You know, one thing I miss about Tumblr...

[lielac]

...is that while it's neither Twitter nor a Livejournal derivative, it does ok if you want to post short snappy shitposts or long rambling effortposts. I feel like with Dreamwidth I can't just make a brief post whining about how I ate about four bowlfuls of lentils-and-stuff on Saturday and then yesterday I farted all goddamn day, I have to have a minimum wordcount or post size or something.

This is of course completely untrue; I could make a post containing nothing but "F" to pay respects to the Tumblrtanic. But Dreamwidth posts are, as far as I can tell, majority or entirely what Tumblr natives would call "effortposts", this one included. It's a different culture from Tumblr, and I've spent the last... -counts on fingers- Gosh, almost 6 years learning and getting used to and going native in the Tumblr style of Doing Things On The Internet.

I'm participating in the "log-off protest" on Tumblr today; I even logged off the mobile app, although I did check that Firefox knew my password before doing so in case I care to log back on tomorrow. Tumblr is my first top site on Firefox's New Tab page, and I have to consciously remind myself "no, we're making a symbolic gesture to Tumblr involving a hopefully-alarming drop in their user traffic, do not click the button".

Transitioning from Tumblr to here and wherever else is going to be messy, and annoying, and fandom is going to splinter to hell and back and I don't know where I'm going to get my Bionicle shitposts when I care to dip my toes back into my oldest fandom because last I checked BZPower thinks PG-13 is pushing it and also is a forum and so really not a good source of Tumblr-style "scroll the tag and see what things people have flung out into the void lately" consumption of fandom.

And Bionicle is a dead fandom twice over and so Tumblr sinking might just mean we lose people as they decide it's not worth trying to get back in because the dedicated fandom is scattered all over... This isn't a problem at all unique to my old-enough-to-vote first and favorite fandom, but it's my first fandom and I love it and BZPower is eeeehhhh and r/bionicle is worse because what I care about is fanfic and flipping off the gender binarism of goddamn robots and only BZPower is good for even the first one.

And oh look, I've made a rambling effortpost anyway. Is there a point to this? Eh. Press F to pay respects to Tumblr in its maybe-death throes, I guess.

Comments

F

[hebethen]

Hey, for what it's worth -- I've been hanging out in Explore -> Latest and checking journals in the interest search over the past week, and I really think the "effortpost" idea isn't necessarily reflective of how people use the site! Like, even if you exclude the gazillion "new social media who dis" posts from the Tumblr refugees and the RP posts, there's plenty of posts which are like -- actually, you know what, lemme paraphrase from what I have on screen rn:

1. two paragraphs of episode reaction
2. one paragraph of encouraging message
3. a fanart manip mocking the Tumblr ban
4. 2-3 paragraphs of holiday plans (3x)
5. three sentences of "huh, I guess this book is rare"
6. one (1) link or quote (7x)
7. one (1) Youtube video (4x)
8. one (1) photo or screenshot (5x)
9. 2-3 sentences of bloggy/diaristic update (4x)
10. four sentences of self-reflection
11. fic update announcement (x2)
12. journal meme (4x)

That's just the really barebones stuff -- I didn't bother counting, say, posts that had (gasp) two!! photos or whatnot, see. So while there's definitely a higher ratio of tinyposts on Tumblr, they're not exactly uncommon here either :)

edit: Thinking further about it, part of it is probably that we have proper commenting with threads and all -- a lot of that kind of interaction/communication doesn't show up as posts but as comments to posts.

Re: F

[lielac]

Huh, okay, thanks! I clearly have a disproportionately effortposty reading page, then. XD

F

[brushapocalypse]

But what if I want to make a long rambly shitpost. What if I want to put effort into my shitposts. A shit-effortpost, if you will.

Re: F

[lielac]

Hmm, true, you are the master of putting a lot of effort into gloriously silly posts. Queering the shitpost-effortpost binary, as it were.

Re: F

[brushapocalypse]

I have a hard limit of two months worth of fandom hiatus before I succumb to megapausitis. Symptoms include: obsessively researched posts with no concrete purpose, gesturing wildly at a corkboard, lack of sleep.

Re: F

[lielac]

I would start doing the same sort of thing for Runescape lore, except it's pretty much impossible to go back over quests in the sort of excruciating detail I would require to properly make tenuous connections between tiny elements because you can't replay quests fucking thanks Jagex. The rune essence mine is definitely above the Elder Halls though and I will cling to this theory until it's jossed.

F

[wolffyluna]

From my short observation, it seems like the appearance of effortposts is a combo of 'effortposts are the things people want to crosspost' and 'the personal posts people don't want on tumblr tend to be long.'

Short posts do seem to be a thing. (Though I feel weirder shouting into the void on Dreamwidth than tumblr, though that may be a familiarity thing.)

The exciting thing I've recently learned about Dreamwidth culture is that they have reblog-like things. For example a link to someone else's post, or a news article, plus a few lines of commentary, is a totally normal thing to do. Encouraged, even, because those sort of things are easier to comment on.

[zarla]

I HAVE THE SAME TROUBLE MYSELF WITH SHORT ENTRIES, I'M TRYING TO TRAIN MYSELF OUT OF IT THOUGH BUT IT'S HARD

[lielac]

IT'S VERY HARD

WHY MUST IT BE SO HARD

[firedjinn]

F

[wingedcatgirl]

F