What I don't like about tumblr is, of course -- as with everyone -- an issue that has mostly to do with what my favorite method of fandom participation is. And what I love to do the most in fandom is participate in comment threads where people shoot the crap and joke around about the characters and the setting! Like, when people pile on each other yelling "AND THEN ARTHUR IS LIKE, FUCK YOU, I'M GOING TO FINISH THIS QUESADILLA FIRST, I WAITED TWO WHOLE WEEKS FOR THIS" and then someone else jumps in and says, "LOLOLOL AND EAMES IS LIKE, OK BUT GUNMEN THO :(" Honestly I'd... probably be happy never reading or writing another ~polished~ fic again if my fandoms could be filled to overflowing with that sort of interaction. You can only really do that through reblogging on tumblr! And because I feel pretty awkward when those conversations get long because WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE WHOSE DASHBOARDS ARE GOING TO BE INUNDATED WITH THIS, and also because it's hard to keep track of who said what last and where, tumblr probably isn't the platform for me.
In addition, I get kind of weirded out by the thought that a lot of the things a user likes are obvious to the casual observer, because doesn't that make you feel like you know them? And I don't know if you are knowable through the things that you like, or if I am knowable through the things that I like, or really whether any of us are knowable at all-- I mean, can't we be sincerely fond of people without knowing them, I mean, do I know who the hell I am? I LIKE FOOTBALL, BUT ALSO I DON'T? Whenever I reblog something I like (which is slightly different from reblogging something I want to add to), I feel a little antsy that through the action of reblogging, I am portraying myself as someone who likes that thing! Since I have a compulsive desire to never bookmark or keep track of anything I've ever enjoyed, that sort of reblogging for me feels so much like a shout of LOOK AT ME, THIS IS WHAT I LIKE. (Reminder, I'm not saying that the act of reblogging itself is like this, but that it feels like that for me; I'm not saying that tumblr is a piece of shit excuse for a platform, but that I don't mesh with it)
ALSO, since reblogging allows you to bring a conversation into your own space when adding to it, I think it makes a lot of people feel safer about expressing their opinions-- which makes sense, but I just feel... safer when my opinions are scattered everywhere and difficult to find... because I know I'll probably contradict myself in about a week or two, and I don't want anyone that happens to be reading this blog to think, oh, I see, Ifrit is a person who has these opinions about these things. No! Maybe I am, but maybe I'm not! Maybe I'm just a person who had this opinion about this one thing because of what they read earlier on that day, or because of the person they talked to over lunch, or because they felt generally angry at the world that entire week, or because they'd just found a twenty-dollar bill on the floor and felt like everything was made of vanilla milkshakes!
So what it boils down to, I guess, is that I don't want a space of my own when it comes to fandom. Which is why even LJ felt very limited to me, because I wanted there to be just one huge marketplace where people would go and yell at each other, not dozens and dozens of journals and communities where conversations would take place. I've never actually been in a mailing list fandom, but I wonder if that's what I would have liked-- with each e-mail, you're talking to everyone! Though I guess I also like the thought of people stumbling onto that marketplace and discovering it, and that doesn't really work for mailing lists so much. Or a forum with flat comments instead of nested threads, I'd like that too, I think. In fact in some ways, it would also be pretty nice if everyone were anonymous at all times-- and if nothing were ever archived so that no one had to stress out about ~creating things of merit~ because it would all just disappear in two weeks anyway--?
That is what I think today, but ask me tomorrow and I might be like UGH THAT'S A TERRIBLE FUCKING IDEA, THEN IT WOULD BE A FANDOM WITHOUT A HISTORY AND NOBODY WOULD EVER REMEMBER EXACTLY WHAT AN IN-JOKE MEANS AND WHY IT IS FUNNY!!! Anyway, this was all probably just a way for me to procrastinate, so now that that's done, I suppose I ought to get back to getting eaten alive by school. Wow I bet this entry is really fucking disorganized and reads like a splatter of lukewarm brain soup but in that case it is probably beyond salvaging, I am not going to read it over! It's a mess! It'll stay a mess!
You know what I really like about tumblr though, is those gifsets that are remixed to tell completely different stories :3
