Looking for me? I'm on Twitter. A LOT.

[paintedmaypole]

Hi all. I've been thinking wistfully about DW lately and wondering what life was like over in these corners of social media. I wanted to wave hello.

I have to confess, the fannish version of me is pretty much living on Twitter these days. Who knew?! I thought I hated Twitter version of fandom, but then I didn't? I'm also over there as "paintedmaypole," if you're looking for me.

Fair warning, my life on Twitter is about 85% k-pop, 5% Chinese dramas with queer subtext, 5% other BL dramas, and 5% random chaos.

(Those numbers are wildly inaccurate and nonscientific. But, there's definitely a lot of k-pop in there.)

I'm also having thoughts about what its like to be fannish on Twitter vs. DW vs. Tumblr:

• On Tumblr, I never felt connected to anyone. It was just an endless sea of reposted content. And, only about 45% of it felt like content I actually wanted to see. However, it was far easier to share and enjoy certain types of information. (Mainly, things that weren't text.)


• On Twitter, I feel much more connected to people. And, I'm not sure there are that many real reasons why I should feel more connected to people there? Something about the interface and the use of text contributes to this, but I suspect a big part of it is that people are posting their own content so much of the time. Even when retweeting, when they add commentary the interface makes that commentary the first thing I see.
  
  However, while I feel somewhat more connected to other users, I also keep my account public. Which means there are all sorts of things I never talk about. Or, if I do, it's information shared in the vaguest of ways.
  
  The whole threaded tweet culture has definitely made it easier to have a slightly more nuanced conversation and it feels more organized and coherent than when we tried do have conversation on Tumblr. It's still imperfect though.


• On Dreamwidth, obviously, you can talk in much longer batches. The interface makes it easier to start thinking things out with more care. And, of course, there are the comment threads, which allow for a more organized conversation in response.
  
  There's an energy that's missing though. I'm trying to figure out what that is. I don't think it's simply a matter of the smaller social network and the quieter pace. That plays a role, is that all of it? I'm not sure. It could also have to do with the way that social networking sites like Twitter automatically add various types of news and events infiltrate your feed?
  
  Or, maybe it has something to do with how specifically fannish my own DW network is. On Tumblr, a great deal of the energy on the platform also came from the mix of people/interests that would make their way into your dashboard. There was a greater element of productive chaos... if that makes any sense.

Having said all that, I also think there's a key outside factor influencing all my fannish social media use: Life, work, and actual down-time.

It can't be an accident that the moments when I think about and find time to come back to Dreamwidth are always the moments when I'm on break or nearly on a break from work. I seem to only be able to come back to DW in those moments where life starts to genuinely slow down and give me more time to breathe. Like right now, when the semester is starting to wrap up: Voila! A k8 appears! This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth here and has
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