Thoughts on fandom social media (about Tumblr, but also not about Tumblr)

[enchantedsleeper]

So, things are looking a bit dire over at Tumblr dot com. (Again). I planned to post something about this during the last Demise of Tumblr episode, back when they announced that Tumblr's dedicated staff was being downsized to a skeleton crew, but I didn't get around to it.

This time, I want to throw some thoughts out there, but I don't want to write a properly fleshed-out essay, so for the details on what sparked this off, check Tumblr itself and look for summaries/round-ups (there are several). From here on in I'll assume you either have context or are content with knowing that "shit's going down" without further detail xD

I started being active on Pillowfort in January (after making an account in November during their funding plea), and I've seen a surge of new users joining as a result of Tumblr's latest BS. This makes part of me a little bit pleased, in the same way that I was a little bit pleased when people started flooding into Mastodon on the back of Twitter's purchase by Musk and subsequent decline, because it's nice to have the activity. At the same time, I mostly hate that it's happening at all, and I don't want Tumblr to die off (just as I didn't want Twitter to die off).

I also think that although Pillowfort and Tumblr have good synergy, as a general rule, most people who join a social media platform only because they're looking for a substitute for another, dying or inhospitable, platform don't tend to feel satisfied. They don't really want the New Place, they want the Old Place but not shitty. A lot of people bounced off Mastodon because it wasn't Twitter. (Or Cohost, or Tumblr, or Bluesky - although Bluesky has the highest success rate of being pseudo-Twitter). Pillowfort has a lot of etiquette and interface differences from Tumblr, even if there are similarities.

So, we'll see if that really sticks.

People other than me have already remarked on this in the past, but with every "fandom migration", fandom gets more diffuse and more disconnected, and the number of platforms it feels like you have to have some interaction with in order to cover all your fandom bases goes up. I was never big into Twitter for fandom, but it was (is) the main place for certain corners of fandom, so you had to either be present there or just resign yourself to not really interacting with activity for that fandom.

And the thing is that I'm pro fannish decentralisation. Bring back individual archives - bring back forums! But this doesn't feel like a positive turn of events, either. Especially because with every platform that becomes the new Hope of Fandom, there's a demise waiting just around the corner. (Dreamwidth, mind you, has stood the test of time, but I think this would be tougher if it were as popular as LJ was at its peak. Pillowfort also, though it has a good ethos and is community-funded, would struggle if it were truly popular, because although this might bring in more donations, the resource-intensiveness would definitely outweigh them).

Apologies for the dose of pessimism, but I'm getting pretty tired of this merry-go-round...

Comments

[tinkaton]

At this point I feel like Tumblr has "died" several times already and it's still going "strong," for a certain value of the word strong lmao. I've stuck with it this whole time because it's really the only site that functions in that specific way and I'll probably be there until they just nuke the entire place. I do have a Twitter and Pillowfort, but don't use the former very much (just the occasional art reblog or livetweet) and the latter not at all. But if more people move to Pillowfort maybe I'll start using it again?

If/when Tumblr does eventually die, I'll be sad to see it go because there really isn't anywhere else that well-suited for things like art/gifs. I do hope whatever becomes the next big fandom thing it's more like Tumblr/Pillowfort than Twitter. (To say nothing of Instagram/Tiktok...ugh.) I do wish more people would come to DW for fandom stuff haha but I don't think it'll ever get as big as a real social media site.

[enchantedsleeper]

For sure, I saw a lot of people expressing that sentiment when Tumblr's skeleton crew announcement came out, and I'm not here to sound a death knell for Tumblr or panic or anything, but I think that what's been happening is still crappy and unsettling. For my part, I just started posting again in the fandom where I first found my footing on Tumblr, and I plan to continue doing that! It's very very small so there's not a lot of activity anyway, but the chances of it popping up anywhere else are basically zero xD

Pillowfort seems to be a good place for art and imagery but I do worry how well they would cope with a bigger influx of people. Yeah, ew to Instagram and TikTok xD I would love to see more activity on DW that's specific to various fandoms, as I haven't seen many that I can join in with. Same as with Pillowfort, I'm not sure how they'd handle real scale, but they seem a bit more set up for it. I think the obstacle there is generally familiarity with this type of site, as it's really not the norm any more? But also people want a space that is more art/imagery focused, like you said, and DW makes that difficult.

[tinkaton]

Yeah, it really sucks when an otherwise "good" site has something crappy happen--often because of stupid CEOs lmao--because like, if e.g. Tiktok imploded it wouldn't affect me in the least, but if Tumblr officially died I'd be bummed about it. So I hope Tumblr can keep its act together and that everybody doesn't jump ship for some site I don't want to use jshdfksjf

I'm not sure about Pillowfort being able to handle a big influx of new people, yeah. It definitely seems like the better option for visual art than most other social medias, since it's a lot like Tumblr. I guess it's just a matter of watching and waiting to see where everyone goes, if they do decide to go.

I used to be super active on LJ back in my youth haha I miss that vibe so much. It'd be awesome if DW could be more active like that again, but on the other hand I have a lot less free time these days so I enjoy the more laidback pace now. But I definitely talk to people way more on DW than on Tumblr or Twitter, which is mostly passive for me in terms of fandom.