Social media has officially stopped making sense to me

[the_deep_magic]

So.

I have been trying to do the Tumblr thing and I'm just... not getting it.  I follow precisely five fandom people and some fun porn Tumblrs because, c'mon, it's the internet and I can't keep up with my feed.  I guess most people use it as something you're supposed to constantly check throughout the day, like Twitter?  Because some people post dozens of things a day, and even with just those five fandom Tumblrs, I get double and triple reblogs.  And it's not practical to keep checking on my phone all day, because a lot of the posts contain multiple gifs and the damn thing takes forever to load, if it loads at all (also, there's no "under the cut" option for the porn, so I feel weird checking it in public at all).

AND I CAN'T JUST FUCKING COMMENT ON SOMETHING.  That's what drives me nuts -- it really doesn't work as a replacement for LJ because there's no way to really have communities or dialogues without endless, repetitive reblogging.  Don't even get me started on the endless stupid fucking hashtags, which make things impossible to read.  And yet, much of fandom seems to be moving over there, and I don't want to be left out. 

Am I doing something wrong?  Am I missing an obvious comment box?  I know about Tumblr Savior, but that doesn't filter out humongous gif posts or reblogs and if I can't run it on my phone, it's not worth much to me, anyway.  Plus, I don't want to block every post that mentions, say, Benedict Cumberbatch, because I might miss some Sherlock or Trek news or fanart or something, I just don't want to be constantly bombarded with massive pictures of him.  (He's an awesome actor, but I simply cannot get around the fact that he has a weird alien face. YMMV)

I feel like the old lady with a rake screaming "YOU KIDS STOP POSTING SO DAMN MUCH!"  I'd love to follow more people, but since I can't keep up with five (one of whom barely posts), it's pretty much impossible.  And anything potentially important that I wanted to post would just get lost in the noise.  For example, if I wanted to share that I watched the season premiere of Community tonight and got kind of uncomfortably turned on by Jeff tango dancing with the creepy Dean, I would miss the important emotional support that I get (or used to get) from sharing with my followers on LJ.

So congratulations, people who are still reading this, you got to learn one more awkward fact about me!  Now how do we go about getting everyone back on LJ?

Comments

[anivad.livejournal.com]

I follow 47 blogs at the moment, all of which are generally slow posters (once a week, a few times a month, perhaps up to 15 times a day, or people who don't post for ages and then suddenly spam 50 posts and then go silent again for a long time), and it's definitely manageable for me; I can usually take just a few minutes to scroll through if I don't get sidetracked, and then leave it open in a tab while I do other stuff. Generally I find that there's a lot of overlap on individual people's blogs, and I'm not always interested in everything they post, so instead I go to the main sources and follow those. e.g. If you want ZQ content, it is more practical to follow a ZQ blog than a few of his fans. That way you also avoid getting repeats on your dashboard.

This has meant not following some of my friends, because while I love them a lot they might post like 100 reblogs a day and I can't keep up with that. So I try to limit myself to blogs that solely post things relevant to my interests, plus a small handful of friends who aren't that active.

There are also people (like my brother) who don't bother reading every single thing on their dash; it's more like an unending stream of awesome that they can pop by to look at every once in a while for a few minutes before going off to do something else. I can't do that because I'm a completist, but it works for others, perhaps a lot of them. Tumblr is sort of time-dependent; if you post something, there's no guarantee that the people following you are going to see it unless they happen to be online at that time.

For commenting - some posts have a comment option in the form of a little dialogue bubble icon at the top right hand corner of the post, or a 'reply to this post' field at the bottom. Or you could just reblog something 'as text', and delete the earlier comments so that it's just the latest comment plus the one you're replying to, rather than the entire post and resulting conversation. Also, hashtags! Commentary can go in there. Why do they make things hard to read? :/

Also, blame LJ for chasing everyone off with their new features. >_> have you seen their new friends page template which will soon be forced on everyone? They basically want to make LJ into Facebook and Tumblr. We'd probably have a better chance of getting fandom to move to DW.

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the new friends page sucks. If everyone would just all agree at once to move over to DW, that would be fine, but mostly I just see people threatening to do it and then... not.

[anivad.livejournal.com]

Oh! There's a NSFW option somewhere around that you can turn on, to hide porn and/or images in general. I can't remember the details, but google might help.

Also there's the ask boxes for one-on-one conversations that you can choose to make public if you want.

[aliassmith.livejournal.com]

I've been suuuuper reblog-happy since I've been on holiday, and I know that will only get about three thousand times worse once Trek comes out so I should probably let you know now that I will take zero offence to being unfollowed! I have a feeling I'm in a bunch of fandoms you're not that into right now anyway, so my no-theme-whatsover blog's probably doing your head in. That said:

CAN WE JUST TAKE A MINUTE TO TALK ABOUT HOW UNCOMFORTABLY HOT THAT TANGO SCENE WAS? BECAUSE JFC. WHERE DID THAT COME FROM???

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

But, see, I don't want to unfollow you because then I miss out on the good stuff, too. I guess I'll just try to figure out Tumblr Savior.

