annathecrow

For a while I've been more and more aggravated by Tumblr, which is at this point still my main online space. It's the reason why I've been playing with Wordpress.com, spent so much time organizing my multiple Twitter accounts, and, obviously, why I'm even touching Dreamwidth.

• I hate how I'm only passing on content; it makes me feel so empty, like a waterspout who has nothing to add and just passes the flow onwards.
• I hate the Drama. I know that can happen anywhere (especially on the internet; especially in fandom circles), but I just can't stand the way everything Goes Hard on tumblr.
• I hate the aphobes and the biphobes and the TERFs. And I hate the endless chains of "aphobes are The Devil" "biphobes are The Devil" "XY is The Devil". I know they are. You know they are. But we need to keep repeating it because there is no way to keep our spaces safe from them. Because there is nothing like "our spaces", it's just the one continuous blue hellscape.
• Speaking of: I hate how posting and commenting on tumblr is always like speaking to an auditorium. Usually it's empty... even when you don't want it to be). Sometimes it's full of haters... even when you really don't want it to be.

It's just so damn exhausting.

Now to be fair, there is a lot I still love on Tumlbr.

• I have friends there. Few, but they're there.
• I have a community there I have a semblance of a community. I know it's not real - I don't talk with most of the people I follow. But I know about their lives (or some imaginary versions of them) just as much as I do about my coworkers' lives. It just makes me feel less isolated than I actually am.
• I like the Wild Mass Guessing aspect of it. The thread speculative pieces (like some of the "Earth are the Space Australia" posts) are something I absolutely adore.
• The various "XYZ tumblrs" (biology tumblr, linguistics tumblr, etc etc). I love how tumblr can bring out people with very specific fields of knowledge.

Honestly, I have no idea what I want to do. Sometimes I dream about just... quiting tumblr for good. But I'd miss the people. And I don't even know where else I'd go. Here? Twitter? I don't think I can leave tumblr when I still have people I care about there. So I'd have to keep up with two social networks. I tried to do this with Tumblr and Twitter, and I don't think I can do it.

I've been increasingly hoping for a fandom exodus... somewhere, anywhere. Maybe DW, why not. But I realize that "community moving somewhere" is nonsense. "the community" (whatever that is) doesn't move; it just dies in one place and is recreated in another. There is always something lost.

Probably me.