Glorified Book Club

i think there are many reasons as to why this has happened, and i doubt any of it is exactly exclusive to these fandoms or the cross section of these fandoms that make one slightly bigger fandom. but i do think it is highlighted by how small of a fandom this is, as fandoms go and in the grand scheme of things. and unfortunately, in such a small fandom, these things are actually detrimental.

one side of it is that people (myself included!) often don't post in the tags anymore. at one point there was some irritation and disagreements over what belongs in the "main tags" and what doesn't. more specfically people did not see eye to eye about shipping in the main tags, so shippers kind of created their own clicks and stopped using the main tags. but shippers weren't the only ones who ended up creating clicks. and so these groups of mutuals started forming, often around one or a few bigger blogs. and once everyone within a click followed each other, using tags lost its meaning. everyone who mattered to any poster was going to see it anyway from all of their mutuals.

but tumblr isn't the only place where clicks started to form. people started to migrate over onto discord servers or groupchats, where now truly only their own click would interact with them.

i'll give you a personal example on how what are essentially private conversations create these waves that kill fandom activity on more public platforms: more than once i've been in a situation where i've been making a post on something, only to find out the topic has been exhausted on discord servers already. i remember once working on a whole translation of a käärijä song, because i hadn't seen any on tumblr and i hadn't seen anyone talking about the song at all. and then i found out that a translation had been going around at least one if not multiple servers for a while. so i never posted mine because, to put it bluntly, what's the point? so people can like it, maybe reblog it with a couple of tags, and then go back on their servers to have the actual conversations?

i know that the idea of servers and groupchats is not to actively exclude people. i understand why these more direct channels of conversation allure people. i know people in this fandom aren't trying to "privatise" the fandom on purpose. but... it's kind of happening, and a small fandom won't survive it as fandom.

because, at least to me, fandom is something a person should be able to find.

if, in this context for example, a person heard a song they like in a language they don't speak and they wanted to find a translation and conversation about it from and with likeminded people (aka other fans) they should be able to. fandom should be the community and place they can easily find on an at least semi-public platform using search words. to me, fandom itself is not a group chat or a discord server that you can only find if you know who to ask. it's not even a little circle of mutuals who make tagless posts for each other and only interact with each other! that's your fandom friendgroup.

and you know what, that's wonderful, that you've made friends within fandom! it genuinely is. it's also very natural, that you start forming friendships over a mutual interest.

but your friendgroup is not the same thing as fandom.

i really wish people in this fandom would find the joy of sharing with the entire fandom again, instead of only sharing with their own ingroup. i really wish this fandom would find its way back onto platforms where other people, new people, can find them. people want to find you - the tribe they're looking for.

so yeah, i wish we all (again, myself included!) started using the main tags again, and just filter or block the specific content we don't want to see. you don't want to see shipping? filter the ship tags (and of course to all shippers: use the ship tags!!). tag your posts appropriately and give everyone and yourself the chance to not only filter what they don't want to see, but maybe even more importantly, find what they do want to see.

and i wish we started reblogging from each other again, adding our thoughts and opinions where others can see them and add onto them. there used to be so much conversation in these fandoms about the actual music!! every new song, every new music video, every new gig inspired so many posts, big and small! because at the end of the day, isn't that what we're here for? but, pardon my french, it's frustrating as fuck to think that all of that is now scattered in all of these small ingroups who don't interact with one another.

and again, i know nobody said to themselves like "i have decided to only tell my opinions to a select few from now on." i understand that all of this happened slowly over a period of time. but i guess it's just becoming obvious now that such a small fandom won't survive like this.

because what's gonna happen when enough people in the ingroups lose interest? when the click leader blogs disappear or start focusing on something else? what's gonna happen when the servers quiet down and the groupchats slowly shift to just talking about everyday life among friends? there will be no fandom to come back to.

because the thing is, while servers and groupchats and private conversations absolutely do have a place in fandom, they can't be the basis of it. because, again, they can't be found. a fandom can't be a ghost town where actually every house is hosting a very quiet party, you just don't know it because it's silent on the streets.

and, because i am this person myself, i feel confident in saying that fandom interests people who crave interaction without "traditional" socialising. i understand the charm of group chats and servers, but i don't want to be in them. and i know i'm not the only one. and as much as i've found lovely moots on here, i don't want that to be my only experience of these fandoms either.

i genuinely want to hear people's thoughts and feelings and opinions, even the ones i disagree with! and that includes people i've never spoken to before because fuck. that's the point. i wanna sit at a big campfire with all of you, chime in every once in a while and sometimes just silently listen. what i wish i didn't have to do is build a small fire only to see several other fires somewhere in the distance, all having their own private conversations about the same things but never bothering to look around and see each other. and i know it's easy to think that well everyone is welcome to our campfire, all you have to do is come over. but is it actually easy to come over?

and after a rant like this it is of course fair to ask what am i doing about all this then. i mean, i definitely ask myself that question all the time. i used to be one of the people posting about music all the time! so what happened? i think the answer is in those experiences of it feeling pointless now that the conversation is largely somewhere else. too many times it has felt like talking to walls on here. but, nothing's gonna happen if i just sit here sulking quietly either. so, i will try to do more out loud myself.

because i care about what happens to this fandom. i like it here. of course, if people genuinely don't want to participate in this fandom on the more public sides of this platform anymore, then so be it. i'm not like.. entitled to fandom being the way i want it to be. fandoms change and that's just life, that's just the way it is and i guess every fandom has its peak at some point and then fades into something else. maybe this one is past its peak and that's just the way it is. if so, i'll get over it, eventually.

