There's definitely a lot of closed servers, but that doesn't mean public fandom activity has stopped.
Like- the server I'm in has done two events this year so far. One for a week with a prompt for every day, and this current one is for the summer, with bingo cards of prompts!
We worked on the event as a small group in the server, but we're also posting the fic, art, etc on tumblr, twitter and AO3- and it's open to anyone who wants to participate, as we set up a bingo card randomizer, and our AO3 collection and tumblr tag are open for submissions, etc.
Fandoms WANT more people participating, especially since as of late, they tend to die off after a year or so when the hype from the movie is gone, or the show ended. People don't "commit" to fandoms like they used to (exceptions being Star Trek and Star Wars, they're OG fandoms that will never die).
So yeah, there's small servers to provide safe places to chat without trolls, but the main BULK of fandom creation still happens on Tumblr/AO3.
I have a different experience. Some of my fandoms still have plenty of activity on Tumblr, but there's at least two where people rarely share any fic and art outside the locked down discord, and this is because the harassment towards authors and artists of publicly posted works has gotten so, so bad. I'm not surprised that things have moved in this direction. I'm glad ao3 has an anonymous option so some people are still willing to post some things for lurkers outside of the discord community, but I also understand why a lot of people don't.
Yeah I have asks turned off on tumblr, and only registered users can comment on my work on AO3 (I also have my works locked, but that's because of AI scraping), because I kept getting hate over my fav character/ship.
It sucks, bc I used to take writing prompts, but I've found that denying these assholes a means to get a platform on your blog is a good way to have them go sniffing elsewhere.
(Also, any time I see them post hate in the tags, I report them for spam because they tag every single character in the show to make sure as many people see their hate. Like... damn, Becky, he lives in my head rent free, too, but I ACTUALLY WANT HIM THERE.)
Same, I used to take prompts on my blog to draw, but it's been a long time since I've has my ask box open. It would inevitably eventually turn into harassment, or people trying to use my blog as a platform to harass other people. I haven't been active on Tumblr for over a year now, to be fair, so maybe the worst of it died down? Going by the comments here, probably not.
Seeing a wall of hate in the character or ship tag every time I checked was one of the reasons I left too. It wouldn't bother me so much if the people spamming the tag were just expressing their opinion about a character, but more often that not it would get used as a jumping off point to justify really aggressive bullying, or tying to convince the rest of the fandom that you were abusive if you liked or made fluff fic of the character they personally didn't like. I don't actually mind someone sincerely talking their dislike for a character, even if it's a little overboard! It's just that it never stopped at that.
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Re: OT Thread (Other fandom salt)
(Anonymous) 2023-07-10 03:07 am (UTC)(link)There's definitely a lot of closed servers, but that doesn't mean public fandom activity has stopped.
Like- the server I'm in has done two events this year so far. One for a week with a prompt for every day, and this current one is for the summer, with bingo cards of prompts!
We worked on the event as a small group in the server, but we're also posting the fic, art, etc on tumblr, twitter and AO3- and it's open to anyone who wants to participate, as we set up a bingo card randomizer, and our AO3 collection and tumblr tag are open for submissions, etc.
Fandoms WANT more people participating, especially since as of late, they tend to die off after a year or so when the hype from the movie is gone, or the show ended. People don't "commit" to fandoms like they used to (exceptions being Star Trek and Star Wars, they're OG fandoms that will never die).
So yeah, there's small servers to provide safe places to chat without trolls, but the main BULK of fandom creation still happens on Tumblr/AO3.
Re: OT Thread (Other fandom salt)
(Anonymous) 2023-07-10 03:17 am (UTC)(link)I have a different experience. Some of my fandoms still have plenty of activity on Tumblr, but there's at least two where people rarely share any fic and art outside the locked down discord, and this is because the harassment towards authors and artists of publicly posted works has gotten so, so bad. I'm not surprised that things have moved in this direction. I'm glad ao3 has an anonymous option so some people are still willing to post some things for lurkers outside of the discord community, but I also understand why a lot of people don't.
Re: OT Thread (Other fandom salt)
(Anonymous) 2023-07-10 03:26 am (UTC)(link)Yeah I have asks turned off on tumblr, and only registered users can comment on my work on AO3 (I also have my works locked, but that's because of AI scraping), because I kept getting hate over my fav character/ship.
It sucks, bc I used to take writing prompts, but I've found that denying these assholes a means to get a platform on your blog is a good way to have them go sniffing elsewhere.
(Also, any time I see them post hate in the tags, I report them for spam because they tag every single character in the show to make sure as many people see their hate. Like... damn, Becky, he lives in my head rent free, too, but I ACTUALLY WANT HIM THERE.)
Re: OT Thread (Other fandom salt)
(Anonymous) 2023-07-10 03:41 am (UTC)(link)Same, I used to take prompts on my blog to draw, but it's been a long time since I've has my ask box open. It would inevitably eventually turn into harassment, or people trying to use my blog as a platform to harass other people. I haven't been active on Tumblr for over a year now, to be fair, so maybe the worst of it died down? Going by the comments here, probably not.
Seeing a wall of hate in the character or ship tag every time I checked was one of the reasons I left too. It wouldn't bother me so much if the people spamming the tag were just expressing their opinion about a character, but more often that not it would get used as a jumping off point to justify really aggressive bullying, or tying to convince the rest of the fandom that you were abusive if you liked or made fluff fic of the character they personally didn't like. I don't actually mind someone sincerely talking their dislike for a character, even if it's a little overboard! It's just that it never stopped at that.
Re: OT Thread (Other fandom salt)
(Anonymous) 2023-07-10 03:46 am (UTC)(link)*talking about