This is fascinating

[a_candle_for_sherlock]

It's like...BLOGGING blogging. Tumblr is what happens when every form of social media interaction build a city together. You can explore it forever, find niche shops and wild clubs and cliquish parties, stay an anonymous people-watcher forever or put yourself out there and find best friends for life. The crowds are always shifting; you don't know who you'll run into, who's watching you, who'll jump in on your conversation--you could get lucky or very unlucky. It's an endless metropolis.

This feels more like a college campus. We know who's here, more or less, and who’s in our clubs and classes, and where to find the literary arguments and the theater kids' hangouts, and we're sitting around each others' dorm rooms, talking about our feelings and the things we like. I like it.

Comments

[tripleransom]

I know that happened on ffdotnet. They just deleted anything that was deemed inappropriate without warning, Could be that it happened on LJ also and I just didn't see it.

The only one I knew about was the much-lamented nlr_alicia although her account is still there. Her last message was a pledge to not leave her stories unfinished and then...silence. Her stories are still on her wordpress account, though and if youhaven't read them, they are superb, even if some of them are unfinished.

[johnlockismyreligion]

Oh god, don't get me started with the FF(.)net purge. I'm still mad at it, and sad for all the beautiful fics that got lost. I followed many wip in the E.R. and Lost fandoms and I didn't think about saving them because "well, they're online", I thought. I was wrong.

[a_candle_for_sherlock]

It sounds like it was devastating. I can’t imagine the loss of community—and without multi-platform connections! Now I can always check in with a friend on discord or twitter if their Tumblr or AO3 goes awol. I take that for granted—the ability to be semi open about fandom online, and use real names. I know doxxing still happens, but the intensity of the threat seems so much less in most cases. I’m so immensely grateful for the people who laid the groundwork for fandom as it is now, no longer unspeakable. My mom reads my fic!