mistressofmuses | Social media stuff...

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Social media stuff...

The whole twitter implosion thing definitely has me in that... "feeling some kind of way" way.
Mainly I think it's bringing up memories of the the exodus from LJ, which was a slow, miserable thing as opposed to the comparative apocalypse of *gestures broadly at twitter* all that.

I don't like twitter, and I never really used it. I've had I think two accounts on there, one from college, one from about a year or two ago, both of which I created when it felt like I "should" have a twitter. I created the accounts, followed a bunch of creators I liked, and then... never used them again after that. (And I resent the emails I get about so-and-so tweeting something, because they're almost always "some conservative politician you hate and have never followed or interacted with tweeted..." and I do not want to have them in my inbox at all, thanks.)

I *have* unfortunately seen how horrifically toxic twitter can be as a space, how the deliberate short-form format absolutely destroys any chance for nuance, yet how vitriolic assholes pile on to literally anything for the sin of not encapsulating the totality of human experience in a single tweet. How anger and outrage (even manufactured) is the fastest way to get attention and clout. How it's become a requirement to be in the publishing industry, to the point that many pro authors have talked about how their twitter presence is mandated in their author contracts. (Even when they find no enjoyment in it, even when it's detrimental to their mental health.) That's like... a whole other pile of shit.

But I know that even though I haven't ever gotten much use or enjoyment out of twitter, there are a lot of people who HAVE. And for whom that IS their community. I know that large swaths of fandom were already there, and then more decamped to twitter when the porn ban happened on tumblr. I know that it's where a LOT of writers and artists, fan and pro, do their networking and share their work. I don't *get* why anyone would want to do that, because the way twitter works seems like it would be the worst for sharing works that you want anyone to actually have a chance to find for more than a day, but I don't have to get it!

Watching a community you're invested in and care about crumble sucks. So despite my schadenfreude at watching Muskrat fuck everything up with his enormous ego... I AM sorry to watch people struggle with the idea of losing touch with people they care about and communities they enjoy and want to remain a part of.

(While I think the world, particularly the sphere of social media, may be better without twitter, or with twitter having a reduction in the power it's had, it's still a bummer for the people impacted now.)

I remember losing LJ as the home of fandom. I wasn't ever SUPER active in fandom comms, though I followed several and read peoples' discussions. I enjoyed that time period of fandom-as-an-entity a lot.

Prior to that, I'd been a fandom spectator (and occasional writer of very bad fic on ff.net), and I do think fondly on the the era of individual fansites/character shrines/personal fic archives/etc. But that era didn't feel like something I could be a part of in the same way that LJ allowed for. It might have been different if I'd been a few years older.

Now, a lot of my love for LJ is personal, the result of the way timing synced up. Late high school and college were the best time for me to be excited for fandom, to have small amounts of disposable income, to not yet have a 40-hour-per-week job...

I don't quite have the "I met all my best friends through LJ fandom, and now we live together/visit three times a year/etc." stories that some people do, particularly people who were maybe a few years older than me at the time.

But

scarlipswolfwife and I have been friends for a damn long time having met through fandom despite never actually sharing a fandom.
And while he's never cared for or been a part of fandom, LJ IS how I met Alex, and we've been together 13 and a half years now.

I also know that nostalgia goggles are powerful - there was drama and nastiness that happened on LJ, and I know it wasn't a complete fandom utopia either, particularly when things went bad with the site itself. Strikethrough happened, and people started leaving. Things got worse and worse as it changed hands.

I was reluctant to leave (and I seem to remember even bristling a bit at people who at the time moved to DW!) I eventually got a tumblr, and while I know that was where a lot of fandom moved (and was also where fandom had separately gained traction as a broad community among people who'd never used LJ), I didn't really find a sense of fandom community there.

The format on LJ was one that was much more conducive to what I think of as community, probably because it *created* (as in, created in my head) the system that to me means community. It's what I still love about DW, and it's what every other "home of fandom" doesn't quite capture for me.