i think there are many reasons as to why this has happened, and i doubt any of it is exactly exclusive to these fandoms or the cross section of these fandoms that make one slightly bigger fandom. but i do think it is highlighted by how small of a fandom this is, as fandoms go and in the grand scheme of things. and unfortunately, in such a small fandom, these things are actually detrimental.

one side of it is that people (myself included!) often don't post in the tags anymore. at one point there was some irritation and disagreements over what belongs in the "main tags" and what doesn't. more specfically people did not see eye to eye about shipping in the main tags, so shippers kind of created their own clicks and stopped using the main tags. but shippers weren't the only ones who ended up creating clicks. and so these groups of mutuals started forming, often around one or a few bigger blogs. and once everyone within a click followed each other, using tags lost its meaning. everyone who mattered to any poster was going to see it anyway from all of their mutuals.

but tumblr isn't the only place where clicks started to form. people started to migrate over onto discord servers or groupchats, where now truly only their own click would interact with them.

i'll give you a personal example on how what are essentially private conversations create these waves that kill fandom activity on more public platforms: more than once i've been in a situation where i've been making a post on something, only to find out the topic has been exhausted on discord servers already. i remember once working on a whole translation of a käärijä song, because i hadn't seen any on tumblr and i hadn't seen anyone talking about the song at all. and then i found out that a translation had been going around at least one if not multiple servers for a while. so i never posted mine because, to put it bluntly, what's the point? so people can like it, maybe reblog it with a couple of tags, and then go back on their servers to have the actual conversations?

i know that the idea of servers and groupchats is not to actively exclude people. i understand why these more direct channels of conversation allure people. i know people in this fandom aren't trying to "privatise" the fandom on purpose. but... it's kind of happening, and a small fandom won't survive it as fandom.

because, at least to me, fandom is something a person should be able to find.

if, in this context for example, a person heard a song they like in a language they don't speak and they wanted to find a translation and conversation about it from and with likeminded people (aka other fans) they should be able to. fandom should be the community and place they can easily find on an at least semi-public platform using search words. to me, fandom itself is not a group chat or a discord server that you can only find if you know who to ask. it's not even a little circle of mutuals who make tagless posts for each other and only interact with each other! that's your fandom friendgroup.

and you know what, that's wonderful, that you've made friends within fandom! it genuinely is. it's also very natural, that you start forming friendships over a mutual interest.

but your friendgroup is not the same thing as fandom.

i really wish people in this fandom would find the joy of sharing with the entire fandom again, instead of only sharing with their own ingroup. i really wish this fandom would find its way back onto platforms where other people, new people, can find them. people want to find you - the tribe they're looking for.

so yeah, i wish we all (again, myself included!) started using the main tags again, and just filter or block the specific content we don't want to see. you don't want to see shipping? filter the ship tags (and of course to all shippers: use the ship tags!!). tag your posts appropriately and give everyone and yourself the chance to not only filter what they don't want to see, but maybe even more importantly, find what they do want to see.

and i wish we started reblogging from each other again, adding our thoughts and opinions where others can see them and add onto them. there used to be so much conversation in these fandoms about the actual music!! every new song, every new music video, every new gig inspired so many posts, big and small! because at the end of the day, isn't that what we're here for? but, pardon my french, it's frustrating as fuck to think that all of that is now scattered in all of these small ingroups who don't interact with one another.

and again, i know nobody said to themselves like "i have decided to only tell my opinions to a select few from now on." i understand that all of this happened slowly over a period of time. but i guess it's just becoming obvious now that such a small fandom won't survive like this.

because what's gonna happen when enough people in the ingroups lose interest? when the click leader blogs disappear or start focusing on something else? what's gonna happen when the servers quiet down and the groupchats slowly shift to just talking about everyday life among friends? there will be no fandom to come back to.

because the thing is, while servers and groupchats and private conversations absolutely do have a place in fandom, they can't be the basis of it. because, again, they can't be found. a fandom can't be a ghost town where actually every house is hosting a very quiet party, you just don't know it because it's silent on the streets.

and, because i am this person myself, i feel confident in saying that fandom interests people who crave interaction without "traditional" socialising. i understand the charm of group chats and servers, but i don't want to be in them. and i know i'm not the only one. and as much as i've found lovely moots on here, i don't want that to be my only experience of these fandoms either.

i genuinely want to hear people's thoughts and feelings and opinions, even the ones i disagree with! and that includes people i've never spoken to before because fuck. that's the point. i wanna sit at a big campfire with all of you, chime in every once in a while and sometimes just silently listen. what i wish i didn't have to do is build a small fire only to see several other fires somewhere in the distance, all having their own private conversations about the same things but never bothering to look around and see each other. and i know it's easy to think that well everyone is welcome to our campfire, all you have to do is come over. but is it actually easy to come over?

and after a rant like this it is of course fair to ask what am i doing about all this then. i mean, i definitely ask myself that question all the time. i used to be one of the people posting about music all the time! so what happened? i think the answer is in those experiences of it feeling pointless now that the conversation is largely somewhere else. too many times it has felt like talking to walls on here. but, nothing's gonna happen if i just sit here sulking quietly either. so, i will try to do more out loud myself.

because i care about what happens to this fandom. i like it here. of course, if people genuinely don't want to participate in this fandom on the more public sides of this platform anymore, then so be it. i'm not like.. entitled to fandom being the way i want it to be. fandoms change and that's just life, that's just the way it is and i guess every fandom has its peak at some point and then fades into something else. maybe this one is past its peak and that's just the way it is. if so, i'll get over it, eventually.