Social Media for me

[potofsoup]

I've been thinking about how my online habits have changed since I moved to DW. I read more articles. I read more fics. I feel more disconnected from the fanart community and memes. I am laugh a lot less. (I used to be able to go onto tumblr and see 5 posts within a minute of scrolling that makes me lol, or smile in amusement). My worry about the world is more "the environment will die" and less "atrocities are happening everywhere (here is a list of places to donate)"

At the end of the day, what it boils down to is that tumblr and DW take up different types of brain energy. Tumblr filled the "goof off" niche (competition: BrickBreaker, fic reading), and DW fills the "mildly serious" niche (competition: modding, arting). Shitposting on DW is great, but at the end of the day, the difficulty around images and mobile just makes the site less conducive to short, goof-off posts.*

Anyway, I want to think about what are my needs re: social media.

To connect with a community
- DW has a good community here! Honestly, my problem rn is that I don't have the time and energy to invest in being an active participant in something like Discord or even Hubzilla. And I mostly just haven't been connecting with people. I should just give up on this one.

To keep track of the pulse of fandom
- DW is not bad, although it feels like Discord type places is better for getting notifications that a movie is coming out, or a trailer has dropped. I guess DW has more of the meta level stuff and less squee about Steve Rogers' hair. (Although I think it can and should serve as a place for intemperate squeeing)

To spread my art
- I think AO3 is going to be the place for me for posting art, since people can subscribe and comment. And I guess I can get accounts in all the other places and crosspost there when the time comes. ngl: getting notes on tumblr was definitely nice. But I'm in a spite-based relationship with tumblr rn, so fuck that noise. Honestly, I think rn the best place to spread my art would probably be twitter. I just have to find the mental space to set up there. :/ But also: that may never happen so I should at least do some AO3 housecleaning today.

To relax and look at silly things
- I don't know where I can do this except on tumblr, tbh. So maybe I'll still do that. I'm a silly things consumer, not a producer. maybe it's time to re-install the tumblr app on my phone.

To vent and organize my thoughts
- Obviously this is what I've used DW for since 2001. Same old same old




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* Not that it's not doable. Just slightly harder. I think the question here is: is it just hard enough be impossible to nurture?

Comments

i'm hoping that hubzilla will become easy enough for you to feel comfortable there

[emyrys]

I don't feel like I have a lot of energy or brainpower to contribute, but then I find myself reading a ton of posts on Hubzilla and commenting all of the place. I am not doing any of the heavy lifting, though, for sure. I am not capable of testing code or figuring out how things work, etc.

BUT

I am loving the fannish optimism and enthusiasm that is happening! And someone was testing chat rooms and I chatted to people for the first time in years (just for a little bit, I can only handle so much interaction at a time!!!)


Right now, people are talking about art posting in hubzilla -- how to make reblogging easier, and then trying to come up with how to track the art, etc. People at imp's instance are very interested in making this a good place for fanartists and the emphasis is on what will make it appealing for artist.

Also. people have started posting fannish things -- art, or recs, or thoughts on fannish shows (there was a fun conversation on IW (cause it quickly devolved into how much we hate the MCU's motivations for Thanos vs. comics (courting death), and I know of one about Harry Potter, and someone posted about SPN, etc), and VIDS!! People have started posting to Peertube & are working to connect that more easily to our instance of hibzilla.

Re: i'm hoping that hubzilla will become easy enough for you to feel comfortable there

[potofsoup]

that's exciting! I'm mostly not thrilled about the commenting system there, where I don't get the comment notifs that I want (when people comment on my stuff), but rather the comment notifs that I DON'T want (when anyone comments on a post that I also commented on). So I might wait for the threaded comment rollout before going back. And it still is occupying the same energy niche as "art and modding", which.... is stiff competition.

Re: i'm hoping that hubzilla will become easy enough for you to feel comfortable there

[emyrys]

I'm glad you're giving priority to your art!

And yeah, notifications can be totally overwhelming. We found the setting that controls them,and that has helped a lot of people.

Me, I wish I could turn off likes except for when someone likes my stuff (is that bad of me?!? But it makes me smile when I see that someone liked something I said!)

[cupidsbow]

You can subscribe to other services' feeds and stuff on DW. If you click on my reading list (I think you can do that), you'll see I have some. icanhazcheeseburger and cakewrecks etc. Maybe that could fill a bit of the gap for you?

[potofsoup]

Yeah, I'm thinking about subscribing to some tumblr feeds. But tumblr feeds don't retain the tags, which is pretty important .... back when I subscribed to tumblr feeds, I would end up clicking through 60% of the time anyway.

[minoanmiss]

*contemplates* If I find things that can be useful under these rubrics I'll tell you.

Tumblr *is* very funny, that is true.

[potofsoup]

<3 <3 <3

[lou2]

All my old stories are on AO3, and I still peruse tmblr for silly stuff (and also Steve, Bucky and Peggy pretty stuff). And while this is supposed to be my journal, mostly I use it for connecting with other people who aren't homophobic natzi scumbags. Which sad to say, is harder to do than it should be in the real world.