Actitivity on that MLPArena

[alaskaallie]

There's a lot to be said about reading and writing and peoples' attention spans and so on, but just focusing on hobby communities- the forum format is what works best! Tumblr and instagram were my main sm sites as a teenager, but neither of them works particularly well for hobby discussions, and tiktok even less so. How can there be any community or discussion if everyone is just... floating around in a random mass of content with no central point or way to ask anything text based? Tumblr is slightly better in this regard (you can be anonymous, post text posts), but still there is no centralized place where you know people with similar interests will see and interact with your posts (I know there are tags, but obviously those never worked very well and there was nothing preventing random other people from jumping in or flooding the tags with whatever else).

I've had some lovely interactions with people on instagram, but it's just so awkward. There is no way to ask a public question to the community, comments under a post are clunky and not great for carrying on a conversation in, and if you make a post it won't get seen unless you have tons of followers. You have to post consistently and post the same type of thing and I don't like feeling like a hobby becomes another to do list item.

If anyone knows of any other sites where I can discuss vintage toy collecting let me know~ reddit doesn't seem like the place, but I keep hearing people talk about facebook groups...

[Carrehz]

^ THIS!!! You put it better than I could've. Everything's just shouting into the void now. Even on Reddit which is a little closer to a forum than, say, Tumblr, it's still a mess - people don't bother to read all of the comments, or even ANY of them, so you end up having to put the same comment in multiple replies and it's just a trainwreck.

Forum categories are something I _really_ miss too. When everything's lumped together, a lot of things get drowned out... For example - say you're talking about a TV show community - on a forum you can have separate boards for episode discussion, fanart, etc, but on social media they'd all be in the same place, and the most popular post wins, you know?
(This is a real problem with NSFW content as well, but that's probably wandering a bit off-topic so I'll just leave that there)

Fandom-specific tags help a bit but then that just raises questions of, is it okay to post X/Y/Z in this tag, etc.

You have to post consistently and post the same type of thing and I don't like feeling like a hobby becomes another to do list item.

Yup. Fandom's always had a bit of a "popularity contest" aspect to it, but it's just become worse with social media IMO.

also on social media, there's a lot of... IDK how to put it... Like if you post a lot of Batman stuff then you'll inevitably get someone yelling at you for suddenly doing a 180 and posting about MLP. You know? That definitely happened pre-social media too (people complaining because how dare you like multiple things!! only make content for the thing *I* like! ) but I've noticed it becoming more prevalent since Tumblr/Twitter/etc. or, maybe it's that people's attitudes about it changed? like, before, the reaction to that would usually be "It's my blog/site/etc, I'll do what I want" but now you see a lot more "o-oh, I'm sorry for having multiple hobbies.."... if that makes sense?

[alaskaallie]

... if that makes sense?

yes it does, exactly! And then everything is clearly organized and less overwhelming.

I have two instagram accounts, one where I occasionally post stuff about the sports I do, and then I made another one to post about... everything else. So toys, stationery, fantasy books, etc that I don't want to flood my skater friends' feeds with. But it has to be soooo specific! I have some friends who have a seperate insta account for each hobby which sounds exhausting even for a once a month poster like me  

When tumblr was my main one I posted a huge mix of everything as it was really my BLOG (man I miss those crafty/cutsey lifestyle blogs of the early 2010s), but instagram works different. Sometimes I get the feeling that there are probably a bunch of other people who would like to have convos about obscure toy lines and whatever else but I can't find them because neither of us are taking the best algorithmically favored photos every single day.

I actually completely understand wanting to only see what you searched for, but people have multiple interests and it's not fun to restrict yourself so heavily to one specific niche. I think it also has to do with everyone, not just mini celebrities, having to have their own personal brand? I don't know, social media is weird even though I kind of grew up with it.

There is a Sylvanian families collectors forum which I go on occasionally but there is maybe even less activity there...

[Carrehz]

Yeah, personal brand, that's a good way of putting it.

Like... I get having separate spaces for some things. Like if you regularly post about two very different things with not much overlap, or something fairly niche, or if you post enough about something that it really *warrants* a separate space lol. I mean, I've definitely started looking at someone's blog before and ended up thinking "well, I like their content for X, but it'd be nice if I didn't have to pick through the weird Y content too" It's just the idea that some people seem to have, that you need to be "on brand" 24/7, that bugs me, you know? It just seems exhausting.