So while the twitter thing doesn't really personally upset me (almost the opposite on the grand scale), I do remember how much it sucks feeling uprooted, and that part does suck.

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Yeah, it's a mess. You've already seen what I have to say about it and now I am trying to ignore it for a bit so I don't get overly salty. I was an early adopter of the site and will miss what it was, but... just... I should focus my energy elsewhere. I do like DW and should focus on that. I meant to put that in my own post, but just realized I forgot.

It is a lot and it's a lot of mess. :/ I am sorry for what Twitter was, and what I wish it had continued to be. I think putting energy positively toward other things is the best option.

Oof, the Twitter exodus is happening sooner than I thought it would. I haven't been active on there for the better part of a year because it was destroying my mental health. I only really became active on Twitter in 2016 because that's where the Adventure Zone fandom was, and it's where I met Chuck, so I do have some fond feelings... but gods, that algorithm breeds fear and pain and anger and instinctive response more than anything else I've ever seen. It's sad to see so many places die off or die down when they used to mean so much. To have my history fragmented across the web like this, no coherent narrative. I dunno. I see some Dreamwidth accounts that have been posting for over a decade (and/or imported from LJ), and I don't have many of my thoughts or feelings from that far back. I don't even know if I kept the sketchbooks. I have a lot of feelings on missing pieces of the past.

Twitter is one of the social media spaces that I see the most people talking about the toxicity of. It sucks, because I know there are a lot of positives in terms of fandom and connection, but it offered way too much amplification to assholes because it created engagement.

Same here, regarding the fragmentation of internet history. I did port my LJ over here a couple months ago when there was (ultimately unneeded) concern about LJ becoming inaccessible due to Russian sanctions. A lot of that past (I started it as an utterly insufferable teenager, lol) is past I don't want to revisit, but I like knowing I could do so if I wanted to. I'm sorry you don't have the ability to look back if you want to.

I feel like it's weird, having been around for earlyish internet days, or at least the early days of widespread use... the idea of having to wrestle with having a digital footprint recording your past is a relatively new one. My parents certainly didn't have to deal with that. The idea of LOSING that record is even newer, and one that a lot of people didn't even think of having to plan for at the time. I have a lot of feelings about preservation and recording (personal) history, and how digital narratives are somehow simultaneously permanent and impossibly ephemeral.

Yeah.

As you know, I maintain no social media presence out of Dreamwidth, because I've been cyberbullied to hell and back and I'm asking for more trouble if I roll up on Twitter, Tumblr, etc. "Just block people" is a non-solution because I already have to play whackamole with people making fake accounts HERE ON DREAMWIDTH [this has happened more than once], never mind this kind of shit on other sites. Even if I hadn't dealt with that kind of shit, though, I have concerns about data mining and the discussion format of Twitter is headache-inducing for me. [140 characters? I can barely make a comment that isn't at least 140 words, never mind 140 characters]

Having said that, I know people who do use Twitter who are now in the process of leaving because Elon Musk, and I feel bad for them. It reminds me of when I used to have an LJ back in the day [different username, not saying what] and I left in 2009 because the way LJ was handling censorship of fanfic writers while still giving zero fucks about actual CSAM/CP accounts and shit left a bad, salty taste in my mouth. So I can't be like "haha Twitter was toxic as fuck and you shouldn't be there anyway." LJ was oftentimes toxic as fuck [it still paled by comparison to how Tumblr and Twitter evolved, but I would argue that the toxicity on certain LJ spaces gave birth to the toxicity of 10s social media sites] but LJ was still my home for the better part of a decade and losing that hurt, so I can imagine losing Twitter hurts for some people.

I hope that more folks will join DW, and I'm hoping that DW will mostly remain free of the problems that have plagued other social media sites. It helps that it's a different format - what you pointed out about Twitter's short-form format is spot-on.

