the friday five for april 14

[milo_r]

1. What fandom(s) do you follow on Dreamwidth? I think DW as a whole is more about "fandom as a fandom" now, but I still compulsively subscribe to all the communities that talk about media/ships I'm into (e.g: steve_and_eddie and kjc_fans among others). I've often wondered what it'd take to turn back journal sites into the primary fandom hubs they were pre-2010s, although obviously I'm still fine with them existing as they do (although I wish we'd make use of communities a bit more). That might just be impossible in a post-reblog internet landscape, also. I do enjoy meta/pan-fandom talk quite a lot, anyway, so what I'm most excited to keep up with is more in the camp of meta_warehouse and fancake rather than my regular fandoms.

2. Where else do you follow those fandoms? I'm on tumblr + discord and I get to know about the interesting stuff on twitter/tiktok (which is unfortunately a lot according to my taste, particularly when it comes to fanart) via discord servers, which is a sweet deal as I never have to experience anything else coming from those websites. Tumblr often tests my limits but I'm too attached to it to properly let go - it's shaped such a chunk of my humor and aesthetics, plus I might have been way less left wing and way more cisgender without it, so! An improvement on all fronts.

3. Have you ever met up with fannish friends? I routinely get a bit melancholic over the fact that I didn't strike up strong fandom friendships when I was younger and now it's probably not going to happen. It sort of feels like a thing that has to happen by a certain age threshold and I only ever had fannish close acquaintances (which I obviously deeply appreciate). And then I see some drama happen in fandom spaces about friendship groups disbanding over problematic ships and think it's probably for the best, given that the space I would've made friends in was discourse-era tumblr.

4. When there's a question on a 'find a fic' community, are you likely to help find the fic or do you hope someone else will know it? My days of being so well-read in my fandoms I could be help find fics are way behind me, especially since I spent the last few years in juggernaut slash ships holding grudges against established fanon. I used to be so good at this with frerard, though.

5. Did you customize/tweak your DW home page or are you using one of the basic options? Got too excited for a second before realizing this meant my journal style, whoops (although I could fidget with my DW home via Stylus but I have too much theming on the back burner already, starting with my personal site). And yes, it's sort of customized: I started from a style I liked and tweaked it a bit so that it wouldn't look so much like a preset, as my nostalgia goggles never extended to the basic themes you find on journal sites I'm afraid. I tried to use one of those very tumblr-looking ones coded by the relatively small graphic community you can find on here, but something feels wrong about having a journal site that has post-2013 graphic design ideas. I'm still not too happy with what I have right now, though, particularly my profile code (open to suggestions of codes you enjoy).


questions @ thefridayfive 

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

I would agree with you re: fandom of fandom here. I think it's partly that there's an insufficient sustained support for particular fandoms, and also that there's an older fanbase (as in long-term fandom, not just age). So that sort of general multifandom fannishness is common.

I customized my DW page when I first came over here and have hardly changed it since. In fact, it's mostly my own view of it that has changed since I use dark mode now.

[milo_r]

I think it's partly that there's an insufficient sustained support for particular fandoms

i sort of agree, but then sometimes i see people routinely congregating around certain media on fail_fandomanon and wonder why there's still no dedicated community for said media - especially when it doesn't look like it's convos that are particularly facilitated by the participants being anonymous.

and also that there's an older fanbase (as in long-term fandom, not just age). So that sort of general multifandom fannishness is common.

i've also thought it might be a good strategy to have communities dedicated to groups of shows/books/stuff that often have some audience overlap, but then you'd have the problem of hitting the sweet spot of wide in scope but not too much -- like i have trouble thinking of what to post on something like books for example.

but like, obviously this is all from the perspective of someone who thinks comms are an untapped potential of DW over other social media, i understand a lot of people don't feel the need for them

[yourlibrarian]

especially when it doesn't look like it's convos that are particularly facilitated by the participants being anonymous

I'm aware of the community though I've never used it, in part because of exactly this. Granted I've only read a few posts over the years and it's been running a long time, but I haven't seen posts that needed to be anonymous in the first place.

And you're right that this sort of behavior doesn't help us develop community or fandom activity. Because if everyone's an anon, you're not developing relationships with anyone -- it's very different than using a static pseudonym. (And there's many people around these parts who have been using the same online name for 10 years or more).

