I had the chance to go to a very interesting talk recently by a guy named Cory Doctorow who is mainly a sci-fi writer but has an interest in tech and the place of tech in society -- what I would call "broadly Electronic Frontier Foundation-type issues." He talked about a kind of typical lifecycle of tech/social media giants (a kind of preview, I guess, of his upcoming book), where benefits originally offered to users are gradually withdrawn in favor of being given to advertisers which are then gradually withdrawn in order to accrue to the company itself and its shareholders, a process he calls the "enshittificaton" of social media. Given that, uh, two major social media sites have had meltdowns in the last month (Reddit's CEO implementing new policies regarding third party apps leading to a protest and exodus, plus Twitter's extended ongoing shitshow, the latest development being that Twitter started capping how many tweets a user can load, possibly due to a shoddy code rollout or because Twitter refuses to pay its cloud computing bills (either way, some kind of cost-cutting measure no doubt led to this situation)) and that I generally like ranting about the sad state of modern social media, I thought I would write a DW post summarizing the talk / his points because it seems relevant!

( Social media lifecycle )

So I've been using DeviantArt a lot recently for a personal project. This combined with my Snowflake Challenge musings (where I pondered what is now the best site for posting adult art in the wake of Twitter's struggles) inspired me to write up a long comparison of how DeviantArt and Tumblr compare as sites for posting fanart. n = 4546 words.

( Table of contents and preliminary notes )
( Pages vs. posts )
( Post creation )
( Site performance and loading times )
( Creating an art gallery )
( Userbase activity )
( Browsing experience )
( Summary diagram )

Archiving/crossposting from Tumblr, mainly so I have a cleaner/easier-to-read version of this somewhere:

( Read more... )

Challenge #13 - In your own space, rec three fanworks that you did not create.

Some random recs (all art) that are NOT Quodo (I might post a Quodo recs round-up in quodo later if I have time):

• I found this series of Disney princesses wearing furisode by Sunnypoppy -- I like the way the original colors have been incorporated in the kimono and how heavy/winter-appropriate the getup looks. The Elsa and Anna ones look great, and I'm also a fan of the short skirt and long sleeves on the Tinker Bell one, and the Pocahontas design just looks really nice/classy.

• This series of (watercolor + color pencil + digital, I'm guessing?) pieces featuring Star Trek characters as mermaids by Mackoonzie (mostly Enterprise characters but some DS9 and TOS as well) -- I really like the coloring and sea lighting, and the various designs/choices of sea creatures to use as the tails are great!

• Some belated Multifandom Doodle recs?? There was so much good stuff in the last round's collection, but in particular, I loved these ink portraits of Spock and Lando Calrissian by cherryontop, and the fantastic (animated!) pixel art by ElAurianBarkeep, especially Gotham at night and Trucy and Phoenix Wright on a bridge at sunset.


Challenge #14 - In your own space, do the Fandom Wrap Challenge.

( Top 5 lists )

Challenge #15 - In your own space, opine on the future of fandom.

The prompt here focused on the Twitter explosion, so I guess I'll talk about platforms in a kind of rambling, disorganized sort of way.

( What platforms to use for fandom in the future )

I originally wrote this for Tumblr, but for various reasons -- among which, being able to showcase Dreamwidth's much more powerful HTML markup capabilities -- I figured it would be helpful to crosspost this to DW as well. So here's my DW sales pitch, for my reference:

( Main selling points )
( Tips for getting started on Dreamwidth )
( More Dreamwidth features and weaknesses )

Anyway, I think I've covered the main things about using Dreamwidth. I always want more people to come talk to me on Dreamwidth because I feel like that site is the only place that facilitates people getting to know me both on a purely fannish level and on a very personal level (I know people can make the personal + fannish sharing combo work on Twitter and Tumblr, but having everything be out in public just really does not work for me). But I realize it's hard to just start using a site you're unfamiliar with, especially one like Dreamwidth that tends to have a bit of a learning curve and is generally out of step with the direction of modern social media. And especially when you don't have many friends there already, which is probably the case for most people. But it's a site I respect and trust a lot, and I think it facilitates deep, long-lasting friendships. More than anything, I think the main difference between DW and Tumblr is that Tumblr is mainly a site for sharing content with other people and reacting to it, while DW is more geared toward helping you organize your life and your thoughts. They have a lot of overlap in terms of the kind of personal and fannish musings and experiences that can be shared, though. Anyway, if you're interested in joining Dreamwidth but it's intimidating/confusing, please reach out! I have lots more recs for active communities depending on your interests, too!

I haven't been participating in the Snowflake Challenge up until this point, but I appreciated the nostalgia factor of the one today and I was recently reminded of something I could use for it, so here we go:



Challenge #12: In your own space, resurrect an old meme. Have fun with it! Which is the goofiest meme you can think of? Put on your party hat and be silly!!

( My answer )