(no subject)

[kradeelav]

idk if I've seen this specific quibble voiced but one of the many things that makes me feel uneasy about current social media (especially twitter) is the ... constant low grade whiplash in newsfeed/accounts?

like you can have cute pokemon art, cute FE art, [horrific appeal for help against a warcrime], aesthetiq posts, [teeth-grindingly incorrect low-key radical political misinformation], more fanart...

and I don't know how to word it precisely but something makes me think that's partly where we went wrong - crossing too many streams too quickly without ... the wisdom to ask if there's any unforseen consequences? not that there's no place for important social discussions - but that it almost cheapens those deeply horrific, tragic tragedies when you place it right next to fanart? and almost blunts it? (and dare i say - almost vice versa?)

Like I constantly look at what went *right* with dA and no it was never perfect - but there was always an understanding that art took center stage and you could ramble about personal shit in the journals but it was always secondary and in a separate feed. (god, i would fucking /love/ separate dA-esque feeds for twitter, and the ability to mute all text posts - that'd almost fix all of my complaints about the site on the spot.)

but like - there's a deep low-level anxiety/ever-open psychic wound i feel whenever I used to see those posts mixed in, I've since curated my feed to avoid that mix and to focus on actual actions when possible - but ... ugh.

idek i feel like i've been complaining a lot lately about macro shit that can't be changed, apologies.

Comments

[armaina]

I watched the slow change in attitude in social media and internet interaction over the years and the very mechanics of the services used have a whole lot to do with that whiplash.

LJ may have not had the ability to make side journals, but the ability to make filtered accounts and LJ cuts, on top of the lack of reblog, I think mitigated a lot of the whiplash that could have occurred. It also taught people that they were allowed to pick and choose who they were comfortable with talking about certain subjects.

There seemed to be this sort of prevalent culture on LJ about keeping your feed tidy for your followers. Cutting long entries and sensitive subjects, providing warnings, even making filters for more sensitive subjects for those that didn't want to see it at all. Users didn't thrive on a call-to-action mentality, and there was no metrics other than comments to be concerned about and reblogs didn't splinter conversation or sully followers of followers. So much of that changed when tumblr became popular.

Tumblr was Always On and it's lack of selective privacy on top of the way it functions is mechanically what lead to what we deal with, now. The private blogs were terribly convoluted so very few people bothered with them and it lead to an era where everyone just dumped everything unfiltered and expected everyone to do the same. There were side blogs but they quickly became Fandom related, aesthetic and cute storage vessels. No one wanted to separate the bad from the good anymore, no one ever thought they had to and they were rewarded for endlessly venting to each other and getting reactionary likes and doing it all over again for the same thing. This slowly conditioned everyone into believing that it was good and 'honest' to dump everything in the same place and if you hid you were disingenuous.

I'm honestly so glad for DA setting the standard of having journals, posts, faves, and other interactions be something you can just opt out of. It's likely one of the single most reasons why other services after it followed in it's steps. (now if only we had more art gallery options for explicit porn)

[kradeelav]

(sorry, catching up on old replies!)

I really liked what you said about LJ's "culture" of feeds staying tidy - because I'm nodding a lot at what you're mentioning about the services changing ... but can also see how it's due to the various group dynamics of the cultures also responding to, and jumping from the base service.

Definitely explains how DW has mostly followed on that similar sense of tidiness, wheras as you said, tumblr is very much ... not that.

[armaina]

Old comments is fiiine, I know how it is to just not have the Brain to say something at the time.

And, yep yep. function of a service always becomes a vector to the flavor of the culture it produces.