The second thing is that it tells me that people are using the community as a type of asynchronous Discord chat room, going there because they can expect that someone will answer their comment. But if people were instead starting or responding to posts in specific fandom communities, they might get a chance to grow (and their mods might have an incentive to keep trying to promote the community).

On the other hand, I do get that a site like that is convenient because pretty much any topic is on-topic and so it's a sort of multifannish discussion spot. So in a way it's a perfect example of the activity found at DW overall.

I've argues since DW opened that the key to developing the site was to get people utilizing and congregating on communities. It was true then and it's equally true over at Pillowfort which is having the same issues. In DW's case, it was hampered in part because communities were still too strong over at LJ and it was years before they could be imported over to DW -- years in which people went elsewhere and only started looking back in these past few years.

In PF's case they have been promising to develop community functions there since I joined which was 2018. They are releasing their paid features options next week -- and there are no community improvements among them. What's more there are thousands of communities there which were never active and were created -- in some cases -- as tests of what the community function even does. So even many of the big communities with overarching broad topics (like books) are modless and largely dead. But their names are taken. I have definite opinions of how I'd deal with it, but I'm not hopeful I'll see any of them implemented.

The overlap idea is a sensible one in terms of being open to lots of different kinds of contributions, some of which may get people interested. Unfortunately, most people want specificity and neither join or even block anything that doesn't fit their particular interests. So even communities for a single franchise may not get people posting or commenting because they're only interested in one show or a couple of characters. That's a big reason why a large userbase is needed to get anything going.

[milo_r]

Yeah, your take on FFA is pretty spot-on - since the average user on here is decidedly multifandom, it's very convenient, you just check that out + your circle of journal friends. I don't really like FFA either but I still check it out just because of the amount of traffic it gets.

Re: Pillowfort, I'm not familiar with the state of the site rn, but I hold a grudge against them because it was basically impossible for me to get a hold of customer service to either fully purge my old account or allow me to sign up again with the same e-mail address I'd previously used on it. Some people seem surprisingly satisfied with its "transparency" though.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I've often wondered what it'd take to turn back journal sites into the primary fandom hubs they were pre-2010s, although obviously I'm still fine with them existing as they do <<

I agree this with person's premise and am boosting their project in hopes that it generates more fan-run websites:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/essential-randomness/the-fujoshi-guide-to-web-development

>> (although I wish we'd make use of communities a bit more). <<

I agree. I have been working on this for some time. I encourage you to use followfriday to find and promote communities.

See also my post Improving Communities on Dreamwidth.

>>I do enjoy meta/pan-fandom talk quite a lot, anyway, so what I'm most excited to keep up with is more in the camp of meta_warehouse and fancake rather than my regular fandoms.<<

I really enjoyed marchmetamatterschallenge for which I wrote two large sets of meta: Wednesday TV Series and Why I Love Wednesday Addams. It reminded me how much fun meta can be.

>> And then I see some drama happen in fandom spaces <<

Fandom used to be much more welcoming and much less vicious. Now? It's not worth exerting extra effort for. If I liked drama, I'd hang out with mundanes. I don't. I do have some close fan-friends, but it's hard to find people who aren't, well, jerks.

>> Did you customize/tweak your DW home page or are you using one of the basic options? <<

I had a friend help me make a few tweaks to a standard style. I wrote a ton of text on my profile page.

Re: Thoughts

[milo_r]

Ha, fujoguide! I'm in a discord server with the creators, it's a super fun concept. I keep forgetting to check-out followfriday, too.

Fandom used to be much more welcoming and much less vicious. Now? It's not worth exerting extra effort for.

I'm a bit wary of saying it was such a welcoming place for everyone -- many people have had bad experiences in LJ-based fandom and the like, particularly related to race, but it's true that I also have the impression that things escalate much more quickly now. What I think may have happened is that current social media design means you have more of a "public" persona, and so even your relationships online are more "visible" to lurkers and outsiders.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Ha, fujoguide! I'm in a discord server with the creators, it's a super fun concept. <<

Please tell them thanks from me. They're getting a lot of love here on DW; a bunch of my fans pounced on this and boosted the signal. I've seen other folks boosting it too.

