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Updates of a Tumblr refugee
Well, it's been a while. I've been spending way too much time on Tumblr and obsessing over Star Wars, and decided to take a break during the last week before the release of the next movie. (Idk if I'll be seeing it, I'm getting restricted spoilers from a friend first.) Tumblr is a fun place, addictive by design, and the fact that it has a somewhat functional mobile app meant it was suited to my new schedule of watching a baby for large swathes of time. Between the notes coming in, the asks--I answered like 10 in a row to clear my inbox before taking this break--and the chat messages, it fulfills the craving for constant feedback and stimulus. Add to that Discord for multiperson chatting, and it really does become a 24/7 thing.
It got to be a little too much in the end. The anxieties about the upcoming movie, the constant exposure, the outrages, the arguments... maybe it's because I didn't grow up on the internet, but I don't think I'm up to being "on" to any social media platform on a constant basis. I found myself missing the more sedate pace of LJ/DW, even though back when I went over to Tumblr I didn't like how quiet it was here. Now that quiet comes as a relief.
Real life stuff:
- The babby is doing well at a very rambunctious 15 months of age. Pictures upcoming.
- The husband and i are well, too, and we celebrated our five-year anniversary in October.
- I'm still plugging away at my job, but the program I'm working for expires in October and I'm looking for a new job. It's a nervous time.
- Not much writing going on the past few months. Between the baby and having my brain sucked up by Tumblr and Star Wars I wasn't making enough time for it. This is something I hope to remedy during my Tumblr break and beyond.
- Two of my friends are going through the dissertation grindstone and I feel for them. I can't believe I did all that last year. It is one of the toughest things I did in my life and I think I'm still recovering on some level. Another of my friends who got a Ph.D. before I did is now on a career path that's completely unrelated to academics and I completely understand why someone would be burned out by the whole process. The two friends going through it, by the way, also swear they won't go near academics again for the rest of their lives.
Fannish stuff:
- I made fan videos for ATLA and SW! It was fun to learn to use Premiere Pro and After Effect.- Shows I've been watching: Elementary, BBC's Luther, The Get Down. I got a few seasons into the first two and tired of them for reasons I'll get into later on. I finished the first season of TGD and it was great, looking forward to Season 2. (I can't believe that's the last season, it's such a great show...)
- Shows I tried and didn't like: Breaking Bad, House of Cards. I gave up both a few episodes in. Considering that these are both highly acclaimed shows I guess I just don't have the requisite Taste. I'd like to pretend I sensed something wrong with Kevin Spacey's vibe or something, but I just didn't like his show.
- Show I got one season into and probably won't be continuing: The Expanse. I wanted to like this one better because there just aren't enough hard science fiction shows, but the twist of the first season was a letdown for me and I hated the way they treated a major female character. My husband is on Season 2 now and I've been catching snippets of it. The Korean dubbing is quite good.
- Yes I am terrible about sticking with shows. Even when I like them I get tired of them eventually. DS9 was one of the few live-action shows I watched from beginning to end, and I like it enough to be watching for a second time. I'm very much looking forward to watching Star Trek: Discovery when I'm done with my DS9 watch-through. A new Trek that isn't JJ Abrams' reboot, wow!
It's good to be here. It's nice to go through the feed and see familiar faces, old stalwarts unlike my fickle self.
It got to be a little too much in the end. The anxieties about the upcoming movie, the constant exposure, the outrages, the arguments... maybe it's because I didn't grow up on the internet, but I don't think I'm up to being "on" to any social media platform on a constant basis. I found myself missing the more sedate pace of LJ/DW, even though back when I went over to Tumblr I didn't like how quiet it was here. Now that quiet comes as a relief.
Real life stuff:
- The babby is doing well at a very rambunctious 15 months of age. Pictures upcoming.
- The husband and i are well, too, and we celebrated our five-year anniversary in October.
- I'm still plugging away at my job, but the program I'm working for expires in October and I'm looking for a new job. It's a nervous time.
- Not much writing going on the past few months. Between the baby and having my brain sucked up by Tumblr and Star Wars I wasn't making enough time for it. This is something I hope to remedy during my Tumblr break and beyond.
