I was a much later adopter of Tumblr, I'd sort of fallen off fandom for a bunch of years and came back and LJ was a ghost town. Maybe if I'd been on there earlier I might feel some sort of affection for it, but for me it's just not as great as the LJ days. For a start, the reblogging where the post gets unbelievably long makes me so frustrated! You'd never get away with long-ass posts without a cut back in the old days! Plus the luxury of being able to post things privately and engage with just your close friends, or to have the opportunity to get to know new people but in that more private space - I made some of my lifelong friends that way through LJ, and 15 years later I've been to (and in!) weddings, visited them in their home countries - I have to admit I haven't made a concerted effort to get to know people via Tumblr, but I do know I feel like sort of a small voice in a noisy crowd there, and I haven't made a new fandom friend via Tumblr at all in like, 4 years on there. That's okay though, because I'm at a different point in life and can enjoy fandom on the edges in a way I couldn't when I was first getting involved.
I often think of some of the great folks from the old days that I lost track of as LJ withered and died, and I hope they're all doing great and are happy! But I do miss those times.
I think you're definitely right, a lot of the wank back in the day was either invisible because it was in private posts, or because you just chose not to follow people who were total butts (love that, btw!). Now the wank is sort of thrust at you because people you HAVE chosen to follow will reblog it, and it comes up on your feed thirty times in a day, and people send those awful anon asks that then can only be answered by doing so publicly, and ugggggggggh. I have unfollowed some folks on Tumblr even though I really enjoy their fic, just because of wanky reblogs or asks. I'm glad now in my old age that I recognise when I'm not having fun and just stop doing the thing, rather than feeling anxious about it and feeling like I must witness/engage/follow. Very liberating. Plus I can thank AO3 for being better able to do this, since you can subscribe to an author and therefore avoid the blogs but still not miss the new content.
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Date: 2020-12-11 11:54 pm (UTC)I often think of some of the great folks from the old days that I lost track of as LJ withered and died, and I hope they're all doing great and are happy! But I do miss those times.
I think you're definitely right, a lot of the wank back in the day was either invisible because it was in private posts, or because you just chose not to follow people who were total butts (love that, btw!). Now the wank is sort of thrust at you because people you HAVE chosen to follow will reblog it, and it comes up on your feed thirty times in a day, and people send those awful anon asks that then can only be answered by doing so publicly, and ugggggggggh. I have unfollowed some folks on Tumblr even though I really enjoy their fic, just because of wanky reblogs or asks. I'm glad now in my old age that I recognise when I'm not having fun and just stop doing the thing, rather than feeling anxious about it and feeling like I must witness/engage/follow. Very liberating. Plus I can thank AO3 for being better able to do this, since you can subscribe to an author and therefore avoid the blogs but still not miss the new content.