(no subject)

[anghraine]

I know that we Dreamwidth proselytizers can be annoying, but I've seen takes on Tumblr that are like ... fine but it's not truly social, it doesn't have a culture, it's just LJ/a blogging platform without features for interaction!

...????????

Honestly, as someone who's been here since the LJ migration, the idea that there's no distinctive Dreamwidth "culture" is almost funny. Obviously there are different communities and parts of Dreamwidth that differ a lot from each other, but the idea that DW culture = LJ culture when so many people threw absolute tantrums over the differences in site culture between LJ and DW (many of which are quite real!) back in the day is pretty surreal.

I know that was a long time ago now, but Dreamwidth is not and has never been a neutral environment, lol.

Comments

[chestnut_pod]

Oh, how could we forget the weeping, the wailing, the gnashing of teeth over all aspects of Dreamwidth!

[lotesse]

I wonder if the lack of neutrality is actually the perceived barrier to social entry? No way to passively click "like," you've got to decide to type real words if you want to connect. Myself, I think it's maybe better to be more active/less neutral, but it is difficult for my inner lurker to give up the easy buttons, ngl ....

[alias_sqbr]

Ha, meanwhile when I added to a reblog about the pros and cons of dreamwidth I spent some time trying to figure out how to articulate that I know a number of people who have found the site culture so overwhelmingly at odds with their own posting style that it puts them off from posting at all. The culture definitely exists!

[anghraine]

lmao, right? The idea of livejournal and Dreamwidth being interchangeable, heaven forbid.

[anghraine]

I do think Dreamwidth's culture can feel like, or simply be, a barrier, for sure! And the rejection of likes/reblogs (and I do appreciate that there's a place without them) make it more of a step to dip your feet in.

Basically, if people were going to say that Dreamwidth's culture is irritating or intimidating, I can easily understand where that's coming from, esp in this age of the Internet. The idea that it doesn't have its own culture at all is the thing I find puzzling!

[anghraine]

Yes!

That was an excellent post, by the way.

[nnozomi]

we Dreamwidth proselytizers can be annoying, but I've seen takes on Tumblr that are like ... fine but it's not truly social,
This is so odd to me--I don't exist on Tumblr, I just lurk sometimes, but it always seems to me that there's so little, well, socializing! on Tumblr compared to DW--it's much harder to have a back-and-forth conversation or just leave a casual comment. (Maybe if I had a Tumblr account I'd know different, but...) I like image posts on DW much better, for instance, pain in the ass as they are, because I can actually see what everyone had to say about the pictures and how the original poster responded and...you get what I mean!

[anghraine]

For me, Tumblr is borderline-unusable without being logged in, so I might see more of the social side of things than you, but ... I feel like conversations there happen despite Tumblr's structure rather than because of it. It's more active for me conversationally than DW, but that may be because most of my DW posts these days are just backing up Tumblr posts or venting feelings about my latest obsessions, haha.

I know it's how most social media works, but for me it's such a pain to not be able to have a public conversation without putting it front and center on the blogs of everyone involved. I much prefer threaded conversations like this and feel that it's more purely social in a way.

[alias_sqbr]

Thank you!