- Two of my friends are going through the dissertation grindstone and I feel for them. I can't believe I did all that last year. It is one of the toughest things I did in my life and I think I'm still recovering on some level. Another of my friends who got a Ph.D. before I did is now on a career path that's completely unrelated to academics and I completely understand why someone would be burned out by the whole process. The two friends going through it, by the way, also swear they won't go near academics again for the rest of their lives.
Fannish stuff:
- I made fan videos for ATLA and SW! It was fun to learn to use Premiere Pro and After Effect.- Shows I've been watching: Elementary, BBC's Luther, The Get Down. I got a few seasons into the first two and tired of them for reasons I'll get into later on. I finished the first season of TGD and it was great, looking forward to Season 2. (I can't believe that's the last season, it's such a great show...)
- Shows I tried and didn't like: Breaking Bad, House of Cards. I gave up both a few episodes in. Considering that these are both highly acclaimed shows I guess I just don't have the requisite Taste. I'd like to pretend I sensed something wrong with Kevin Spacey's vibe or something, but I just didn't like his show.
- Show I got one season into and probably won't be continuing: The Expanse. I wanted to like this one better because there just aren't enough hard science fiction shows, but the twist of the first season was a letdown for me and I hated the way they treated a major female character. My husband is on Season 2 now and I've been catching snippets of it. The Korean dubbing is quite good.
- Yes I am terrible about sticking with shows. Even when I like them I get tired of them eventually. DS9 was one of the few live-action shows I watched from beginning to end, and I like it enough to be watching for a second time. I'm very much looking forward to watching Star Trek: Discovery when I'm done with my DS9 watch-through. A new Trek that isn't JJ Abrams' reboot, wow!
It's good to be here. It's nice to go through the feed and see familiar faces, old stalwarts unlike my fickle self.
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It's been a huge boon, and not gonna lie, part of why we put off leaving tumblr was because you were only active on tumblr. :B
--Rogan
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What you're saying about the Tumblr/Facebook experience is fully supported by science, by the way. It turns out that time spent on social media is inversely correlated with mental health. I mean LJ/DW is also social media, obviously, but it doesn't consume nearly as much time and most of the time spent is producing content and holding conversations as opposed to obsessively checking notifications and getting mixed up with strangers. I suspect the mental health effects are considerably better as a result, and may be positive overall.
And awwww, I'm so touched that you kept a toe is Tumblr partly for me! T__T Yeah I think it's definitely a good idea to cut back on Tumblr even if I return at the end of the week. Life outside the blue hellsite is beautiful!
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Rogan: Yeah, Sneak has been really fascinated by the web design of these sites and how they're made specifically to keep "engagement" (namely, clicking and presence) as high as possible. It's exhausting!
Sneak: Deleting our Facebook led to it listing pictures of our friends with the words, "[NAME] will miss you!" and asking why we were leaving. Every option (except 'other') would summon a pop-up window explaining why that could be fixed.
And I mean, obviously it's creepy, but I also think it's interesting from a design perspective. You have a website, which isn't a person, acting as though it were, and that you have a relationship with it. Not only that, it acts as a go-between with your OTHER friends, to the point it kinda holds them hostage-- so-and-so will miss you because obviously Facebook is your only means of contact with them! There are a lot of assumptions wrapped up in there.
I've heard complaints from the older generation that younger folks anthropmorphize their technology too much, replacing their human relationships with technological ones. They don't seem to realize that it's older folks who are specifically DESIGNING this technology to SEEM more human-like! You can't even really blame any single one person for the Facebook creepiness, because it was probably dozens of different designers, all who will claim they weren't TRYING to be creepy, just increase engagement.
Mac: Also, I super want to see pictures of your baby!
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And it's mind-boggling when you think about it because all this design-enforced engagement with the platform is solely to make money for the corporations who build them. Meanwhile we know that people are damaging their productivity and mental health by spending excessive time on social media. These design choices are herding people toward hurting themselves for the sake of huge corporations' bottom line.
I read a suggestion somewhere that these designs should be recognized as what they are, addictive substances, and be regulated as such. I'm very close to being on board with that idea, depending on the design of the regulation, though I think the best thing would be if consumers themselves take charge of their time and that of any children they are responsible for.
SNEAK HAS PASSIONATE FEELINGS UPON THIS SUBJECT.
