If anyone asks, my nanny hacked my account and made this post

[lucymonster]

The other day I cheerfully wasted a whole day's allowance of downtime rereading The Ms Scribe Story, as I can't resist doing every now and then. As legendary fandom wanks go, it's probably my all-time favourite for the sheer amount of effort that went into the fuckery.

But despite its being a horrible story about horrible people, my main takeaway this time is a weird nostalgia for those days - I mean, the days when single-fandom archives, forums, and LJ were the main hubs of fannish activity. I coped well enough with the move to tumblr, but twitter is basically the perfect polar opposite of what I want from a fandom space (Speed! Impermanence! Overlap with the non-fannish world!); discord, doubly so. I don't think LJ was any more or less wanky than other platforms - it really just depends on who you hang out with, or I guess who you're unlucky enough to get noticed by. (I was a nobody, so most of the drama sailed right on by me.) But it was definitely better at fostering the kind of interactions I enjoy. I love it here on DW, but we're not exactly in the room where it happens.

Anyway, the upshot of this nostalgia binge is that I've wasted today's downtime tinkering with my icons, which I haven't touched in forever. I've found some I really like, and I'll whittle and adjust based on what I actually end up using. Today's is for great flaming wankstorms lol. Let's hope I don't need it.

Comments

[lucymonster]

people spreading rumors of guys on LJ who were "really women."

Oof, that’s ugly. :( Definitely puts the rose-tinted memories into perspective.

I guess one big strength of the tumblr/twitter ecosystem coming to dominate is that it kind of forcibly blasted us out of the clique-based fandom social structure that was so cushy for unexamined bigotry. I know a lot of important social justice conversations were happening on lj, but without things like the reblog/retweet function, they just didn’t have the same reach. (Despite being active there during the relevant period, I never even heard of Racefail until years later - on tumblr.) I have gripes ranging from petty to major with some of the new mass social media-based fandom norms, but it’s definitely done a lot of good in terms of handing the mic to marginalised people.

[walgesang]

I certainly have my share of rose-tinted glasses and believe me, there's a lot I loved about some of those old days but yeah. I was definitely seeing it through my still cis tho privilege. :/

It is interesting that a lot of people are using terms that people were blasting as things "those tumblr kids" do. My kid was already ahead of the curve by going to a high school where kids were coming out as ace or nonbinary. I don't know if they'd be as solidly in their orientation and identity if it wasn't for that, so for that I am grateful.

Weirdly enough, there's a post in me about trans sensitivity betas where I still don't feel qualified to be a sensitivity beta because the umbrella is sooooooo big.

[lucymonster]

My sister works with teens, and she says it’s really common for them to be openly experimenting with gender and sexuality - like, common to the point of being cool, at least within certain circles. It makes me so happy! Sure, some of them might turn out to have been “going through a phase”, which is absolutely fine (no conservative - or gatekeeper, for that matter - has ever adequately explained to me what the harm is supposed to be) but so many queer kids are getting the chance to figure themselves out early and avoid some of the trauma and confusion that previous generations have suffered. And yeah, no, definitely not just a tumblr thing.

FWIW, I think your awareness of the size of the umbrella would be an asset to a sensitivity beta, not a disqualifier. Though I can understand feeling hesitant. I’ve gotten tied up in knots about my authority on far, far less fraught topics.