This again!
Over the last couple of days, I have found myself back in a really negative place with tumblr. I find a lot of the people on tumblr to be really negative, thoughtlessly hurtful people. I find a lot of them are petty and aggravating. I find myself becoming defensive and angry and LIKING CHARACTERS LESS because people tear down a character I like just to build up that other character. I find myself becoming a sour, unhappy person because of tumblr sometimes.
I've installed tumblr savior and I'm considering installing StayFocusd to keep myself away from certain corners of tumblr. I've unfollowed all the Sailor Moon tags I was previously tracking. I've been moving back towards livejournal because I find it's a less negative place lately. I'm considering just moving all my discussion back over here, because I'm just so soured on tumblr over and over and over again.
And I was thinking about why that is.
(Part of the reason is that it's coming up on the anniversary of Gage's death in a few days, so that has thinned my patience for tumblr's bullshit even more.)
I know I'm not the only one who finds tumblr to be a hotbed of terrible behavior, I've seen several people mention it lately, that I'm not the only one who finds myself not liking the person I become on tumblr. Which I think is because tumblr is... like a sugar high.
I once saw tumblr likened to being a 24/7 party post (when trying to describe what tumblr was like, what the appeal of it was) and I found that to be incredibly apt. I spend far too much time on tumblr because there's always something happening, always something new to reblog or spam, always something something something coming along. Very little is carefully crafted or poured over for the amount of time it should be stewed. Very little gets remembered a DAY later, much less a week later--unless it's an ongoing argument. Sometimes an HOUR is enough to bury a potential discussion!
That means that there's a pressure to keep pumping out more and more and more content, without the time to really craft well-written posts. You don't have time to really stop and think about how best to phrase your thoughts. You just plop out the first thing that comes to mind, which means you're not filtering some things that maybe you should, and that results in a lot of really polarizing content. You say things that are kind of rude because you're not stopping to consider other people's feelings. You tear down a character because you don't like that character very much without stopping to think that it's aggravating people. It all gets buried so fast that it doesn't matter, right?
That's how I'm finding tumblr to be lately, anyway. There are a lot of things I really love about tumblr. I will still recommend it to those who are looking for what amounts to a party post and who like to be really active or who just want some mindless surfing. But if you're like me, someone who is emotionally invested in their fictional stories (especially if you have a crap RL that drives you fandom so you can distract yourself for awhile), it's probably a place you should approach with caution. It's probably a place you should take frequent breaks from to remind yourself that, hey, the world isn't actually going to leave you behind if you don't sort through absolutely everything.
I'm taking a hiatus from tumblr for awhile. It might last an hour, it might last a week, I might not go back. I was thinking about the people I've met on tumblr, the ones I only know there, rather than those I already knew on livejournal and whom I obviously like on tumblr as well. And, of the people that I've met on tumblr, there are about two, maybe three, people I would actively seek out on livejournal to have on my flist. If you're not as sensitive to people's dickery, if you're not prone to becoming a dick yourself because you're reacting to other people's dickery, if you think the discussion in certain fandoms is worth it, then tumblr is probably great for you.
I want to punch people in the face a lot and I have a lot of shit going on IRL, so I think tumblr can blow me right now. But give me five minutes and we'll see how I feel then.
I've installed tumblr savior and I'm considering installing StayFocusd to keep myself away from certain corners of tumblr. I've unfollowed all the Sailor Moon tags I was previously tracking. I've been moving back towards livejournal because I find it's a less negative place lately. I'm considering just moving all my discussion back over here, because I'm just so soured on tumblr over and over and over again.
And I was thinking about why that is.
(Part of the reason is that it's coming up on the anniversary of Gage's death in a few days, so that has thinned my patience for tumblr's bullshit even more.)
I know I'm not the only one who finds tumblr to be a hotbed of terrible behavior, I've seen several people mention it lately, that I'm not the only one who finds myself not liking the person I become on tumblr. Which I think is because tumblr is... like a sugar high.
I once saw tumblr likened to being a 24/7 party post (when trying to describe what tumblr was like, what the appeal of it was) and I found that to be incredibly apt. I spend far too much time on tumblr because there's always something happening, always something new to reblog or spam, always something something something coming along. Very little is carefully crafted or poured over for the amount of time it should be stewed. Very little gets remembered a DAY later, much less a week later--unless it's an ongoing argument. Sometimes an HOUR is enough to bury a potential discussion!
That means that there's a pressure to keep pumping out more and more and more content, without the time to really craft well-written posts. You don't have time to really stop and think about how best to phrase your thoughts. You just plop out the first thing that comes to mind, which means you're not filtering some things that maybe you should, and that results in a lot of really polarizing content. You say things that are kind of rude because you're not stopping to consider other people's feelings. You tear down a character because you don't like that character very much without stopping to think that it's aggravating people. It all gets buried so fast that it doesn't matter, right?
That's how I'm finding tumblr to be lately, anyway. There are a lot of things I really love about tumblr. I will still recommend it to those who are looking for what amounts to a party post and who like to be really active or who just want some mindless surfing. But if you're like me, someone who is emotionally invested in their fictional stories (especially if you have a crap RL that drives you fandom so you can distract yourself for awhile), it's probably a place you should approach with caution. It's probably a place you should take frequent breaks from to remind yourself that, hey, the world isn't actually going to leave you behind if you don't sort through absolutely everything.
I'm taking a hiatus from tumblr for awhile. It might last an hour, it might last a week, I might not go back. I was thinking about the people I've met on tumblr, the ones I only know there, rather than those I already knew on livejournal and whom I obviously like on tumblr as well. And, of the people that I've met on tumblr, there are about two, maybe three, people I would actively seek out on livejournal to have on my flist. If you're not as sensitive to people's dickery, if you're not prone to becoming a dick yourself because you're reacting to other people's dickery, if you think the discussion in certain fandoms is worth it, then tumblr is probably great for you.
I want to punch people in the face a lot and I have a lot of shit going on IRL, so I think tumblr can blow me right now. But give me five minutes and we'll see how I feel then.