NEVER READ THE COMMENTS

[moonflower_rose]

I truly regret, at least four times a day, clicking on the comments in social media posts. I just made the mistake of looking at some on a pro-AO3 Tumblr post, and immediately felt drowned in exhaustion from the absolute wankery in the replies.

I remember the heyday of LiveJournal when I was living and breathing fandom and was so engaged, and often feel very nostalgic for those times. Maybe there was less wank then, or maybe I was just more able to ignore things I didn't like, but these days there seems to be so much negativity disguised as discourse and my old carcass can't handle it. It's the lurker life for me!

Comments

[enchanted_jae]

People are getting ruder online. I'm sure that part of that stems from A) not being able to see how you've hurt someone, and B) not having to face the consequences of being a wanker, as in, getting punched in the mouth.

:/

[firethesound]

I feel like this too, though I'm not sure there really was less wank. I think that a lot of it comes down to how LJ and tumblr are set up, with LJ giving me more control over what I saw and who I interacted with, plus comments happen on someone else's post and drama there felt a bit like being rude in someone else's living room so that might've helped? Plus, I think a lot of the wank (at least, a lot of the wank that I was aware of, which overall wasn't too much) happened more behind closed doors, so to speak. Whereas with tumblr, it's all just out there, and there's way more people having much shallower interactions with each other, and to me it just feels less personal which I can see how that could be open season for some people to just be total butts. Like in the comments on news articles, which you should also never read (and I can never stop myself from checking anyhow...) I don't know, I want to believe it's something about the set-up of tumblr that encourages it, rather than being an Ugggh People These Days sort of situation.

Or maybe it's just nostalgia. I do miss the heyday of LJ and so many of the people who were around all the time back then who have since drifted away from fandom

[dark0feenix]

Tumblr is definitely worse with the wank. Here's a good take on why tumblr and the likes of it actually want the conflict: https://mikkeneko.tumblr.com/post/169325179934/how-web-20-and-especially-tumblr-is-ruining

I spend most of my regular fandom time on tumblr though I try to stay clear of any ship tags. It's not easy to find new content if you don't follow actively posting and reblogging people but I don't want to see all the hate in the ship tags. It's definitely harder to make friends there or to have a proper conversation. I hate how it's so public, so I rarely post anything myself, just reblog all the shiny that catches my eye.