OR

WHY TUMBLR IS THE WANKIEST PLACE THAT DOESN’T REQUIRE A CREDIT CARD NUMBER

That awkward moment when you’re backreading your tumblr dash and you find yourself in the middle of yet another spiraling fandom argument involving from all perspectives people you enjoy and respect.

And you think, not for anything like the first time, that tumblr is TERRIBLE for this. It is. It is an awful, bewildering venue for fandom any conversations and I’ve yet to see signs it’s ever going to improve.

Before I get into why, I want to make a disclaimer, because people have been hurt, and I 100% do not wish to add to that. I’m not admonishing people for taking tumblr interaction too “seriously”, or that the offense caused isn’t “real” enough, or arguing that if you know what’s REALLY going on you’d see that everyone is blameless in everything and no one is behaving badly ever (lol, right).

I’m just going to talk about a pattern I’ve seen repeat itself over and over again, and suggest a possibility for why people have been getting so hurt, so quickly, in tumblr interactions specifically. We’ve been in a persistent state of COMMUNICATION FAIL (yes, more than I’ve ever noticed in past fandoms, and that’s a high bar as it is), and any attempts to solve this via communication have been of little use because they are lost in the underlying COMMUNICATION FAIL.

(Note: Sometimes people really can’t communicate with each other! Their world assumptions are too different, or one or all is not interested in listening! That’s no surprise, and not what I’m talking about here, which is why people who *generally agree* and are to some extent interested in allowing other opinions end up upset and attacked by each other.)

(Q: So why are Homestuck fans so terrible?)

(A: I don’t believe that they are, but what they are is part of a feral fandom that has reared itself largely in tumblr space.)

My History:

When it comes to means of (open) fandom conversation, I started out in a mailing list based fandom, then message boards, then (live)journals, and lastly tumblr. (Jeez I sound old. I guess I am, comparatively, but in my defense I found the holdover LISTSERVs when I was like 11? I have no “before I fandom” story.) So those 4 things are what I’m going to compare for my argument!

And my argument, which I will argue on tumblr, is that tumblr is the worst for arguing productively! Oh, this is going to work so well.

Tumblr is not a very good social networking site.

Where “social networking” is defined as “online community building”, because it’s my post (for the moment) and I do what I want.

OTOH, I’m not convinced it’s trying to be. In fact, I’m convinced the minds behind tumblr are annoyed and panicked at how people keep trying to use it as a social networking site. See this response to people wanting a Private Messaging functionality:

    maced asked: Hi! I have a few questions regarding some changes with the ask box function: 1) Why has tumblr eliminated the ability to hit ‘enter’ in ask boxes? and 2) Why are there character limits in asks? Ask messages are one of the main ways tumblr users communicate with each other. It’s seems like the website is actively reducing functionality and communication b/w its users. 

We’ve been gradually tightening the Ask feature to eventually ensure real questions are all that make it through. In addition to keeping out spam and junk, we’re doing this in preparation for some new feedback tools that are about to roll out. This is increasingly important as the current Ask feature was not designed for high-volume communication and is becoming problematic to scale.

While I promise the new features will be some of the greatest we’ve built, I must stress that we have no plans to make Tumblr a replacement for email. You can send your friends as many messages as you want with Gmail, Gchat, Facebook, etc.

[David Karp]

Ie, “Stop using tumblr wrong!”

But here is a secret. If your users, as a group, are repurposing your site to their own ends, they are not using it wrong. You just did not fully predict the purpose your site would serve for them. Which you can’t anyway. It’s emergent – it builds on itself, and on the culture of the existent userbase.

That’s why, when you notice your users jumping through technological hoops to accomplish something on your site – when you see those “deer paths” being stamped though a usability wilderness, when your userbase’s shared intent is strong enough to get them around the fact you never designed for, let’s say, one on one conversations – what you do is you make the process easier for them! You look at how they are hiking bear country to get themselves from point A to point B and what you do is you build them a proper fucking road!

Unless you are tumblr, in which case what you do instead is build a brick wall across the deer path to stop them. Which. Great. Now I have to fight off bears AND climb a wall to make this fucking commute. By the time we arrive at Point B ain’t nobody out of us in the greatest of moods no more.

We’re still not using tumblr wrong. Because sure, maybe tumblr was designed to be a commonplace book only, and what it is best at is mindlessly reblogging images. But what is the point in showing off our taste in fanart without also connecting to one another as a community? Why link our followers to someone else’s shipping banners unless we can also discuss with them our thoughts on yaoi?

If we’re using tumblr to have conversations, then having conversations is (part of) what tumblr is for.

Because tumblr is a tool, and it’s the users of a tool that define its purpose.

But it goes both ways. We can use a tool to accomplish what we need, but the shape and properties of the tool also define HOW we go about doing that. A hammer will open a chestnut as thoroughly as a nutcracker, if what you have is a hammer, but one of these will result in more mess to clean up and smashed thumbs, and you wouldn’t try to use it with the nut held carefully in your palm. You can create complicated methods to use the hammer adequately for the job, but it will still be more difficult and the results will not be the same.

Tumblr makes communication between its users difficult.

