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my tumblr migration
Mar. 8th, 2024 08:10 amI logged onto pillowfort this morning and found we'd gone from 33% donation to 39%, it's incredible! The site is user-funded. Beyond the initial $5 sign-up fee, all other funding is voluntary.
I've only been on the site for four days now, but I'm really proud of the platform.
Not only do I enjoy using it, but I love what it stands for. It feels cozy for lack of a better word. Not just because it doesn't have the user population numbers of tumblr (though one day, I think it could) but because we can so easily engage with the posts of others. We can comment directly, and get a reply; have a whole conversation! It seems silly, but it just feels more connected in terms of interactions in a way other platforms just don't.
I've had a suspicion that for sometime using tumblr was at least partly responsible for my disinterest in writing.
Not to lay all the blame there, of course. There are other factors. But I've felt a pressure to be engage with tumblr, to promote stories and snippets, answer ask-games and prompts and return the favor for others, that I just couldn't keep up with it.
Granted, a lot of that pressure is self-inflicted. No one held a gun to my head.
But it felt like a job, something I had to do.
If I didn't have a presence online, no one would remember me. They wouldn't read my words, or engage me in those very ask-games and prompts that slowly began to fill me with dread. It was a contradictory experience. And while I tried to grapple with an equilibrium -- starting over on a new tumblr side-blog and even stating I wasn't currently writing -- I felt adrift. If I wanted community then, I wouldn't get it by having no followers, or having nothing to offer.
That's the crux of it really.
Something about social media as a whole has tricked me into thinking I have to produce content in order to maintain interest, to "earn" my place in the community.
In fandom spaces, creators disappear all the time, you might say.
But I didn't want to disappear. I wanted to be around, I wanted to be involved. I wanted to write. I wanted to share that writing. I wanted to engage. It just didn't feel worth it.
Likes and reblogs are great. I can't deny I could count at least, on getting a notification for either, or that I felt satisfaction in garnering a response in that way. There's a hollowness to the feeling, though. Like eating popcorn when you're hungry. Yes, you're eating, but it isn't nutritious, it won't fill you up.
I don't remember the last time I had an actual exchange with someone on tumblr.
I realize now that being there felt lonely.
I'm under no illusions that pillowfort, as a platform, may be able to avert that feeling on its own. Everyone is responsible for their own experience. However, with the set-up of the platform to encourage conversation -- whoever decided to use the ao3 review / forum style comment system under posts, I could kiss you with tongue -- to actually connect rather than just leaving it up to the presentation of it through likes and reblogs (which it still has), it gives me hope that social networking will make a comeback, and maybe, I'll even be a part of it.
I've only been on the site for four days now, but I'm really proud of the platform.
Not only do I enjoy using it, but I love what it stands for. It feels cozy for lack of a better word. Not just because it doesn't have the user population numbers of tumblr (though one day, I think it could) but because we can so easily engage with the posts of others. We can comment directly, and get a reply; have a whole conversation! It seems silly, but it just feels more connected in terms of interactions in a way other platforms just don't.
I've had a suspicion that for sometime using tumblr was at least partly responsible for my disinterest in writing.
Not to lay all the blame there, of course. There are other factors. But I've felt a pressure to be engage with tumblr, to promote stories and snippets, answer ask-games and prompts and return the favor for others, that I just couldn't keep up with it.
Granted, a lot of that pressure is self-inflicted. No one held a gun to my head.
But it felt like a job, something I had to do.
If I didn't have a presence online, no one would remember me. They wouldn't read my words, or engage me in those very ask-games and prompts that slowly began to fill me with dread. It was a contradictory experience. And while I tried to grapple with an equilibrium -- starting over on a new tumblr side-blog and even stating I wasn't currently writing -- I felt adrift. If I wanted community then, I wouldn't get it by having no followers, or having nothing to offer.
That's the crux of it really.
Something about social media as a whole has tricked me into thinking I have to produce content in order to maintain interest, to "earn" my place in the community.
In fandom spaces, creators disappear all the time, you might say.
But I didn't want to disappear. I wanted to be around, I wanted to be involved. I wanted to write. I wanted to share that writing. I wanted to engage. It just didn't feel worth it.
Likes and reblogs are great. I can't deny I could count at least, on getting a notification for either, or that I felt satisfaction in garnering a response in that way. There's a hollowness to the feeling, though. Like eating popcorn when you're hungry. Yes, you're eating, but it isn't nutritious, it won't fill you up.
I don't remember the last time I had an actual exchange with someone on tumblr.
I realize now that being there felt lonely.
I'm under no illusions that pillowfort, as a platform, may be able to avert that feeling on its own. Everyone is responsible for their own experience. However, with the set-up of the platform to encourage conversation -- whoever decided to use the ao3 review / forum style comment system under posts, I could kiss you with tongue -- to actually connect rather than just leaving it up to the presentation of it through likes and reblogs (which it still has), it gives me hope that social networking will make a comeback, and maybe, I'll even be a part of it.