Hi, LJ/DW! I am here to say a contentious thing!

[bookshop]

First off -- Livejournal, I love you, I am back. I am back and I have a WHOLE NEW DEFAULT ICON! because nothing says THINGS HAVE CHANGED like changing your default LJ icon, I don't care how much time has passed

Comments

[cherrybina]

I think it's really just a personal preference? By shared energy, I don't mean energy that goes into creating new fanworks, but rather the shared energy that comes from back and forth exchanges and conversations. Tumblr makes it exceedingly difficult to interact, because there is no good way to talk to other people and have them talk back to you. Aja's example illustrates that - 400 people thought her post was worth reblogging, but without saying anything additional, there's nothing for her or anyone else to respond to, which means the conversation is effectively over. And if people do reblog posts and add commentary, it often ends up with multiple reblogs all over the place with everyone talking about their own thoughts but no one talking to each other. That's not necessarily a failing; it's just the way tumblr was designed.

When I think about why Inception fandom was so awesome for me, it's not the fannish output that came from that shared energy; it's the conversations that got us there in the first place. But that is purely a personal preference since obviously fandom does not mean the same thing to everyone. Fandom happens on tumblr, and people are certainly inspired and lots of amazing fanworks are created, all of which is awesome, but what's missing is feeling like I'm getting to know people and interacting with a community, and that happens to be the most important part of fandom for me.