I'm on the Sylvanian forum too! I don't post on there much though.

[Snapdragon]

Very interesting topics covered here! I think everyone makes very good points!

I do worry about the advent of social media, but only inasmuch as I worry about the advent of the internet. Like, yes, it's not great that so many young children suddenly have the ability to shout to a million strangers all of their personal information! But I feel like that's something that happened on the internet in general, not necessarily due to Twitter or TikTok. There is a special strain of misinformation that goes around on each different SM platform, but I also feel like that would happen regardless if it was on a forum or SM or AIM.

I do hate some of the SM trends (like when pranking became so popular due to social media stars doing it, eugh!) but I do think it's also probably just reflective of human nature. We have better methods of communication now, so it stands to reason that social memes and behaviors will be passed around more rapidly now, for better or worse. I do think it's also nice that so many 'atypical' kids can find each other now; it used to be you might be the only kid like you in your school, and the bullying could be crippling. Now, even with the dangers of SM, you can find other kids like yourself on the internet, and know you're not alone. That's pretty awesome, even with all of SMs other flaws and dangers.

Personally, I really love forums! I'm glad the MLPArena is still here, and I wish there were more forums hanging on in general! But one thing that does get me down is sort of the speed of communication here, and the relative ease of being notified. I can wait days for a reply to a thread, and sometimes by then I've forgotten what the topic was we were discussing! I tend to have posting bursts where I'll post every day for a week, and then go back into a sort of dormant read-only mode. I'm still here, I'm just not really joining in, even if mentally I think 'ooh, good point there'! (But I know I vastly prefer it to Discord's '500 messages over 20 minutes' format, where missing a day of nonstop reading means you've fallen behind forever!!)

The other downside is, if I'm commenting to someone on IG or Tumblr, I'll get a little pop-up the instant they reply on my phone! I might not check the MLPArena at the exact moment someone replies, and so I might not see a reply for days - or even a week, if I go dormant again. That's a bit of a downer! And then you feel like a heel bumping an ancient topic just to be like, 'Yeah I think Pinkie Pie is overrated too!'

[achab1984]

Oh wow! It's nice to come back to this thread to see how active it is! This makes me very happy to read what all of you have to say!

I totally can see how the internet can be good and also be bad! It's a wonderful tool for sure though.

I hope this site NEVER leaves <3

Post Merge: October 28, 2023, 08:41:46 PM

O_O


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I love the art! <3

[Taffeta]

Carrehz, Beth, I think it interesting you think social media makes everything more centralised because for me it's the absolute opposite. My brain can't really cope with logistics and I have trouble finding things in general, but these days everyone is on about fifteen social media sites and fan groups are split across all these different platforms, rather than just one forum dedicated to that fandom which is easy to find and doesn't require multiple methods of access/multiple logins/etc etc/. Keeping up with all of those is basically impossible for me. I only use facebook at arm's length and not much else. Tumblr, but literally only for translations and stuff, never anything at all personal. It's just too much. Having to keep up with so many platforms also affects attention span. People hopping from one to the next posting one gif or one like...it's just...not really a fandom anymore, but rather a popularity contest. It's about likes and what's popular and all that jazz - and most popular posts get pushed to the top - rather than just having a conversation generally without worrying about that.

I also think online friending has made it harder for some people to judge trust. As we're most of us older folk here the generation who grew up with the internet evolving rather than already being there and at top speed, we are probably (or should be!) more cautious about sharing data online. But now it's like everyone is sharing everything and the people they meet online are immediately their best friends. I've met amazing people online, but still while being pretty careful. It worries me how many young people especially are targeted by predators because they think people can be trusted more than they actually can online.

Regarding whether forums are still going strong/non social media fan spaces are still vibrant - they mostly aren't. Most all of the forums I've been a member of since I came online (we're talking more than 20 years) are dead. This and the TP are the only exceptions, honestly. Livejournal is no longer a place anyone should access, as it's been taken over by bots. Someone already mentioned DA.

As soon as TL;DR became a thing, communication became 100% more difficult for me as well. As you guys know, I'm not especially concise *lol*. And that's even after I rewrite my posts multiple times to try and be more coherent. In the past it mattered a lot less because people had time (and manners) to read each other's posts and then reply to them coherently as a matter of course.

