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Fandom Snowflake Challenge: Days 14-15
Jan. 15th, 2019 08:11 pmDay 14
In your own space, talk about what you think the future holds for fandom.
It's difficult to guess, with everything so in flux for fandom at large. Tumblr has been such a big factor in how fandom worked for the last few years, and not just because it happened to be the main hub for so many people. It influenced what style of fanworks were popular and how people communicated. It had an effect on fandom etiquette and started conversations (some much needed, some pretty ugly) about fandom behavior. Until we know for sure what the next big hub is, there's really no knowing how fandom will look in the future.
Hopefully, however things fall out, the next phase will make fandom a kinder place than it was in some areas of tumblr, where the goal seemed to be finding things to hate more often than not. It was possible to keep your experience positive there, but it was a lot more work than it is here, and it's been lovely to be reminded of that. Finding joy in the things you love might not be the only thing fandom is about, but it should be the main thing, or why are we all here anyway?
Day 15
Talk about why you participated in Snowflake &/or what you got out of it.
While I did miss this journal style of fandom (and resist going over to tumblr for a time because of it), it has been a bit of a learning curve coming back. Tumblr had its good points and its bad ones, and one of the good ones was the way it allowed you to feel active in fandom by curating a blog that was interesting to people, whether or not much (or even any) of the material came directly from you. When you're anxious or introverted, it can be easier to do that than to make posts and leave comments regularly. One of tumblr's bad points, though, was how public every single thing posted had to be. You could limit the exposure of a post with tagging, but even so when you did actually want to say something it could be much, much more intimidating. I can't put a number to how many posts I deleted as drafts over the years because it just wasn't worth the stress.
All of this is to say that the main reason I decided to do Snowflake is because it seemed like a good way to motivate myself to make posts, talk to people, and generally re-learn this style of fandom again, and it's been lovely! I'm so glad I did it.
In your own space, talk about what you think the future holds for fandom.
It's difficult to guess, with everything so in flux for fandom at large. Tumblr has been such a big factor in how fandom worked for the last few years, and not just because it happened to be the main hub for so many people. It influenced what style of fanworks were popular and how people communicated. It had an effect on fandom etiquette and started conversations (some much needed, some pretty ugly) about fandom behavior. Until we know for sure what the next big hub is, there's really no knowing how fandom will look in the future.
Hopefully, however things fall out, the next phase will make fandom a kinder place than it was in some areas of tumblr, where the goal seemed to be finding things to hate more often than not. It was possible to keep your experience positive there, but it was a lot more work than it is here, and it's been lovely to be reminded of that. Finding joy in the things you love might not be the only thing fandom is about, but it should be the main thing, or why are we all here anyway?
Day 15
Talk about why you participated in Snowflake &/or what you got out of it.
While I did miss this journal style of fandom (and resist going over to tumblr for a time because of it), it has been a bit of a learning curve coming back. Tumblr had its good points and its bad ones, and one of the good ones was the way it allowed you to feel active in fandom by curating a blog that was interesting to people, whether or not much (or even any) of the material came directly from you. When you're anxious or introverted, it can be easier to do that than to make posts and leave comments regularly. One of tumblr's bad points, though, was how public every single thing posted had to be. You could limit the exposure of a post with tagging, but even so when you did actually want to say something it could be much, much more intimidating. I can't put a number to how many posts I deleted as drafts over the years because it just wasn't worth the stress.
All of this is to say that the main reason I decided to do Snowflake is because it seemed like a good way to motivate myself to make posts, talk to people, and generally re-learn this style of fandom again, and it's been lovely! I'm so glad I did it.
