(no subject)
I wanted to post something that wasn't super depressing or at least was a little less gut-wrenching than the other stuff I've posted on here the last couple of times. I miss posting and updating to an actual blog and I find that I just can't do that with Tumblr. It's a great place for gifs and pictures, but it's a really awful place for expressing yourself - at least in my opinion.
LiveJournal for me was always a safe haven, it was a happy space, and even when there was a lot of wank and arguments, I always thought it was easier to have discussions and debates. Tumblr is so confrontational to me, it's incredibly off-putting. If I spend too much time on the site I become incredibly depressed and I start to feel really old. Not old in a sense of "too old for the internet" or as though my time is up as far as fandom is concerned, but old in the sense of "oh my god, you people are idiots, grow up." I guess it doesn't help seeing posts describing anyone over 30 as old or asking why they'd be on Tumblr.
I've been messing around in fandoms on the internet since I was 19, which is 15 years of the internet, from early days of dedicated websites, through LJ to Tumblr. Fandom has evolved from something no one really talked about outside the confines of their own little groups to something huge that can directly affect what's happening on screen (in tv shows at least). In some ways this is good - trying to increase diversity - and in some ways it is toe-curlingly awful. I don't think it's a bad thing to encourage the people in power to write more parts for woman or people of colour or people of differing sexualities, etc, but I do think that writers should be able to tell their own stories.
I hated the How I Met Your Mother Finale, but that was the writers' decision to make. It was an awful decision, but that's bad writing. It's not up to me to tell someone the end to their story. I was watching a completely different show to the one they were writing. As a viewer, as I was led to believe one thing and then shown that my assumptions were in fact false. Sometimes this is good story-telling - sometimes a twist makes you so excited you want to go back and watch it all again to look for clues. In the case of How I Met Your Mother I can only imagine it was laziness. A twist should be satisfying. A twist should make everything click together. After the initial shock factor you should be able to go "Oh my God! Of course. That's brilliant." The How I Met Your Mother twist made me sell all my HIMYM dvds and resolve never to watch an episode of it again as long as I lived.
My point being, fandom has always had the ability to be a force for good. As a collective body of like-minded and focused people, they have the power to make changes, to help people and to provide positive representation of "fans". The problem of course stems from the people who don't behave that way - the people who ask rude questions (when did this habit of asking actors about fanfiction arise - was it Lord of the Rings?), the people who are intrusive, the people who send death threats, the people who are so focused on hating things I don't honestly understand them.
There are a lot of things I don't like on TV. There are a lot of films I can't stand, books I'm never going to read. There are a lot of actors and actresses that I'm not interested in (or frankly, put off by). Maybe I'm missing out on some good stuff. That's my decision. I avoid these things. I don't spend my days writing angry posts about how I want to kill anyone who likes these things. I don't make nasty comments about how "ugh this sucks" because "this writer/actor/director is awful".
There is a difference between constructive, well-thought out criticism and "I hate this person, so everything they do is wrong."
On Livejournal I always found it easy to have the debate - to go "this is my opinion" and if someone disagreed you could talk it out. I'm not saying that Tumblr invented angry or aggressive or negative fans, but it does seem to encourage those negative things to the detriment of the fan experience. This is after all, something we're supposed to do because we enjoy it and not just a place to vent all of our hate.
When I am on the internet, I'm here to have fun. I'm here to talk to people about things that make me happy. I'm here to share the excitement of fandom - because it used to be so exciting and now it's becoming increasingly exhausting.
LiveJournal for me was always a safe haven, it was a happy space, and even when there was a lot of wank and arguments, I always thought it was easier to have discussions and debates. Tumblr is so confrontational to me, it's incredibly off-putting. If I spend too much time on the site I become incredibly depressed and I start to feel really old. Not old in a sense of "too old for the internet" or as though my time is up as far as fandom is concerned, but old in the sense of "oh my god, you people are idiots, grow up." I guess it doesn't help seeing posts describing anyone over 30 as old or asking why they'd be on Tumblr.
I've been messing around in fandoms on the internet since I was 19, which is 15 years of the internet, from early days of dedicated websites, through LJ to Tumblr. Fandom has evolved from something no one really talked about outside the confines of their own little groups to something huge that can directly affect what's happening on screen (in tv shows at least). In some ways this is good - trying to increase diversity - and in some ways it is toe-curlingly awful. I don't think it's a bad thing to encourage the people in power to write more parts for woman or people of colour or people of differing sexualities, etc, but I do think that writers should be able to tell their own stories.
I hated the How I Met Your Mother Finale, but that was the writers' decision to make. It was an awful decision, but that's bad writing. It's not up to me to tell someone the end to their story. I was watching a completely different show to the one they were writing. As a viewer, as I was led to believe one thing and then shown that my assumptions were in fact false. Sometimes this is good story-telling - sometimes a twist makes you so excited you want to go back and watch it all again to look for clues. In the case of How I Met Your Mother I can only imagine it was laziness. A twist should be satisfying. A twist should make everything click together. After the initial shock factor you should be able to go "Oh my God! Of course. That's brilliant." The How I Met Your Mother twist made me sell all my HIMYM dvds and resolve never to watch an episode of it again as long as I lived.
My point being, fandom has always had the ability to be a force for good. As a collective body of like-minded and focused people, they have the power to make changes, to help people and to provide positive representation of "fans". The problem of course stems from the people who don't behave that way - the people who ask rude questions (when did this habit of asking actors about fanfiction arise - was it Lord of the Rings?), the people who are intrusive, the people who send death threats, the people who are so focused on hating things I don't honestly understand them.
There are a lot of things I don't like on TV. There are a lot of films I can't stand, books I'm never going to read. There are a lot of actors and actresses that I'm not interested in (or frankly, put off by). Maybe I'm missing out on some good stuff. That's my decision. I avoid these things. I don't spend my days writing angry posts about how I want to kill anyone who likes these things. I don't make nasty comments about how "ugh this sucks" because "this writer/actor/director is awful".
There is a difference between constructive, well-thought out criticism and "I hate this person, so everything they do is wrong."
On Livejournal I always found it easy to have the debate - to go "this is my opinion" and if someone disagreed you could talk it out. I'm not saying that Tumblr invented angry or aggressive or negative fans, but it does seem to encourage those negative things to the detriment of the fan experience. This is after all, something we're supposed to do because we enjoy it and not just a place to vent all of our hate.
When I am on the internet, I'm here to have fun. I'm here to talk to people about things that make me happy. I'm here to share the excitement of fandom - because it used to be so exciting and now it's becoming increasingly exhausting.