#fandom platforms

[fansplaining]

My personal experience of fandom has involved retreating to older platforms: revisiting Dreamwidth, joining more fandom Discords, and seeing many comic and fanartists revive their Tumblr accounts. The past 12 months have been the most active and more joyful on Tumblr since before the 2018 exodus. I never left, but for a while being on Tumblr felt like inhabiting a quiet, peaceful, abandoned house being slowly overtaken by vines and mosses. Now it feels flooded with new energy. I’ve loved watching Reddit users join Tumblr for the first time and be charmed by its odd holidays and other quirks. ... As I watch nearly every social media platform crumble into chaos, Tumblr and Discord, despite their flaws, feel like the best places to be right now.”

— for our anniversary episode, @redgoldsparks discussed the plaforms where e has been spending eir fannish time this past year. Click through to listen to eir full letter or read a transcript!

[destinationtoast]

Another reason for the lack of Western Cartoons fanfiction on AO3 could be because there is still a lot of fanfiction on FFN? In fact, have you ever thought about doing an analysis to compare the number of fanfictions from the same fandoms on both sites? And maybe also compare the anime/manga category

Yeah, good thinking... I believe historically a lot of animated shows had most of their fanfic on FFN, though in more recent years at least some of those fandoms have gotten very popular on AO3, and FFN growth has been tapering. I've done a number of comparisons among different fandom archives and platforms, but I haven't compared the sizes of a bunch of specific fandoms on on AO3 vs. FFN - has anyone else? Somewhat related -- I compared the biggest fandoms on AO3 vs. FFN in 2015... lots has changed since then, though.

[cimness]

the news that looks significant to me today in the developing fannish tumblr collapse/migration situation -

§ Cesperanza - Reposting a Post about Decentralized Computing, by request This is an answer from @limblogs and concerns the p2p computing technology I posted links about last week. 

 § greywash - State of the Migration: On fannish archival catastrophes, and what happens next (discussions in comments!) leading to the foundation of post-tumblr fandom , with more discussion; includes mention of the abovementioned p2p/decentralization technologies 

§ Google Docs: Fandom Platform of the Future✨ Requirements Gathering and Features Discussion created by pearwaldorf (this was great reading, but I believe it's temporarily closed to comments to be organized and moved to a better platform to control voting etc) - this is fundamentally a list of important functions for a new fandom platform to have (as opposed to an exploration of technologies/means), but there's a fair bit of assumption that it must be a) centralized & b) for profit 

§ There is a Dec 17 Log-Off Protest planned & as argued here, it can't hurt. Whether such a protest could cause a "loss in revenue" or affect share price to motivate a retraction of the new policy is a separate question (almost certainly not: see When Tumblr Bans Porn, Who Loses & Casey Fiesler's tweet with quote here ) 

§ cfiesler - This is a weird feeling: I literally think that I am the world’s foremost effort on the potential impact of Tumblr banning adult content. From Casey Fiesler, the researcher who published that study about fandom's platform migrations in the past. Contains more links. Most significantly to my mind, a fandom migration requires both a good reason driving people away & a viable alternative destination; she speculates whether Pillowfort could become that (I’m dubious because size/waiting list/paywall)

[fansplaining]

Just a few years ago we had what a lot of people called juggernaut ships and now it seems like the more people hunker down into their own servers with their friends, the more widespread fandom interests become. I’ve also noticed that most of my mutuals are multi-fandom now, and that the fan writers I follow tend to write for a handful of different ships in different fandoms at a time rather than dedicating their attention to one fan space. I certainly don’t think any of this is a bad thing. I for one appreciate that people seem to be following their vibes.

@bettsfic reflects on some of the shifts she’s observed in fandom over the past year for our seventh anniversary episode. Click through to listen or read a full transcript! 

[fansplaining]

Episode 190: Ask Fansplaining Anything: Part 15

In the latest (fifteenth!) installment of “Ask Fansplaining Anything,” Flourish and Elizabeth tackle a new collection of listener letters. Topics discussed include defining “canon” in RPF fandoms, the sad fate of fandoms on Twitter, and what to do about non-fandom friends who judge your fannish activities. Plus: a query about the hypothetical legality of physically printed fanfiction in libraries, with an answer from *actual lawyer* and copyright expert @earlgreytea68.

Click through to our site to listen or read a full transcript!

[fansplaining]

Episode 188: The Year in Fandom 2022

Continuing an end-of-year tradition, Flourish and Elizabeth review five big fandom-related trends they followed in 2022. Topics discussed include clashing norms between fans on different platforms, the increasing precariousness of the streaming space, brands doubling down on fandom—and anti-fandom—in high-profile celebrity stories, and yes, of course, the collapse of Twitter. Plus: they read a letter from an artist in response to the previous episode on AI and fanworks.

Click through to our site to listen or read a full transcript!

[fansplaining]

This isn’t necessarily an observation limited to this year so much as something I’ve felt/seen over the course of a few years. I’ve found the current platforms most utilized for fandom engagement (Twitter, Tumblr, Discord) create a sort of disconnected feeling to fandom communities. I think a lot of this has to do with the nature of these platforms—Twitter and Discord in particular can be fast moving and can make discussion difficult. Tumblr, while it does allow for longer-form conversations in a way the others don’t, is complicated by how reblogs work and further complicated by the way tagging works (as both organization for personal blogs and a discovery tool for the whole site). Again, this isn’t so much a ‘new’ observation from this year as a trend I’ve seen in fandom for a few years now.

Flash reflecting on the limitations of fandom platforms for our seventh anniversary episode. Click through to listen or read a full transcript!