tumblr works, I'm a tumblr old. But I am the curator of MY blog. That's the whole point: I get to choose what I want on my blog, and I mostly only share things that bring joy. So I give a 'like' if I want to be encouraging, or if it's not my fandom but I can appreciate the post, or if it is interesting but I don't necessarily agree with the sentiment, or if I can't stand that character but the gif is nice. Those posts make me not want to even give likes. It's not my job to be your promoter. If the campaign was for more comments, I'd be happy to do that!! But they don't care about engagement it seems like, they just want to win the reblog game!!

Comments

[tjs_whatnot]

❤️❤️

I too have read through a lot of this challenge's posts, and you're right, it was sometimes hard to read about all the fandom bullying and suffering that is happening. But I've gotten so much from them too, I've gotten to reassure people that there are people who care about them, who are here to listen and even offer any small flickers of wisdom they might have. It's also made me feel less lonely that others struggle with the same things I do; like how slowly I come into a fandom and how I feel in always missing its heyday because I can't watch an entire season in the span of a weekend, or how no one comments on fics like they used to, how Tumblr is so freakin' weird.

❤️❤️

[impala_chick]

That's true, there is a silver lining :)

[alexcat]

I'm a tumblr new and I have noticed the 'reblog' stuff. Like you, sometimes I like something but I don;t want it on my page... so I don't reblog. Also, I dislike that while there is a space for discourse on a post, hardly anyone does that. I come form the old Yahoo days when we posted our fic to the group and read and talked ab out it. FF dot net was the first place I saw folks begging for feedback. I was rather appalled.

I love Ao3 BUT I wish they had some easily accessible place for discourse... and it divided into different groups and fandoms. I like Discord but it lacks something I can't quite put my finger on.

[impala_chick]

Yes I think tumblr comments could be utilized more... when I add text to a reblog it feels wrong somehow.

Discord is so hard to keep up with sometimes. I feel like if I'm not there when the initial conversation happens, then I can't add anything later because the thread has moved on or there's no one around anymore. Also you can't really find or save anything on Discord.

[shoebox_addict]

Oh man, I feel you on those reblog/like posts. I agree completely -- I reblog stuff that I want to find later, stuff that makes me happy. I think this might be a generational divide because I, too, am a tumblr old, and I'm just not in the "get followers" or "win at reblogs" game.

[mllesatine]

Yes, I have also read people complaining about the "for you/recommendations" (not sure of the English wording) and that you shouldn't add those blogs because you are feeding the algorithm and that's bad. Who cares?

[shoebox_addict]

That's so silly! If I see something in the recommendations that I like, I'm going to follow them.

[impala_chick]

On tumblr it's even hard to find your stats and I always thought that was a good design feature. It's a relatively minor complaint compared to most other social media sites but I have seen more posts about the like/reblog thing recently.

[bettycrockersspoon]

Oooh the like/reblog ratio. It's very similar to the hits/kudos/bookmark ratios on AO3 and while I get where the people who are all about those things are coming from, they definitely need to chill on the demands. It's not unlike the economy, right? People can like what they like, and as you say, curate what they want on their own feed and their own recommendations. It needs to be more of an exercise in either accepting their content isn't the sort that many people want to reblog or finding what gets reblogged and create content based on that demand. If anything the complaints definitely have the opposite effect on me!

[impala_chick]

Exactly. It's like if you write for a mega-ship, you know there's going to be a wider audience. The complaints definitely make me feel like avoiding liking and reblogging all together!

[evilinsanemonkey]

I have to get through the whole show before I can engage with fandom!!
I feel like this ties into why there are fewer 'episode reaction/discussion posts' these days. Almost everything is a full season drop, so what's the point of doing episode-by-episode discussion when everyone is too busy rushing to watch the entire season?

And then once they're done the conversation itself happens super quickly and moves on and if you're even a little late you miss...everything.

There's a lot less sitting with a show/fandom than there was and GOD I miss it.

(as to the second, I just Generally Hate Tumblr, lol)

[impala_chick]

Me too. I used to have episode names memorized because we'd go over them and talk about them for a whole week before moving on, now I couldn't even tell you how many episodes were in a season of my various shows. I do appreciate that 9-1-1 and 9-1-1 lonestar only come out one per week. But all the discussion for those shows seems to be happening on Discord right now, and the nature of Discord makes it all move very fast.

[evilinsanemonkey]

Oh god yeah. Discord moves way too fast for me on busy servers. I miss the asynchronicity of journal fandom. Like. You didn't really "miss" the discussion, even if you weren't there for the first comments, because you could come in when you had time and join in!!

[impala_chick]

Yes, thread organization is so important for that!