Post rec: "How Web 2.0 (and especially tumblr) is ruining fandom"

[meridian_rose]

As the anti and purity culture took hold on Tumblr there were pro-shipping and anti-anti blogs stepping up to provide alternative views, support for shippers and creators, defend against ageism and harassment, and providing information about fiction, fandom history, and more.

The post "How Web 2.0 (and especially tumblr) is ruining fandom" is especially enlightening. The post is at :
https://freedom-of-fanfic.tumblr.com/post/169347159994/how-web-20-and-especially-tumblr-is-ruining
If it ever gets deleted, as many pro-shipping blogs have been shut down, I have an Evernote capture: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s260/sh/56204b96-5961-44fa-b86a-1ed2e1eb6e24/6541240b7bc13f651c80b445afe3d079

The post describes the "Web 2.0: web model where dotcoms create a free space for users to generate their own content, depending on advertisers for their income"; so Tumblr and Twitter, but not Dreamwidth and not AO3 who do not have advertising.

Some of the key points, expanded on in the post include:
• following people instead of joining communities based on interests has negative emotional and social implications
• social media sites benefit from knocking down privacy walls
• social media sites benefit from eroding online anonymity.
• social media sites benefit from conflict.
• social media sites are therefore deincentivized to address abuse reports, increase moderation, improve blacklisting tools, or offer privacy options.
• moderated communities were replaced by following unmoderated tags, directly leading to and encouraging the creation of hate spaces
• reacting to content that enrages you increases the chances of encountering it again because algorithms
• It’s easy to spread misinformation (and hard to correct it)*
• information fatigue caused by web 2.0 makes black & white thinking look attractive
• everyone is only 2 seconds away from being doxxed

* There's an awful anti-rape post that when I see it, I reblog with the Snopes debunking because telling women they need to cut their hair or risk getting raped is not something you should have to be seeing in this day and age.
Also a post that says you've abused your child's trust the first time they lie to you, as if learning to lie isn't part of expected development from two – three and half years old.

Furthermore
“Discussion on tumblr is like two people trying to have a philosophical debate on opposite sides of a crowded room by megaphone” - exactly this. and bystanders pressure - knowing that your responses are visible to everyone - adds so much pressure to the debaters to be decisive and firm [ie lack of nuance and reasonable discussion]
– the loss of semi-private spaces where we can be certain that our audience will share our contextual basis and we can be sure the content won’t spread beyond where we want it to makes us lonely. We always have to have our business faces on: every time we slip we risk destruction by shame culture.

Which is why privacy controls like we have at DW and even LJ, are so important. Friends/Circle vs public. Specific people you choose for a filter. Posting content in your own space.

Comments

[corvidology]

Thank you for this link.

These are the reasons I left Tumblr less than a month after joining it.

What we need now, are active coms to form/return to DW for those public aspects.

[meridian_rose]

Glad you found it a good read. The bit about sites thriving on conflict hit home!
Absolutely we need more active moderated communities so DW can thrive and we can have reasonable discussions again :)

[opensummer]

thank you for posting this! it's an excellent read on what tumblr has done to fandom spaces and why we need to move away from that model

[meridian_rose]

Thanks for reading! It certainly puts things into perspective!

[luthien]

Thanks for the link. It just makes me shudder and feel all the more relief to be away from tumblr.

[meridian_rose]

Thanks for reading! *snuggles DW tightly*

[under_the_silk_tree]

This is a great post. I don't know how many times I have thought about posting my thoughts or responding to a post and then change my mind because I am afraid of being dog piled by the black and white mentality that tumblr seems to foster.

I really like DW and LJ style and hope we return to them or something like it.

[meridian_rose]

Thanks for reading! Oh, exactly! Sometimes I've posted rebuttals to really annoying things but more often that not it's not worth the hassle so I just unfollowed people. I rarely made personal posts - I'm going through the tag "mine" hoping I can find all my stuff to post here, mostly graphics I made since the fic has always been promoted everywhere.

I hope so too :)

[mr_picard]

A very interesting read indeed, and it sums up pretty much why I'm only glancing at Tumblr these days (and no longer really follow back much unless I know that someone from somewhere else).

[meridian_rose]

Thanks for reading :) I'm barely there (a bit more for the writing blog) and on my main 99% of new followers are just bots so I'm not really following back!

[kari_izumi]

The only reason I even bother with tumblr is from the friends from my older fandoms that don't see much of this kind of behavior and this most see no reason to rush up and leave.

This is all well said.

[meridian_rose]

Thanks for reading. It's a great article. It took until around end of 2017 for me to start seeing a lot of the fandom wank around purity shipping and since then I saw a lot more divisive posts about sexual orientations and misinformation. The only way to stop seeing those is to unfollow and block more and more people, but without communities for hubs, it then gets harder to find content unless you've got a hardcore of those from older fandoms who aren't participating in the purity drive!

[bleodswean]

OMG. THAT POST, L!!! I'm totally sickened. I had never really broken it down that succinctly in my mind and could never have done so in written form, so that is really an astonishing achievement on the part of that writer/thinker! It's true and true and true. And really sad, too.

So much to think about!

[meridian_rose]

Thanks for reading. It's a great article, incredibly well written and pinning down all the problems with tumblr and web 2.0 in general. Very sad. But we still have journals here *cling*

[dariaw]

Thanks for the link and summary - very insightful!

[meridian_rose]

Thanks for reading :) I'm glad you found it insightful :)