CAN WE JUST TAKE A MINUTE TO TALK ABOUT HOW UNCOMFORTABLY HOT THAT TANGO SCENE WAS? BECAUSE JFC. WHERE DID THAT COME FROM???

WTF I HAVE NO IDEA I'M JUST ALL FLUSHED AND CONFUSED NOW

[lindarella123.livejournal.com]

You summed up my frustrations with Tumblr. How the hell do you comment? The constant reblogs! Argggggggggggggh! I love looking at Captain Fine, but multiple posts of the same image(s) is frustrating to slog through. I agree it's not a replacement for LJ, atleast for me. :D

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you understand. We need to form a support group.

[jouissant.livejournal.com]

I had/have a totally empty Tumblr, and I was fiddling around with it yesterday and followed like 4 blogs (aaand now feel like a huge creeper, btw). And it is not just you! Tumblr makes me feel a) ancient and b) like a huge dumbass. I just feel like it's not intuitive at all? I don't use Twitter either so maybe I'm just not used to hashtagging the shit out of everything, I don't know. But I want to get used to it before Trek because I want to be there for the fangirling.

I like DW okay but I still feel like LJ is my comfort zone.

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

I just feel like it's not intuitive at all?

Right? At least LJ has a FAQ and instructions and shit.

[tikra.livejournal.com]

ahahaaaaa
my thoughts exactly when i first embarked on the mystery that is tumblr. i had no idea how to make posts and whatnot, and i'm still in the dark concerning certain things (<--- especially since tumblr changed its layout), so i mainly reblog things.

thank god i had a friend who's had a tumblr for longer, so she helped me out quite a bit. it takes some time to get used to, but it's grown on me and i love being on tumblr :) i dun follow a lot of people, but some of them post quite a lot and there is no way of keeping accurate track of it, so i just 'go with the flow' and, if time permits, usually go back between 10-50 pages at times and see what the peeps i follow have posted :)

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I guess it's just a matter of getting used to it and not feeling like I have to read/see EVERYTHING.

[thesilverwitch.livejournal.com]

you're not supposed to keep up with your dash! just think like this: if it's something worth seeing, it will show up again. i only check things posted while i'm online, occasionally venturing into earlier posts if i have nothing to do. if you want to keep up with someone and see if there's anything going on with their lives or just read their posts, simply go to their blog, otherwise, dont try to keep up with your dash. there's no point, really.

you should download missing e. with it, the tags will all wrap up in continuous lines so they're easy to read. the reason why people use them a lot instead of adding comments is that adding comments is, frankly, lame as shit. unless you have something very relevant and interesting to add, the person who made the post will not have any interest in seeing your reblog notification with whatever random comment you added. kudos to your followers. i know i, at least, always remove comments made by other people unless they're vital to the post.

and you can reply! you just have to follow those people for more than one week, or have a mutual follow with them! if for some reason they have the reply option off, just go to their askbox.

tumblr is really easy to use, but it's not livejournal and you shouldn't try to make it livejournal? people there usually dont say anything unless they either a) have a good reason and something to add themselves or b) know you and want to talk to you. so if you make a post about the newest episode of community, there's a high chance you won't get any replies until you get a good number of followers and make a bunch of friendships.

hope this helps?

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

and you can reply! you just have to follow those people for more than one week, or have a mutual follow with them! if for some reason they have the reply option off, just go to their askbox.

But where is this reply option? I've seen the speech bubble at the top or the text box at the bottom only a handful of times. Does the person have to have it specially enabled?

[anivad.livejournal.com]

yeah, they have to specially enable it.

[thesilverwitch.livejournal.com]

Yupe. Although pretty much everyone who has visited their settings page has it enabled, so if you don't see it it's probably because that post is not a text post/is a reblog, since the reply function only works on original text posts.

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

the reply function only works on original text posts

THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH. It's dumb, but it explains so much.

[thesilverwitch.livejournal.com]

ahah yeah. you can just send people asks though! that's what i always do anyway

[hilsongirl.livejournal.com]

i had the same problem at first, what i did was get some browsers extensions like Tumblr savior where you can black list anything you don't want to see, it makes the noise so much manageable.
i completely agree on that's lacking a sense of community but i guess most people work that out with the tracked tags.

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

I think I'm going to have to do the same with the browser extensions. :oP

[lil-insanity.livejournal.com]

Gah, I feel exactly the same way. I just can't figure out Tumblr and it's very frustrating to me. I like LJ.

(Except about Benedict Cumberbatch's face. Omg, I would lick him.)

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

EVERYBODY NEEDS TO STAY ON LJ!

(And more power to you. He's just not my cup of tea.)

[verizonhorizon.livejournal.com]

We are so similar in some things and experiences but totally different on this one! I love Tumblr. It's addicting. And yes there are definitely things I could teach you about how to get it to be more interactive!

[asya-ana.livejournal.com]

Totally agree, and though Tumblr has its charms, LJ will always be home. On a side note, rec-ing your Quinto/Pine RPF over here > http://asya-ana.livejournal.com/68249.html

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the rec!