A little late night rambling.

[rogueslayer452]

Taken from author_by_night's list of writing prompts:

Fandom: Do you prefer focusing on fanworks, meta, or do you like helpings of both?

I honestly love both because they provide some variety from fandom.

Unfortunately, the presence of meta has been very slim in recent years. When fandom dominated spaces like LJ, meta was very common place and an essential piece of fannish discussions. Whether it was examining canon, questioning character motivations, looking at particular pairings (canon or not), understanding the meaning behind the messages of the source material, it allowed fans to properly engage and exercise expressing their thoughts, opinions, theories and speculations on things and see other viewpoints as well. I remember making a lot of friends through these kinds of discussions, I even contributed in making some of my own back in the day. You could usually find posts linked through fandom newsletters and engage from there. However, nowadays, meta discussions are incredibly rare, whether it's due to the lack of active fandom communities or people thinking that nobody cares and therefore don't really bother to write anything. It sucks, because I think these kinds of posts and discussions make everyone more interactive with each other.

This brings me to the community on Tumblr, which is where most of fandom seems to reside nowadays, as unfortunate as that is. Fanwork is rampant over there, which is nice, but it's near impossible to actually have a decent discussion without it devolving into an exhausting wankfest. While drama has always been present in fandom no matter what platform, the way Tumblr is designed isn't really a proper way of having any kind of discussion, especially of the constructive kind. And while there can be good meta on there from time to time, without the possibility of archiving individual entries and comment threads, most of what gets posted often gets lost in the void or hijacked by individuals who lack any understanding of critical thinking skills.

As for elsewhere, meta still does exist since fandom these days is so fragmented and spread out finding both fanworks and meta can be found on multiple different places. And I do enjoy looking and reading them whenever I do come across them, this also includes visual mediums like video essays that examine pieces of media. But it's just a different kind of vibe than how it used to be back in the day, at least on here.

Comments

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

and yet it's different because there aren't comments, and even reblogging is often just reblogging

Yeah, because even though the only aspect of "commenting" on something that isn't adding something to the post itself is just saying something in your tags when reblogging a particular post, it's not really the same as engaging. Basically, Tumblr is harder to interact with on many levels because the site was never designed for that kind of function. It was a photo sharing site before fandom migrated there and had to find loopholes, but that has then altered how people try to talk and now the art of healthy debates and sensible discussions has been lost. It still exists when you find the right people and right posts, but like I mentioned most times it's just lost in the void (and a lot of times I want to reblog something but can't because I don't want to reblog it with all the nonsensical comments people have made on it, but I can't find the original post because the op deleted their journal or the post itself, which is another conundrum altogether).

Also, the fact that Tumblr posts are only viewed for how many notes it has. Just because a post has thousands of notes doesn't mean that a person agrees with said post, or even that there's a conversation going on at all. It can be quite deceptive.

LJ really isn't a great place for deep dives in general anymore. It's definitely far more focused on the day-to-day of people's lives, which makes any sort of "involved" post trickier.

And that makes me sad because I find I personally connect better with people who express their thoughts and opinions on similar interests. It doesn't even have to particularly be fandom-centric, just thoughts on television, movies, books, anything in media or other kinds of related interests. Connecting through those kinds of posts is what gets me to know people better than reading the typical "everyday" type of posts, which can be alright every once in a while, but I sometimes find those tedious and boring. Which I feel bad for saying because many of my flisters do post about their daily lives, but most of them manage to balance it out by talking about other things, too. And that's kind of what LJ bad been back in the day, a mixture of fandom and real life and other random things, which I found great.

So tl;dr, while reddit has its perks, it also has some of the worst of forums, and lacks some of the best thing about them.

That's how I feel about it, too. I only go there for some things, but for the most part it's not something I go for engaging conversation, if that makes sense.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

The irony of tumblr is that I actually had an account when it was fairly new; we had to start accounts in a media class I was taking, and I actually said it would never take off because it was just photos and "reblogging". My argument was that it was trying to be both LiveJournal AND Facebook. Little did I know...

but that has then altered how people try to talk and now the art of healthy debates and sensible discussions has been lost.

Yeah, which is sad. I have a few friends on social media who've clearly gone into the tumblr way of discussion, and it makes it near impossible to interact with them.

ts. Connecting through those kinds of posts is what gets me to know people better than reading the typical "everyday" type of posts, which can be alright every once in a while, but I sometimes find those tedious and boring.

Yeah, I... completely agree. I actually find it can be hard to get to know some people who are SO day-to-day, there's not even a lot of context unless you've been following them forever or know them personally. I don't mind people only talking about RL if they provide context and even if it's not always my interest level (which is a fact of life, not every subject interests every person), I can still engage. But I don't know how to engage with some of the things people sometimes post constantly.

What I really don't understand are when people go "I prefer when people only talk about their daily lives because I want to know them." Isn't it pretty normal to bond with people through common interests?

It's related to my gripe about memes and even blog prompts, since anymore so many simply ask about the most mundane things. I'm especially always confused when it's blog prompts or LJ 30 Day things. Also because... I mean, how is "what's your favorite color?" going to inspire an entry longer than one word, maybe three words? I guess you could write a deep essay about the different ways the color blue has affected your life, that actually sounds interesting, but I don't think that's what they're going for either.

[rogueslayer452.livejournal.com]

That is so interesting that you had a Tumblr account before it became, well, quite big as it is now. I don't think I've known anyone who knew about Tumblr before fandom migrated there.

I have a few friends on social media who've clearly gone into the tumblr way of discussion, and it makes it near impossible to interact with them.

Yeah, even some of the more rational people on Tumblr have ended up going the way of that kind of discussion (or lack thereof) and even some of the toxic mentality there, as well. It's quite alarmingly sad seeing how much conversation has devolved. Yes, I understand and even use the in-jokes and humor featured on the site, but I also know how and when to engage in a serious discussion.

I actually find it can be hard to get to know some people who are SO day-to-day, there's not even a lot of context unless you've been following them forever or know them personally.

Exactly. I don't mind specific IRL things that people post about, like particular problems or situations they're currently going through and where I can actually comment about my own experiences with or even offer advice/support. However, with day-to-day posts I feel like there is nothing substantial I can add, so I just don't comment and merely only skim through the post itself and move on. This is true for newer friends, because I'm not going to read through your past multiple posts just to get context of what the hell you're talking about. It becomes more of a chore than actually fun to read, which is already a bad start.

(This is also why I don't talk that much about IRL stuff, I'll make the occasional post here and there about specific things but otherwise my life is so uninteresting that I don't want to bore people with something that is generic.)

What I really don't understand are when people go "I prefer when people only talk about their daily lives because I want to know them." Isn't it pretty normal to bond with people through common interests?

I know, right? We've talked about this before, but it's still bothers me. Connecting through mutually shared interests like a love of certain movies/television/media or hobbies is what people do. I get to know people better through that. I mean, sure, knowing about IRL stuff can be a bonus and I don't mind it every now and then, but dismissing anything that talks about other things outside of that? Is unrealistic.

If you're not that involved with fandom or not a fandom person in general? Fine. But I still want to talk with you about television, movies, books, etc, because that's how I connect with people.

Also because... I mean, how is "what's your favorite color?" going to inspire an entry longer than one word, maybe three words?

Seriously. I don't really bother with those kinds of memes/questionnaire/writing prompts for that reason. I want to have questions that provoke thoughtful answers, not something that is very generic that doesn't give me a chance to elaborate my thoughts.