And then there's language. Ableist slurs are really common on social media. They're just used as normal words and people don't do anything about them. No online mod bot includes them as slurs or hate speech because they're not about race or sexuality. Most human mods also don't care because disability discrimination isn't a thing, right? It means being in that space feels manifestly unsafe, and most people really don't care about that. Even if you raise it, mostly people ignore it or treat it like it's banter or not worth considering. At worst you make yourself a target and then have to deal with the fallout.

Social media basically makes me feel more invisible and less empowered than forums did :/.

[Honeycomb]

I’m one of those who disappeared! Real life happened and MLP was not the first thing on my mind. Still isn’t, even though I would never part with my collection! Most of it is stored in boxes, but I always do a seasonal display.
It should be nice to be on here more often again, see some familiar faces.

[Flitter]

For me, having to upload photos to a host to post here has been a bit of a barrier to interaction tbh. I’ve gotten spoiled by other platforms for that.

Also, that G5 just isn’t doing much, there’s not a whole lot I have to talk about anymore since G4 is out. Also, I just feel like there isn’t as much hype for certain things anymore. Like, in the past, not just on this forum. I feel like events and new items used to get much more discussion for longer. I feel like I’ve got accustomed, and probably others as well to a stream of new things and it’s affected attention span and excitement level longevity.
It also seems like people are more apt to buy sell trade on other platforms lately. I’ve been rebuilding my collection the majority of the past year and only a few of the items was I able to aquire from forum members selling or responding to my wtb’s.

[Snapdragon]

Flitter that's a great point! I know that's kind of a big hurdle, especially if you're more of a casual user - and with the death of Photobucket, it's like, where do I easily upload photos? Is Imgur still a thing? Probably! But I don't know how to use it! I usually 'cheat' and upload all my photos on Tumblr, but since I'm posting there... I usually don't remember to crosspost.

I know it's only semi-related, but I saw an interesting tumblr post that said that image hosting is part of what makes starting up any kind of new blogging/social media platform really expensive and difficult, compared to the old-school forum days. It costs a lot of money to have your own server or to pay someone else to host it, so there's far fewer sites getting started in someone's garage, for example. So it sucks not being able to easily upload photos, but it is nice that the Arena is (hopefully) cheaper to run without it!

[BlackCurtains]

The Arena has a photo tutorial

https://mlparena.com/index.php?topic=403706.0

I use Imgur with no issues. You just have to be sure not to post publicly unless you want comments from the community.

[Carrehz]

Taffeta - meant to reply to this earlier, sorry...

I'm not sure I explained myself properly earlier, it's difficult to figure out how to word it. When I said "centralized" I meant... I think the appeal a lot of people have in using social media for fandom stuff is that you can post about anything with just one account. So like if you're on Reddit, you can post on (for example) a toy-collecting community, then a cartoon subreddit, then a joke sub, and you don't need to swap to a different forum or change accounts or anything, it's all in one place. I can understand the appeal there! I know I find myself not really wanting to make a new account on anything these days if I can avoid it - just something else to keep track of, you know? (admittedly in part cause you have to worry about whether or not some random site'll get hacked/datamined/etc... the net feels so much less safe these days! but that's veering onto another topic LOL)

So I can see it from that angle. And in one way it is nice to just be able to nip onto one subreddit and say (for example) "Wow this ep was really good" or "Cool fanart" without having to sign up specifically just to say that, when you might not really want to post on the community past that one comment. IDK if that makes sense, that was poorly worded, sorry. Not sure how to clearly phrase it.

(I'm using Reddit as an example because it's really the only one I've got any sort of experience with, but it applies to other sites too. and I use Reddit basically like I do here, really only use it for one sub, so I doubt mine is the "average experience"  )

But on the other hand, that also means there's little-to-no sense of _community_, you know? again, I moderate for a cartoon subreddit, we have a couple of regulars. But easily 95% of our traffic/posts/etc come from random drive-by posters who'll never post again. (and that's being generous when I say the regulars make up the remaining 5%!)
Whereas on here, I don't necessarily know everyone, but I recognize most people's avatars, at least. I'll see something and think "Oh man, so-and-so is gonna LOVE this" or whatever. I don't get that on Reddit. (or well, I get it for like, 2 people tops) I know that if I post something, most people are only going to skim it, if that. We're going to have duplicate posts because no one's really paying attention to see if it's been posted before.