We do it anyway, because it turns out that communication is one of the things human beings always ALWAYS consider a website to be for.

So when we communicate using tumblr, we run into difficulty.

In our hurry along the path to Point B, Conversation-ville, we run head first into the brick walls built to stop us. And of course it hurts. And of course we don’t end up where we want to go.

And I see this over and over again; here is my theory on why.

3 NICE THINGS, AND WHY YOU CANNOT HAVE THEM ON TUMBLR

1. CONTROL

Here is a question I’m used to being able to answer to my satisfaction when starting or joining an online conversation: Who is in control?

Who owns this conversation space?

On LiveJournal, the answer is easy to divine. Who was the original poster? They may ban or screen users they don’t want in their space, or freeze conversation threads they deem unproductive. Is it posted in their personal Journal or a Community, where you will also have to follow comm rules or face comm moderators?

People have compared conversations on LJ to conversations occurring in the OP’s living room. The OP may define the bounds of nicety they are comfortable with, they decide whether the door is locked to invitees only or open to the public, they may kick people out with impunity, and it is considered, shall we say, uncouth to run into a stranger’s home, drop trou, and take a shit on their carpet. (As opposed to starting a conversation in your own living room about how much you’d like to.)

On boards, it usually depends on the purpose of the topic. Is it primarily for posting and discussing your own fic or art, or a general discussion thread? In the first case, other posters may defer to the OP depending on board culture, but it all comes down to the mods in the end. (And yeah, all boards have mods. Some are just more hands off than others.)

Similarly, with mailing lists, it’s the mods who’ll kick you off if they feel it required.

But tumblr doesn’t HAVE moderators, excepting tumblr abuse as a whole, and it doesn’t have LJ’s living-room-type policies.

Unfortunately for everyone, however, tumblr has something of the FEEL of LJ’s living-room-type policies.

If you start a conversation on tumblr, you are starting it on your OWN BLOG. In a space that feels like it is under YOUR control.

Doesn’t that mean YOU own the conversation, that you get to define its terms and that you have the right for people not to come into your space and take over or treat you with less respect than you’re entitled to as the owner of this space? Certainly, tumblr notifies you of reblogs like they are comments responding to you personally.

But to join into a tumblr conversation, you are required to add your contribution in its own post on your OWN BLOG. Which is, again, YOURS.

Doesn’t that mean you are starting a NEW conversation, one that is branched and relevant to the original post, but that is aimed at YOUR readers and primarily about YOUR thoughts? Don’t, then, YOU own the conversation starting from here, and have the right to define its terms, etc.?

Is it any wonder the final exchange in many tumblr debates is “FUCK YOU”, “FUCK YOU HARDER”?

Especially when some users in the debate have significantly more followers than others. If those followers then reblog the conversation, is it a dogpile on the OP, or just individuals wanting to discuss their opinions on the matter in their own space? Both? After all, we all know that those stray sarcastic remarks for the entertainment of our own friends get reported back to the OP as direct responses.

tl;dr version: No one is in control, but everyone feels like they are in control, and it is a clusterfuck of social expectations and intentions.

2. CONTEXT

So let’s say I’ve just noticed an interesting conversation floating around my fandom space of choice. Oh man, I’m gonna catch a piece of THIS action, I have all these thoughts and opinions that I just cannot WAIT to share with those individuals who have implicitly indicated their interest via subscribing to my newsletter!

Except I’d just better make sure I understand what the conversation thread is actually about! How am I going to do that?

Depends.

Am I on a message board? Maybe I should scan back to the beginning of the thread, if it’s that sort of board, or at least far enough to get a feel for the recent thrust of the topic. See if I recognize any of the posters involved, maybe check out the stats or recent posts or ban record on a profile or two but probably not being honest here.

Mailing list? Aaahhhh, well. Is it logged somewhere? Can I be bothered to read from the last Subject change? To search through my undeleted emails for the names of conversation participants – because with v. few exceptions those are connected to their own words?

Nah, not unless I am SO interested am I going to do those things anyway. But that’s okay, because a hell of a lot of the needed context is included in the email reply, often too much, and I COULD actually do those things if I’m nervous about faking it. Besides, all the users of the mailing list are functionally “following” each other – we all are at generally the same degree of awareness (or unawareness) of what a given participant believes.

LJ? I’d better at least read the full original post and any comment threads that look interesting.

Also, I can def. scan quickly over the OP’s profile and recent posts, and same thing with anyone I’m replying to in the comment threads under the post. Check out the tags on the bottom of the post to find the OP’s previous thoughts on the same topic, because Journal fandom places more value on tags that are consistent and organized (compared to tumblr’s expressive uses of tags. The tendencies bleed both ways, but there’s a notable difference.)

This is a lot of info that is easily accessed, and whether I’d bother depends on things like how I ended up at the OP’s post and whether I want to interact with the current participants by adding my thoughts in a comment thread or to start a “new” conversation in my own Journal (ie, in my OWN space, under MY control) and only refer or link to the original post.

But there is in particular one feature I would like you to notice, especially with Journals and Message Boards, which have been the reigning platforms for fandom conversations for years and years.

