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My (Mis)Adventures in Tumblr Fandom
Jan. 30th, 2016 08:23 amI've written and deleted a number of posts about my strained relationship with Tumblr, but I think it's finally time to bring out the handsaw and cut off the part of myself that's experiencing so much anxiety.
When people get upset about Tumblr, what they usually complain about is getting too much attention. Namely, something they posted will get the wrong sort of attention from a group outside of the post's intended audience. What people don't talk about is the pain of making a concerted effort to be a part of a community and failing to get any attention at all.
I had this experience on DeviantArt, specifically with the Final Fantasy fandom. My own art was shit, but I left hundreds of comments in which I tried to be supportive and insightful. I got no almost no response during the entirety of the five years I was active on the site, which was only to be expected. The community of Final Fantasy fan artists on DeviantArt was huge, and it was common for any given piece by a known artist to receive over a thousand comments.
The Zelgan community on Tumblr is completely different. From May to December of 2015, there were about fifteen people who were consistently engaged with the fandom, of which I counted myself a member. What this meant was that, for eight months, I tracked tags and individual blogs closely, liking and commenting and reblogging and sending asks and private messages, as well as leaving dozens of detailed comments and countless kudos on AO3. My own writing is of uneven quality, but I was sincerely devoted to producing what I considered to be interesting and original work. If nothing else, I can write better than I can draw.
Because I am an adult with a job, I can't be on Tumblr (or AO3) all the time, and I'm a hardcore introvert, even online. I therefore understand that I'm not capable of being at the center of the fandom, but what's surprised me is that I've always felt like an outsider. If I posted something, it would get ten notes if I was extremely lucky. Meanwhile, if someone else posted to one of the relevant tags their note count would start at a dozen and continue to rise from there. I didn't expect reciprocity, but the complete lack of it was mildly disheartening at best and emotionally devastating at worst.
I've since distanced myself from the fandom, gradually untracking tags and unfollowing blogs of nonmutuals. In less than two weeks, however, there's going to be a Zelgan Big Bang on Tumblr, and I'm scheduled to post first. Although I've devoted something like sixty hours of my life to this story, it probably won't get more than a handful of likes. Afterwards I'll find myself in the uncomfortable position of needing to appear happy and supportive as I watch everyone else's stories get dozens (if not hundreds) of notes.
Of course, the problem could be me, and it's possible that I'm too awkward and clueless to understand why. I doubt that's the case, however, and I've come to see the relative lack of attention I've received from Tumblr fandom as a symptom of the relative lack of attention I've put into Tumblr fandom. As a platform, Tumblr rewards quantity of input over quality of input; and, as with Twitter, one does not simply take a day off from Tumblr. No matter how friendly and creative someone may be, she will never succeed on Tumblr if she's only a casual user.
I'm going to stay on Tumblr because it's useful to me as a public image hosting service, but I need to make an effort to limit my interactions on the site. It takes far too much of my energy, and for someone like me there's very little payoff. For what it's worth, I don't harbor any ill feeling toward anyone in the Zelgan fandom. I love every single one of those nerds, and I still consider them my buddies regardless of the strange ways in which Tumblr has mediated our friendship.
Although is friendship really even a thing that exists? I don't know, life is strange and we all die alone.
When people get upset about Tumblr, what they usually complain about is getting too much attention. Namely, something they posted will get the wrong sort of attention from a group outside of the post's intended audience. What people don't talk about is the pain of making a concerted effort to be a part of a community and failing to get any attention at all.
I had this experience on DeviantArt, specifically with the Final Fantasy fandom. My own art was shit, but I left hundreds of comments in which I tried to be supportive and insightful. I got no almost no response during the entirety of the five years I was active on the site, which was only to be expected. The community of Final Fantasy fan artists on DeviantArt was huge, and it was common for any given piece by a known artist to receive over a thousand comments.
The Zelgan community on Tumblr is completely different. From May to December of 2015, there were about fifteen people who were consistently engaged with the fandom, of which I counted myself a member. What this meant was that, for eight months, I tracked tags and individual blogs closely, liking and commenting and reblogging and sending asks and private messages, as well as leaving dozens of detailed comments and countless kudos on AO3. My own writing is of uneven quality, but I was sincerely devoted to producing what I considered to be interesting and original work. If nothing else, I can write better than I can draw.
Because I am an adult with a job, I can't be on Tumblr (or AO3) all the time, and I'm a hardcore introvert, even online. I therefore understand that I'm not capable of being at the center of the fandom, but what's surprised me is that I've always felt like an outsider. If I posted something, it would get ten notes if I was extremely lucky. Meanwhile, if someone else posted to one of the relevant tags their note count would start at a dozen and continue to rise from there. I didn't expect reciprocity, but the complete lack of it was mildly disheartening at best and emotionally devastating at worst.
I've since distanced myself from the fandom, gradually untracking tags and unfollowing blogs of nonmutuals. In less than two weeks, however, there's going to be a Zelgan Big Bang on Tumblr, and I'm scheduled to post first. Although I've devoted something like sixty hours of my life to this story, it probably won't get more than a handful of likes. Afterwards I'll find myself in the uncomfortable position of needing to appear happy and supportive as I watch everyone else's stories get dozens (if not hundreds) of notes.
Of course, the problem could be me, and it's possible that I'm too awkward and clueless to understand why. I doubt that's the case, however, and I've come to see the relative lack of attention I've received from Tumblr fandom as a symptom of the relative lack of attention I've put into Tumblr fandom. As a platform, Tumblr rewards quantity of input over quality of input; and, as with Twitter, one does not simply take a day off from Tumblr. No matter how friendly and creative someone may be, she will never succeed on Tumblr if she's only a casual user.
I'm going to stay on Tumblr because it's useful to me as a public image hosting service, but I need to make an effort to limit my interactions on the site. It takes far too much of my energy, and for someone like me there's very little payoff. For what it's worth, I don't harbor any ill feeling toward anyone in the Zelgan fandom. I love every single one of those nerds, and I still consider them my buddies regardless of the strange ways in which Tumblr has mediated our friendship.
Although is friendship really even a thing that exists? I don't know, life is strange and we all die alone.