>> I keep forgetting to check-out followfriday, too. <<

If you subscribe to either the community or my blog, then the posts will appear in your reading page. If you don't use your reading page, then maybe jot it down in whatever calendar you use. My desk calendar has all my recurring posts listed so I remember to make them.

>> I'm a bit wary of saying it was such a welcoming place for everyone <<

I didn't say it was welcoming for everyone. I said it was better than what we had now, which is rarely welcoming of anyone.

>> many people have had bad experiences in LJ-based fandom and the like, particularly related to race, <<

Some people have reported issues with race and gender as far back as the fandom community goes. But it was always patchy -- other folks observed that their groups were fine with diversity, and often far ahead of mundane society in those regards, which is part of what attracted people to fandom in the past. It was possible to create inclusive spaces, and a fair number of folks did that, even though some other places were more fricative.

>> but it's true that I also have the impression that things escalate much more quickly now. <<

Much more quickly and much more often. Fandom used to be about squeeing over the things you loved and finding other people with common interests to squee with you. We knew there were problems with canons. We just ate around the bad spots, then wrote fanfic that left out the bits we disliked and magnified what we loved most. I honestly credit Kirk/Spock slashfic with contributing to the acceptance of homosexuality. That turned "the love that dare not speak its name" into "Aww, da kyoot!" Nowadays, fandom is far more whining about things people dislike, picking on each other, and picking on creators. It has become just another branch of mundanity in elf ears.

There are still pockets of fans who are more classic, but it's getting harder to find those. Yet people say they want that -- they want spaces that are more welcoming and less violent.

>> What I think may have happened is that current social media design means you have more of a "public" persona, and so even your relationships online are more "visible" to lurkers and outsiders. <<

That is true, and it is a problem. People have forgotten that privacy is a requirement for civilization, because humans are damn irritating creatures and if they can't get away then they start eating each other. The health and safety of a platform can be measured largely by its privacy and moderation tools. People need ways to switch between public and private modes, to filter content and access, to decide who they want to associate with and what they want to see, to edit mistakes and delete spam or flames, to meet new friends in a safe public venue, and to observe before participating. DW is good at that; more recent social media platforms generally are not.

Privacy isn't a frill, it's a survival need. Any zookeeper can tell you that. The reason all the animal enclosures have shelters, even though that's boring for visitors, is because animals tend to die without them. The relentless stress of being seen all the time with no relief is enough to overburden their metabolism until it stops working. And we see the same thing in humans -- if they can't get away from surveillance, they become anxious and paranoid or depressed and unresponsive. It leads to the kind of mental and physical disorders that shorten or end lives.

One thing that really sets me apart is that I grew up near Amish territory and adopted their base rule. I don't draw the lines in the same places, but I use the same rule: "Before adopting a new piece of technology, first determine if it will do more harm than good. If so, do not adopt it." If a product doesn't do what I need it to, or it causes problems, then I won't use it; or if forced to use it, will minimize contact as much as possible. Most people don't think about that, which makes it easier for them to hurt themselves on new tech they have not assessed carefully.

[vriddy]

Fun set of questions!! :D

I'm not sure what kind of "age threshold" you have in mind for striking fandom friendships and meeting IRL, but I met new fandom friends both 20 years ago and last year, and I don't feel at all the "threshold" aspect, personally... Just as fun either time! It feels more like a matter of opportunity than age to me. Living close enough that it's possible to fly or get to each other at an affordable cost once you've hit it off in DMs or somewhere. Or meeting up at a con of some sort, if you're both able to go.

Absolutely hear on you on the positives of getting to enjoy small parts of Twitter and TikTok thanks to Discord servers, without having to actually dig in there :D Very appreciative of this and previews, haha.

[milo_r]

Idk, I was always a bit bad at maintaining relationships past the casual which extended to the ones I had online. I struggle with one-to-one convos with people I don't know well and understanding when to text privately, I think this has been my main obstacle with developing closer relationships. As it gets harder with age irl I can't imagine it getting easier online.

But yeah, I mean, the fact that that's what happened before doesn't have to mean that that's how it's always going to work. (sorry, this sounds like such a downer of a comment rereading it lol)

[vriddy]

That's fair!! I find it sad when people go "I didn't do X before age Y so I never will" but I didn't mean to nag, haha. Wishing you well with all the things :D