Oh yeah, most social media sites are way worse in terms of the risk of bullying and dogpiling and such. "Just block people" is generally good praxis, but it's not a be-all end-all solution, either.

LJ definitely had its fair share of toxicity, as nostalgic as I am for it. And I think you're right - while the toxicity there was much less than modern socmed, there were already quite a lot of hints of the things that have simply been magnified now. I think that's why I feel so bad for the people being forcibly uprooted from Twitter now - it was a toxic space that I think we're better without... but that isn't much comfort to the people losing a space they'd cultivated and connected on.

I do hope more people join DW. I always hope that. I think it's a better format that's less prone to the "hot takes" and vitriol of twitter, one that allows for more personal, ongoing communication with people in a way that isn't as public as reblogs/twitter back-and-forths/talking in a discord channel, while also not requiring the conversations happen in private via DM. It's better for community building and potentially finding some new person that you'd be interested in knowing better.
Double-edged sword in that it requires more personal effort to find and make those connections though, and that I see a surprising number of younger people talk about how the site seems impossibly confusing.
Older fans (the target DW audience) are broadly more chill (though the ones that suck still suck bad), and younger folks who are willing to put in some effort to figure out how to use the site also self-selects for a hopefully better crowd.
BUT it also means that a lot of people WON'T be willing to put in the effort required, and it's hard to get the kind of community engagement people are looking for without newer and younger people ever joining.
(Though I'll take quiet-but-good over active-but-toxic any day.)

It sure is a dumpster fire, isn't it?

Ahh, the nostalgic days of LJ past. *sigh*

It really is a mess.

*big sigh* I'm very nostalgic for the LJ of the past, even though I came into the organized fandom side a bit after the true height of it.

I remember the feeling that I *ought* to be on Twitter, as an author. You had to go on there and network, and if you didn't network then you found yourself outside the community of m/m romance writers and then you dropped off the map and became irrelevant... So I can understand that there must be hoards of writers right now feeling like glue has dissolved on their world and everything's falling apart. But on the other hand Twitter is soooo depressing and so terrible for your mental health that part of me says the sooner it's gone the better.

Yeah, that was part of why I joined up the second time on twitter. I knew that was where writing/publishing networking happened, and while I don't have any direct intentions toward publishing at the moment, it seemed like the sort of thing I should at least be *able* to follow, in case I wanted to do that in the future.

I do feel like twitter has been extremely toxic and detrimental to mental health... I'm a little glad at the thought it might burn. But I AM sorry for the people that utilized it in ways that were necessary to their livelihood. (Part of being glad is that I do not think it's fair to require a twitter presence for a publishing contract, and I hope this leads to good changes. Doesn't make it unshitty for the writers, artists, small businesses etc. that rely on it now.)

I know I'm not the only one who feels like we should go back to the era where you had your own website and connected it to others via webrings and email groups. Everything was much more manageable then! There is a whole group trying to do this. They're called the Yesterweb, but ironically and badly for me, their meeting place is on Discord, and I just don't have the patience to deal with Discord. I have spruced up my own website, though, so if there's anything I really really don't want to lose, I put it on there.

I think there is a growing sort of movement toward that sort of space. I don't know how much it will take off, or whether it will feel like anything more than a relatively small group's retro-internet throwback. But even so, I think it's a really worthwhile goal, and I hope that it reminds some people of how things CAN be! That things can be personal, and customizable, and not beholden to an algorithm or a corporation that wants to use you as a product to sell adspace.

I keep meaning to check out Neocities and maybe teach myself how to set up something very basic.

It probably is just a relatively small thing, but I guess even that can be useful as a demonstration that there are other options. Also as a fallback - I know Mastodon was tiny when I joined it, but now it's pretty much doubled over night as it absorbs a bunch of Twitter refugees. I just hope they don't bring their culture with them (they will.)