YOU HAVE ACCESS TO THE CURRENT CONVERSATION, FROM THE BEGINNING. And any direct conversation branches. You can also return and see future responses!

The whole fucking thing. Right there in front of you, for your leisurely perusal.

Nothing clipped out for length or relevancy, or to spare the poor, stretched dashboards of your followers, or because EVERYONE knows the OP is deeply fond of the character they’re mocking here, like you need that goddamn disclaimer on each of your 17 reblogs on the matter. (And man, do I HOPE you are cutting some of that for repetition.)

On tumblr, it’s hard to know where a conversation started, or in what form, or even on what topic. What was the entire discussion chain leading it to your dash? Fuck if I ever know. Also half the top links you DO get probably don’t work, thanks to (poorly implemented) namechanges or tumblr being broken again.

Following tumblr conversations feels like being a spectator in a game of competitive telephone and if there’s a rule for calling foul it’s been lost along the chain.

You can’t even really piece it together from the post’s notes – displayed 50 at a time, jumbled in with likes (likes of which reblog, anyway???), and no indication of branch routes to follow if you find a neat thread.

AND THEN.

Say you’ve found the pieces of the conversation relevant to your interests. Good job. You are a more determined puzzle solver than I.

Now.

Tell me what the people posting here stand for, actually, when they are not being silly or having a shitty day or are making an aside they never thought would be reblogged from them. How do you do that?

Maybe check out their personal tumblrs?

HAH nice TRY. MAYBE you will find evidence of a personality buried in there, we all post differently after all, but MAYBE the only thing you’ll find is 16 pages posted TODAY that are uncommented pictures and memes and, what, you’re gonna shift through that to build a guess on what they were really trying to communicate here? Fuck no you are not don’t even try to pretend to yourself. At most you might find some neat shoes to reblog, uncommented, adding your own 16 pages of today’s ephemera.

Wow, I sound judgy there. And it’s true, tumblr is not built to my personal taste – I’m used to a post/art/fic’s capital being measured comments and links, and reblogging things entire still gives me metaphorical hives. I’m having trouble adjusting to tumblr culture; though adjust I must if I want to play in tumblr fandom, and I really, really do.

But that’s not tumblr’s problem: it’s mine. No platform fits all people: it’s fine.

However, it IS a problem that a significant number of users are attempting to communicate is ways that people have communicated online from time immemorial and they are failing.

We are trying valiantly! We are designing better brick wall grappling tricks (and then tumblr builds a better brick wall, but…) but as a conversation travels across the network, it is still all but impossible to do keep it from dissolving into misunderstanding.

tl;dr version – it is not an option to read a conversation in its whole, so everyone misunderstands everyone else forever.

3. CORRESPONDENCE

Oh god, this one. I am sure anyone making the mistake of following me knows my opinion on tumblr having no reliable means of private, directed communication.

The tumblr askbox is the most broken thing and my face is currently flushing with rage as I think on it. It eats asks without notifying you! It eats private replies to asks without notifying you! It does not save a copy of either in an in/outbox! You can’t respond directly to replies! The character limit is so small now and paragraph breaks have been banned and so have links and I can’t use any punctuation or they vanish ALWAYS and I get spam anyway.

Why are you against private, directed communication, tumblr? I’m not even talking about Journal-fandom’s access locks, although those are nice and useful.

But for many people I interact with on tumblr, I have no other means of contacting them. I don’t have their email or their identity on other fandom services. If I want to say something to them, I have to throw it out into the aether and just kind of hope their eyes are among those that happen to glance upon its contrasting pixel patterns.

But then so might anyone else light on it, free to reblog and misinterpret and have their feelings hurt out of context…

A Private Messaging system, like that on just about every social networking site out there, would solve this. (But then does tumblr even want to BE a social networking site…)

Furthermore, it would allow the participants in a de-railed conversation to contact each other privately – where their respective followers are not present to judge or defend or misinterpret things all the fuck over again or, and this is inescapable, perform for – and apologize or clarify their position.

This is not always a workable solution for many reasons! But it is an important tool to have, and it can often stop wank spirals before they get out of control.

Well.

You know.

Provided that the wank hasn’t travelled to some far off corner of the network, where no one has a reasonable opportunity of even being aware of the original trunk of conversation…

Because, after all, no one has the ability snip those threads, get them to move somewhere off the OP’s dash…

And it happens over

and over

and over…

tl;dr version – it should be possible for people to contact each other directly; it would solve so many problems.

God, I’m tired. All this tires me. Watching people getting hurt like this tires me.

I’m sure there would be wank if we were still on, say, LJ. There’s always wank. But tumblr wank happens way more often and intensely. And then you just have to stand back and wait for it to burn itself out, and then attend to the casualties.

And the thing is, if we had the ability to a. follow entire conversations and b. communicate privately when needed, something interesting might come out of the fact that no one is in Control of anything but their own postings. That it travels so quickly through different subcliques in the network. tumblr’s a new beast after all, maybe it’ll be something cool!

But not like this it won’t.

tl;dr version – if you are having a difficult time communicating on tumblr, it might not be you OR the people you are attempting to communicate with. The infrastructure of tumblr itself makes communication difficult.