Huh! (not a crosspost)

[anghraine]

I stopped posting at Tumblr (last post was 6 days ago) for reasons other than "social experiment" (lol)— basically because a) my trust in Tumblr as a platform took a nosedive and b) posting makes it more difficult to keep track of where I'm at in cross-posting. That said, I've lost a few followers over the last few days of doing nothing over there except liking posts (I've also gained some, but lost more than I've gained) and I'm kind of morbidly curious how many I'll lose before I've backed up everything I want to back up and reach a decision on how I'm going to do fandom henceforth. (I'm provisionally thinking that maybe I'll redirect to here—e.g., post answers to asks here and then reply on Tumblr with a link to the DW post.)

In any case, it's always genuinely interesting to see how many people stick around as long as they find you an entertaining producer of ~content and who sticks around in a more lasting way. Most of these people don't know me and have never personally interacted with me, so it's not a personal slight for them to unfollow when I'm no longer entertaining them—that's why they were there in the first place. But it's easy to forget that that's what's going on most of the time.

Comments

[dragoness_e]

Well, once I follow someone, they tend to stay followed unless they greatly offend me or I offend them enough to be blocked. Otherwise, I'm too lazy to bother pruning my list.

I'm still following people here on DW that I've long forgotten why I followed them in the first place. They're just there in my feed, living their lives and sometimes we converse.

[anghraine]

Yeah, I've got a mixture of people who will and have followed me through many, many different fandoms (sometimes ignoring the uninteresting-to-them stuff, sometimes getting into them because I'm into them) and the rest, who seem to regard me more as a vending machine for meta. There's no obligation to stick around, but the patterns are definitely noticeable on my end.

[chestnut_pod]

Huh. Back in the day, I think it would have taken me a lot longer to notice someone dropping off my dash than 6 days.

[anghraine]

Same for me! And tbh I've never unfollowed anyone for any reason except posting or reblogging obnoxious takes on something I care about. But even a few years ago, I started noticing the patterns in unfollows:

#1 thing that drops the follower count: getting really into an older fandom, or a relatively small one. (Most glaring when I relapse into S1 LOK feelings.)

#2 thing: not posting or infrequently posting. Usually 3-4 days of silence is enough to start it.

#3 thing: responding brusquely about anything (regardless of what led to it).

(Follows are less predictable, but generally come when one of my post makes the rounds, or when I stake a position on some divisive fandom issue that have both a lot of opponents and supporters.)

[chestnut_pod]

Everyone just has such different modes of engaging with social media, I guess. I don't and didn't follow anyone that I didn't at least feel a spirit of friendly acquaintanceship for, so the fandom-specificity of their reblogging just never seemed as important -- that's what tag-blocking was for!

[anghraine]

Right! I've followed people through all sorts of things I couldn't care less about and I'm pretty slow to follow people in general.

[elperian]

I'm still reblogging things for now, but my absence is more driven by the amount of work/overwhelm IRL than figuring out what I'm doing fandom-wise next. I don't even know if Pillowfort is a real option!

[anghraine]

Aww, I hope the RL stuff works out!

I check Pillowfort periodically, and I know it recently got enough donations to stay afloat, but tbh I don't think it has the kind of stability as DW. I'm thinking of maybe writing posts I'd usually put on Tumblr here and then linking them, so the actual text isn't on Tumblr but it's not a total vanishing act—a bit awkward but possibly doable for me.