(no subject)

[fan_eunice]

I am, very shortly, going to be venturing into the world of Tumblr again. The thing is my internet up here sucks so hard that I finally gave up on it. Loading a single page on my dashboard takes forever, and while I am somewhat willing to be patient with the insane buffering times I must endure for watching something on Netflix or whatever, the frustration to payoff ratio with something like Tumblr mostly just leaves me wanting to punch my modem in the neck. But I will have decent internet for at least a few months in the near future, so I'm interested to see how it will read differently when I can just casually load my dash or browse tags, or actually make and post things to it.

I think I am also kind of terrified of it. My limited experience with it so far has made me feel old, I still can't figure out how to follow conversations, it moves ridiculously fast which provokes my anxiety (I am not at all good with having to think on the spot in real time, see also: the reason I never go to Twitter), and the sheer numbers in terms of what dictates a popular post or user (seriously, *thousands*....THOUSANDS?!?!?) is...like, I already know how that's going to go in my head. Either no one or a small number of people will interact with me and I will compare that to the rest of tumblr and feel like an unloved loser. Or, in the highly unlikely event I make some kind of post that gets attention, I'll crawl under my bed and burst into tears at the idea of that many people seeing me at all.

On the other hand? I like making things, and my making things desires tends towards visual types of art, which is exactly what Tumblr does best. I make vids! I'm learning to draw! I'm actually fascinated by gifs and kinda want to learn how to do them. And I like looking at these things as well. My brief exposure to Tumblr is one in which, when I could get it to load, I was going 'oooooh', 'aaaaaaah', 'heeeeeeeee' a lot. My preferred style of fannish platform is still either the DW/LJ or the message board type, but so much of fannish content has skipped off merrily to Tumblrland, and I hate not having access to it. I mean, you will pry my lj/dw from my cold dead hands, but fandom goes where fandom goes.

I think right now what I am seeking is reassurance and Tumblr success stories and tips from those of y'all who have made the jump successfully.

Comments

[par_avion]

I have an on/off rel w tumblr. It can be nice to follow a tag to see shiny pics of your favorite thing. That part feels very low commitment to me, I don't know them, anyone can use a tag. Occasionally I like (heart) or reblog something. If it's a rare tag, there may not be that many posts in day.

I do also (attempt) to friend all my LJ/DW friends on tumblr (many names don't match, which is hard). That gets overwhelming to me if I think that I have to keep up with it. I use tumblr savior to weed out certain tags, to reduce the amount of Definitely Not My Fandom that shows up.

I check it occasionally as a reading list until I get tired (almost never "until I've seen everything since last time I checked"), and may check individual people's tumblr directly is they're posting stuff that I'm into or if I want to feel like I'm keeping up with them, because tumblr is where they are hanging out. I also use some kind of animated gif blocker because otherwise it's too slow (and too many animated gifs make me anxious). Also, no infinite scroll, too hard on my computer.

For me it is mostly looking. I used to like finding things on deviantart etc. and using the "post to tumblr" button to share it, but that is apparently controversial and makes artists angry ... even tho it is crediting them, and linking to them, and there is that little share button right there ... so I don't really do that anymore.

[fan_eunice]

I really like SHINY THINGS, both looking at and making them, so that part fills me with anticipatory joy. But, yeah, I think I'm going to have to start learning how to use the addons/filters as well to keep from getting completely overwhelmed and anxious.