Neocities sounds like a lot of fun! I still have my old fandom website which I host myself, so I'm sorted :)

Even if it is small, I think it's worthwhile. Like you said... it's a reminder that you don't HAVE to be beholden to a social media site that only cares for you as a product to sell to advertisers.
I hope that Mastodon stays free of twitter-esque drama, ha. I haven't used the site, but I know that's one of the top destinations for people fleeing twitter.

I'm glad you've got your own site! While I think fondly on the time period where individual fandom sites were pretty much the norm, I never set up a site of my own.

*G* Mastodon has always had its own form of drama which can also get very bitter. It tends to be much more left-wing than Twitter though. (Or at least it is on the instance that I'm on.) So goodness knows what will happen when that meets the usual Twitter drama. Hopefully they'll cancel each other out ;)

Pretty much any space is prone to its own types of drama, I suppose! Though it's sometimes a little funny to see the ways the broad trends in what the drama *is* differ. I am glad that there it trends less to the hardcore right-wing assholes, at least. But hoo, it may be exciting to watch drama types collide! (Though if they do cancel each other out, that would be nice.)

Howdy. *waves* I ran into you via a comment you left on

memorizingthedigitsofpi's blog and recognized your username from tumblr.

I too am watching twitter implode--although I'm only getting secondhand experience because I never got into twitter myself.

My earliest fandom encounters were on livejournal/FF.Net--but I was only there a short time before the exodus to tumblr happened and I followed (and discovered Ao3), so tumblr was the primary fandom space through my late teens and into my twenties. When the 2018 Tumblr Purge happened, I simply couldn't bring myself to use twitter despite really wanting regular access to NSFW content.

Twitter was simply too chaotic and exhausting. (I've always preferred long format posts with regards to fandom and I cannot stand the inability to keep track of anything older than a day or two on twitter.) Worse--as you've already pointed out--twitter just seemed BUILT to breed meanness and toxicity (both political and fandom-wise).

Still, for those pockets of decent fans who managed to survive twitter like cacti in a desert, it truly does suck that they're loosing their fandom home now to the Muskrat's bullshit. Even worse for people whose real life work and income will be affected by this.

Ultimately, however, I agree with you, in that the world would be better off without twitter--or with it existing in a greatly reduced capacity.

Edited 2022-11-08 02:23 (UTC)

Hi! I recognized your name from Tumblr, too!

Yes, watching Twitter collapse has very much been an experience from the sidelines, but it certainly is *something*.

I'm very much with you - I struggled with Twitter, and I struggle with things like Discord. I don't like the fast-moving nature of it, feeling like coming to something days or even hours late means that everyone has moved on already. I much prefer the LJ/DW format, where comment threads can stretch for days or weeks if people are still interested, where missing a post from a couple days ago is fine, because you can always catch up.

And yes. While I do think that it'll be a net good for Twitter to no longer have the cultural stranglehold it did in some ways (as a de facto requirement for most creatives, businesses, politics...), it's still really rough for the writers/authors/fandom/small businesses who are losing something they relied on.

Facebook is by far the worst. I had someone DM me yesterday to throw every uneducated redneck trailer park racist slur they could come up with at me -- because I posted to an MLB group that the Astro's winning the WS after being caught cheating hurts baseball. I have a screen shot of the conversation.

Twitter is probably like that, but I'm quick to block over there. Trying out Mastodon and CounterSocial now.

Fuuuucking FB. I'm saved by just not ever using messenger, so even when people have tried to unleash nastiness and/or weirdly sexual messages at me, I don't see them for like... six months, by which point the impact has worn off, lol.
But that sort of reaction to posting an, in my opinion, completely correct assertion about a sport... is just fucking unhinged.

Twitter seems to just amplify assholes way more than it should, but that's a very outside perspective because it's never been a site I was active on.

Mastodon has definitely gotten a lot of attention in the twitter-exodus. I hope it and/or CounterSocial are good!

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