Rogan: I do not appreciate my social media sites trying to out-think me. -_- No, website, I want strict chronological order, not you trying to give me what you think you want. You're a fucking program, and not a very bright one. Please stop.
And it's mind-boggling when you think about it because all this design-enforced engagement with the platform is solely to make money for the corporations who build them.
Sneak: Yup! It's tunnel vision, a race for who can command the most "engagement," measured purely quantitatively. Some folks are calling it "the attention economy." And we see it as a cross-purposes with our work, which is super-niche but intended to give a deep, hopefully useful experience to those who DO engage with it. So we're measuring our professional success not in clicks or followers or likes (which seems to becoming the conventional metric for online sucess), but in things like meaningful user interaction (like votes in polls, comments) and also the money coming in. If we went virally popular and became huge, Rogan would keel over, because we can't handle that level of success right now! So we're focused on a slow, manageable growth but building strong relationships with our individual fans.
We may not have very many of them, but we notice a lot of them come back for more, even if it causes a fair amount of effort for them. (We sometimes have fans drive up from quite a distance away to see us! Which is super-cool!)
But anyway, back on addictive design. I almost feel like it's a business version of candy, focused on a short sharp sugar rush that tastes good, but makes you feel sick if you rely on it a lot. And I feel like it's a symptom of a larger problem, a business culture and a society that values profit over the well-being of the very people who pay them! And yes, you can argue that they're filling a need, but they're artificially manufacturing that need, inflating it so as to make it difficult to leave!
Facebook might provide a service for a social need. But the guilt-tripping behavior? The "[NAME] will miss you"? That's artificially inflating that need. You can't really claim that Facebook users need that guilt trip; that's purely to keep people on the site when Facebook has nothing else to offer.
Like, on the one hand, yes, it would be nice if it was as simple as taking charge of your time and kids... but by doing so, you actively have to fight the design of these websites. Some people we know hate Facebook but can't leave, because their work requires they be there. For others, it's a more passive pressure--after all, you yourself said you got sucked so deeply into tumblr that you forgot there were outside ways to contact folks! And I don't think that's a character flaw for you, or for anyone else who gets sucked in like that; it's what the sites are designed to do! And a lot of money, effort, and labor have gone into that design!
It's all really creepy, and helped spur our big system debate and decision to restructure how we engage with social media.
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I noticed that you seemed to really dive into Tumblr. I'm much more withdrawn, interacting only with 'my crew' in a manner similar to a blog like Dreamwidth or LJ, and also passively following a bunch of fan-artists in a manner similar to deviantArt. I don't bother searching tags, I don't message people I don't know, etc. Yeah, I'm probably missing out on fan community stuff, but Tumblr just doesn't offer a flavor of that kind of thing that I like.
And the Baby is 15 months old?! Wow, time flies. He can probably hold functional conversations by now.
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I loved translating the lyrics for the song, too, and I particularly enjoyed the challenge of making the English lyrics fit the melody because one of my pet peeves is when I can't sing along with translated lyrics. The meaning is in the song as much as the words, you know?
Yeah, getting the full Tumblr experience often means interacting with a lot of strangers (some of whom will call you an idiot in your inbox), sometimes without even wanting to, and it's definitely not for everyone. Looking back I'm amazed I got so deep into it for so long. Maybe it was because I was spending so much time at home with the baby and craved some social stimulation, which is saying something because I don't generally cope well with stimulation at all.
Speaking of the baby, yeah, time flies! The baby's not quite speaking yet, mostly repeating a very small vocabulary and babbling a lot. His verbal development is on the slow side but he shows a definite will of his own and can communicate non-verbally, by putting a sock against his foot or pointing upward to be carried. He's a silly, happy-go-lucky little kid and I feel lucky to have him.
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But I admit that having that happen continuously would be tiring. It's like a visit to theme park or rock concert: good for a spot of fun, but not something you'd want to do every day.
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Good to see you around these parts again! I also find Tumblr to be too noisy (for lack of a better word) a lot of the time.
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Yeah, Tumblr's a bit... much. A lot of fun, but also really tumultuous. I was really burning out toward the end there.
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...asking for research on speaking ages for tinies.
--Rogan
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Rogan: Wait, Appa's Korean for Dad? They named Aang's bison Dad? Well, that's hilarious but also sorta appropriate I guess...
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--Sneak