Tumblr Free Day

[kitewithfish]

Last night I had the bright idea of removing the Tumblr app from the homepage on my phone (not deleting it! Just moving it out of sight) and man, I am glad I did. I keep reflexively looking for it when I have a minute to myself, because Tumblr was good for distractions and new stuff and pretty pretty art, but not for community. 

Whereas anytime I open up a DW window I end up with nine tabs and three replies to write because To Be A Fan On DW is to be a chatty, chatty human being. XD

Does the social media you're using effect who you are on that platform?  I tend to think it does, but I am betting people have other experiences.

I have tried to establish Kitewithfish as Who I Am in fandom with little IRL crossover, so most of my online stuff is as a version of myself slightly detached from people who might google my name. Who I am online with fannish folks is different than I am with people on, say, Facebook, but it's pretty close to who I am in person. I have mostly kept FB a Fandom Free Zone for me, since god, that site gives me the Heebies AND the Jeebies, but I happily chat about fanfic with people who know me in life, tho I am coy about usernames. 

Comments

[kara_mckay]

Oh, I'm definitely a better person on DW than I am on FB, and on Tumblr, I'm somewhere in between the two. On DW and LJ before it, it's always felt easy to just be a person doing my own thing. On FB, it feels like there are always hordes of roving assholes looking for something to be pissed off about. Tumblr isn't so bad in that regard because I'm not even a little bit reluctant to block, and my experience has been that reblogging, with or without additional comments, is not at all the same as commenting on a FB post. Sometimes I think FB is designed to create confrontational behavior.

[kayim]

I'm much the same on my fannish social media channels, although I have non-fannish ones too that I'm very different on.

But I've had trouble avoiding Tumblr today. It's a very good procrastination tool...

[mab_browne]

I think that Mab is pretty close to who I am in general and I've been Mab for fifteen years now. I suspect that makes it easier to connect me with 'real life' for the determined but these days I would be less bothered than I might have been in the past.

Tumblr was a different approach for sure, given the workings of the site, and I sometimes found that easier, in that you could acknowledge content with a like or a reblog rather than having to find some pesky words.

I don't do FB even with my wallet name which is perhaps as well.

[obstinatecondolement]

I'm definitely more chatty on DW than I am on Tumblr. I don't really Facebook at all, bar the messenger app, because I just... can't with Facebook. It's not just a fandom free zone but an update free zone!

[sylvaine]

Oh, absolutely. It's why tumblr was never as much a community platform for me - it was mostly a place to reblog shinies and get annoyed at people. Whereas both Dreamwidth and twitter require your own input much more! It's a more engaging form of social media but it's also a more exhausting one - especially Dreamwidth, I need a lot more social spoons for than tumblr. Worth it, to be sure, but it's a completely different feel!

[tei]

I haven't had FB for years, thank god, and since I deleted my namespace instagram and twitter last year, I have no social media that feature my real name or that I use to interact with people from my meatspace life (more or less... I did make another instagram account that is private, doesn't have my name on it, and is only for following other adult gymnasts and posting my own gymnastics videos. There are people on there I know IRL through gym, but if a work person or school person somehow finds me, I heartlessly ignore their add request.) It's honestly awesome. Never going back.

I definitely think the platform affects how you behave on it, and for that, I think DW is a standout in the category for encouraging interaction and decent behavior.

[bayliss]

I've been Bayliss for almost 20 years now, online... so there is no separation between fandom and my self. I am what i show people online.

My facebook page is strictly for family and In Real Life People. Everywhere else is off limits from IRL People, except for my Instagram page, which I do have one person from Real life following me on there...He's a second Cousin who is not active on FB. all that's on Instagram is pictures of my cat, so yeah. LOL.

I always felt that Tumblr was too fast. you can't have a good in depth conversation about anything on there. You can't actually get anywhere with some people on there. I refuse to get into arguments with people on Tumblr.

[yourlibrarian]

Moving the app sounds like it was a good idea. And I know what you mean about all the tabs building up!

In my case, I don't think so. Although I don't use Tumblr a lot, I've also made next to no effort to connect with anyone there and that's been true in reverse. It's just not a place for conversation so it's easy to see it as just a place to access different content.

What different platforms do have an effect on though is how difficult or easy they make it for me to take part and engage with other people.

[jamethiel]

I have a fandom facebook under a pseud and facebook can bite me. I realise that I'm breaching their terms about real names, but I also don't care. I really fucking miss the pseudonymity culture.

And yeah, I'm also realising how much I used tumblr for a quick "oh, brain fart, let's get some stimulation" even if I rarely posted.

[potboy]

Yeah, Tumblr was great for when you just couldn't brain any more and needed something pretty and/or interesting to look at without any interaction required. I'm already way more active on DW than I probably ever was on Tumblr, and I've barely managed to make a single post of my own. My FB is full of people who I know in real life, most of whom are middle-aged and very straight(tm). I like most of them but I can't talk in front of them.

[multiplelizards]

Platform definitely has an effect on how people act. I have little to no presence on FB and twitter while my Tumblr presence is active, but in a passive kind of way (I have meaningful interaction with literally no one).

Being on DW is actually kind of nice! It encourages interaction the kind of which I haven't really been involved in since I was active on FF.net back in the day (I never actually figured out LJ before the purge, lmao).

As to keeping fandom and real life separate; it feels a lot like a one way street. If I'm open about fandom with someone online I'm pretty open about RL stuff, but I absolutely don't mention fandom stuff around people IRL unless they let something slip. I was teased about fandom stuff pretty harshly in middle school so I literally never bring it up unless someone else does first.

[redseeker]

Yeah, FB for me is for real life contacts and family, Tumblr and DW etc are for fannish interests. I'm of the generation for whom it was drummed into NOT to give out one's real name on the internet, after all xDD

Tumblr is such a habit for me by this point, just scrolling to see if there's something funny and new. I used to use LJ all the time so it does feel familiar here, but it's a case of getting back into the swing of things after years away from this style of blogging.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

I love that I can't use DW for mindless scrolling. I try, trust me, and then either (a) I end up talking to people, yay, or (b) some idea explodes my brain and I come to my senses an hour* later, a changed person, or (c) I'm faced with how tired I am & have to abort mission, which is helpful too; like last night when I wanted to comment on this post and quickly discovered I couldn't word even - and then I went to sleep. :)

*edit. Make that hours, plural. And with half a dozen new tabs open. I love this.

[yalumesse]

Habits are so hard to break! And yes, platform matters hugely to me. On tumblr I said almost nothing because it made me uncomfortable that my words would end up on strangers' blogs and I'd never know about it. I keep fandom life and real life separate.

[tropicsbear]

I'm very paranoid about keeping my fandom and IRL sides separate (exceptions are made for friends I made in my uni animanga org). My Facebook gets very generic fangirling content and none of my fanworks.