The best thing about this whole series is that my editor actually called it “The Livejournal Trilogy

[bookshop]

THE LIVEJOURNAL TRILOGY!!!!!!!

So, in case you missed it:

Part 1: The Demise of a Social Media Platform: Timeline of LiveJournal’s Decline;

Part 2: Keeping Track of a Fandom Diaspora; aaaaaaaand

Part 3: why we hate tumblr so much but keep using it anyway:
The pros and cons of fandom on Tumblr
For months, arguments about Tumblr have been circulating

Comments

[amanuensis1]

I made myself a tumblr account when I fell into Avengers fandom, because Tumblr was where I was finding all the pretty pics and photos and gifsets--emphasis on the gifsets. My habit, when I find a picture I want to look at, is to save it to my hard drive and browse through the folders at my leisure. But this isn't user friendly when it comes to animated gifsets or comics and such--way too many pictures to click-and-save, none of which are animated in folder quick look.

So I made a tumblr of my own in order to reblog everything I liked, and now when I want to browse through those pretty pictures I use my own Tumblr like it's an online folder. But I don't actually "follow" any tumblr blogs, because I like browsing the old pictures via my dashboard page and only want to see the things I've reblogged on that page. Instead I have about fifty Tumblr blogs bookmarked and visit those for updates at my leisure--those that post frequently I go through frequently, those that don't I look at a couple of times a week.

When I actually want to

[chthonya]

I hadn't heard of fandom use of tumblr until this summer, and although I don't want to be left behind what I'd heard of it - and what you describe - does not appeal. The ease of discussion, of getting to know people, of community on LJ spoiled me for other platforms - including Facebook, the lack of control and ability to see a conversation of which frustrates me every time I try to use it.

At Ascendio it seemed as if a generation of fans was emerging that were primarily consumers rather than creators - from what you say it seems that the platform could be part of what is pushing things that way.