I'll actually be pretty sad when tumblr dies

[milo_r]

I know we're all joking about the curse finally lifting but it's the only "modern" social media site I get genuine enjoyment out of. And for all that I praise dreamwidth and mastodon to every fandom person I meet, there's a kind of visual fandom experience that only tumlblr is- I can't even say "optimized for," as tumblr is not optimized for anything. Mostly gif gazing. TikTok is for videos and Instagram is for carousels. Fanartists will migrate to even more inhospitable lands but I have survived that before. But where will I go to have narrative parallels highlighted via gifset juxtaposition? Where will I be graced with the sight of my blorbo covered in blood like I am graced by a freshly bloomed flower on my morning walk? Are you telling me I'll have to rewatch my shows??? Unthinkable.

(Not that I think tumblr doesn't have the addictive and enshittified social media features. I've looked up by an hour-long tumblr session with the same kind of malaise tiktok scrolling gives me, but overall the good has always outweighed the bad.)

Comments

[axolotls]

While the culture wasn't good for me, it's still such a good place for fanart that's easily searchable, I really don't want to lose all that (and the meta and jokes people have written), especially for fandoms I've not discovered yet. :(

[milo_r]

the culture was definitely not good for me either, and the more time i spend apart from it the weirder it seems when i go back (like, to this day it's insane to me how frowned upon it is to actually talk to people in so many contexts on tumblr or how the default mode of everybody is overtly aggressive/defensive). although on the fanartist front i feel like i already experienced a big deluge and it hasn't been the main platform for artists for a while, but that maybe depends on fandom.

[axolotls]

I suppose it does, I just never moved to Twitter and finding art on there is basically impossible, so it's hard to gauge without being embedded in a fandom, I think. (So much fanart lost on Twitter, not just from people deleting accounts due to the management, but also just not being easily findable... I hope the next big fanart place actually has tagging!!)

[yourlibrarian]

I agree with you. Although I only had an account for a few years and didn't get any traction with it, I have fandoms feeds from it here on DW that I would be sorry to lose.

But where will I go to have narrative parallels highlighted via gifset juxtaposition?

A perfect example. I don't think one can even post them here and they don't work easily on PF either.

[milo_r]

I have this html snippet for tumblr-like photosets bookmarked, but they could clearly never be a native type of fan production on a journal site (or pretty much anywhere else save for tumblr), so I think that after a hypothetical tumblr death they'll mostly die with it. And all the gif makers will either turn to something else or fully embrace the vintage feel like some icon makers do on here. Either way, I'll miss gifs a lot. I already overuse them when texting according to all of my friends and they date me as old(er).

[yourlibrarian]

That made me laugh because I never use gifs when I text and I am older, but it really annoys me when my friends do 😄

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>I'll actually be pretty sad when tumblr dies<<

My sympathies.

>>And for all that I prasie dreamwidth and mastodon to every fandom person I meet,<<

newcomers has lots of resources about how to use Dreamwidth and where to find things you'll enjoy here. For those coming from Tumblr, soc_puppet is posting tutorials for that angle. Feel free to share these with anyone who might need them.

>> Where will I be graced with the sight of my blorbo covered in blood like I am graced by a freshly bloomed flower on my morning walk? <<

That's such a wonderful image.

While most DW communities and blogs are text-oriented, there are a few image-oriented ones that can deliver that sort of experience.