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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2jVSHNm:
madamebadger:
I’ve been seeing another spate of rumbling about the death of Tumblr/exodus from Tumblr. I’ve got no idea whether it’s likely to happen for my fandoms in the near term (I mean, I know it will eventually–no platform lasts forever–but I have no idea whether we’re talking six months or three years, say). But I wanted to share a bit of advice as a Fandom Semi-Old.
The thing about fannish migrations is that they aren’t organized. Any given fandom larger than about ten people is a herd of cats; we cannot readily be organized. Friends may coordinate; comparatively small and cohesive groups may coordinate (LJ RPers made a pretty impressively coordinated jump to Dreamwidth some years ago now); but fandoms are cat herds. Individuals saunter away when they feel like it and make a new home. Pretty much nobody who I knew in the LJ days wanted to go to Tumblr–and yet here we are, because fandom is not something you organize; it is an emergent property of people plus communication technologies. It happens, and God only knows where it will happen next.
(And yes, I include mail in ‘communication technologies.’ I am too young for the age of zines, but I am aware of them.)
So what I am saying is, if/when your particular fandom starts to decamp from Tumblr (if they have not done so already, and if they are on Tumblr at all–some fandoms never did come to roost here), the members of the fandom will probably not go at the same time, or to the same place. They will saunter away like cats and wander around for a bit and some will end up in one place and some in another and maybe there will come to be a collective consensus that Here Is Where This Fandom Is, but maybe there won’t; and even if there is, it might take a long time to happen. I remember when mailing lists and Usenet gave way to bboards, and thence to various blogging platforms and LJ, and then to DW and Tumblr, and also Twitter–and there were always people who just… didn’t, some fandoms never jumped from bboards to Livejournal, some still thrive on mailing lists, some went to Dreamwidth rather than Tumblr, some are mostly on Twitter, at least one of my favorite nostalgia fandoms is still mostly doing ZINES (although admittedly most of them are now webzines rather than mailed zines), and on and on and on. And a lot of them splinter, too.
So here is what I will tell you, as a veteran of many jumps. The most important thing is to figure out who you don’t want to lose touch with and find a way to keep in touch with them. I usually use email, because I am an Old, but it works. Texts, too. Various chat apps. Comments on AO3. Twitter, if you use it–I have tl;dr stamped on my forehead so Twitter is not for me (who can say anything in less than three paragraphs, I want to know???), but it works great for a lot of people. But something. That way, you can keep in touch with the people you care about, the people who make fandom fun for you, the people who enrich your life, even if a given platform dries up and blows away.
I was heavily involved in LJ back in its heyday. And because I reached out to them, I still email on a regular basis with some of my old LJ friends. And… the ones I didn’t, I don’t know where they are.
So yeah. Redundancy. When a platform is in flux, that’s the best way to make sure you don’t lose what you love about your fandoms.
(Your picture was not posted)
madamebadger:
I’ve been seeing another spate of rumbling about the death of Tumblr/exodus from Tumblr. I’ve got no idea whether it’s likely to happen for my fandoms in the near term (I mean, I know it will eventually–no platform lasts forever–but I have no idea whether we’re talking six months or three years, say). But I wanted to share a bit of advice as a Fandom Semi-Old.
The thing about fannish migrations is that they aren’t organized. Any given fandom larger than about ten people is a herd of cats; we cannot readily be organized. Friends may coordinate; comparatively small and cohesive groups may coordinate (LJ RPers made a pretty impressively coordinated jump to Dreamwidth some years ago now); but fandoms are cat herds. Individuals saunter away when they feel like it and make a new home. Pretty much nobody who I knew in the LJ days wanted to go to Tumblr–and yet here we are, because fandom is not something you organize; it is an emergent property of people plus communication technologies. It happens, and God only knows where it will happen next.
(And yes, I include mail in ‘communication technologies.’ I am too young for the age of zines, but I am aware of them.)
So what I am saying is, if/when your particular fandom starts to decamp from Tumblr (if they have not done so already, and if they are on Tumblr at all–some fandoms never did come to roost here), the members of the fandom will probably not go at the same time, or to the same place. They will saunter away like cats and wander around for a bit and some will end up in one place and some in another and maybe there will come to be a collective consensus that Here Is Where This Fandom Is, but maybe there won’t; and even if there is, it might take a long time to happen. I remember when mailing lists and Usenet gave way to bboards, and thence to various blogging platforms and LJ, and then to DW and Tumblr, and also Twitter–and there were always people who just… didn’t, some fandoms never jumped from bboards to Livejournal, some still thrive on mailing lists, some went to Dreamwidth rather than Tumblr, some are mostly on Twitter, at least one of my favorite nostalgia fandoms is still mostly doing ZINES (although admittedly most of them are now webzines rather than mailed zines), and on and on and on. And a lot of them splinter, too.
So here is what I will tell you, as a veteran of many jumps. The most important thing is to figure out who you don’t want to lose touch with and find a way to keep in touch with them. I usually use email, because I am an Old, but it works. Texts, too. Various chat apps. Comments on AO3. Twitter, if you use it–I have tl;dr stamped on my forehead so Twitter is not for me (who can say anything in less than three paragraphs, I want to know???), but it works great for a lot of people. But something. That way, you can keep in touch with the people you care about, the people who make fandom fun for you, the people who enrich your life, even if a given platform dries up and blows away.
I was heavily involved in LJ back in its heyday. And because I reached out to them, I still email on a regular basis with some of my old LJ friends. And… the ones I didn’t, I don’t know where they are.
So yeah. Redundancy. When a platform is in flux, that’s the best way to make sure you don’t lose what you love about your fandoms.
(Your picture was not posted)