I guess how I'd really put it is that everything is simultaneously centralized and split across multiple places? Tags and subreddits and such are meant to make things "easier" to find but honestly a lot of the time it does feel harder than ever to find things.

You mentioned LiveJournal - I wish Dreamwidth was more popular. That's a great substitute for LJ but I don't know how much traction it's really gotten.

Also agree w/ you totally on the TL;DR thing!! I use Twitter literally once in a blue moon (I made it to buy something and then kept it because it turned out to be useful for keeping up with anime, then theatre, news) and I have NO idea how people can stand it! I always end up retyping my tweets like 300 times to get them under the character limit and even make a tiny bit of sense. Annoying if you're trying to explain something.

to be fair I think one problem is people using these sites for things they weren't necessarily intended for? I mean I could be wrong, but my understanding is that Twitter started off intended for just quick microblogs rather than lengthy indepth posts. Tumblr wasn't intended to be a fanfic site. Stuff like that. Which probably doesn't help?And to be fair that's always been a thing, people have always tried to put things where they don't necessarily belong like Quizilla was a quiz site but everyone kept putting their fanfics on there. although on the other hand, the owners of that site responded by expanding the site to include fanfics and added more options to support authors and etc etc, whereas modern social media sites don't really seem to do that when people start using them for something they weren't necessarily intended for... so maybe not a good example... hm...

But yeah uhhh definitely people just don't bother to read things on social media. You get misunderstandings on forums, obviously, and god knows it varies depending on how good the community is to begin with (don't even get me started on some of the ding-dongs I've wound up rubbing elbows with over the years ) but my point is, on a forum I'm more likely to be like "Okay I think you misunderstood what I said" or "No that's my bad, I didn't word it right". On social media I see sooooo many posts + have experienced this too, where it's obvious they just. Didn't actually read what they were replying to. Like again going back to Reddit, a while ago I posted a pic + context in the comments? And all but maybe... 1 or 2 of the comments just totally missed the point because they hadn't bothered to read the comments first to see if there was context for it. And I see that sort of thing happening ALL THE TIME now, and god help you if whatever point you're trying to make is longer than one or two sentences x)

actually if I can just get on a soapbox about that one for a minute longer, I strongly believe the move towards TL;DR is a problem in general!! I think there is a place for TL;DR in some contexts. Or just in general keeping things short and sweet. Like.. hmm... what to compare it to... *think* I guess... like, a YouTube comment section isn't necessarily the place to put your 3000-word write-up on a theatre show you've just seen. But there's definitely a place for those posts and I'd love to see them! But almost no one seems to write lengthy/indepth posts any more! There are exceptions, obviously, but overall I see a lot more people just condensing their love for things down to the shortest posts possible. Instead of detailed theatre reports (not reviews, I mean fans gushing about shows) you just get vague "Oh that blooper today was so funny". Instead of lengthy essays about someone's anime OTP you just get a gifset and maybe one of those Powerpoint Presentation posts (do people still do those?). I can't remember the last time I saw a con report. Etc etc. And I really notice it with characters/stories and artwork too. Back in the deviantART days you'd see pics with long descriptions talking all about the artistic process, the backstory for the pic, etc etc and now you're lucky if the pic even has a caption, because "oh no one cares anyway/they'll just delete my comments/TL;DR". It's harder to really get an idea for character personalities/stories/etc cause not as many people write detailed profiles any more. (to be fair there is also the fact that such things take Time and most of us character creators are lazy and/or lacking in time but you get what I mean!! it's less that people aren't doing that sort of thing and more that few people seem to want to do it)

I guess my point is that there's nothing wrong with... NOT rambling, haha. God knows I ramble too much. It just feels like the internet nowadays essentially encourages people to talk less? Which is sort of paradoxical.

Also everything's a damn video these days. :U Even when it really doesn't need to be. The amount of times I've gone looking for a doll review, or blind box codes, or what-have-you, and had to sit through a 10 minute video....!!!

Snapdragon - I saw that post too!! I've definitely noticed an uptick in people not understanding how to post images unless there's an easy upload button to do the work for 'em. Photobucket was such a huge loss Everything that happened with Flickr was a big blow too.

I wonder... is there something that'd let the Arena hook up to the Imgur? So you could upload images to Imgur without having to actually go onto the site itself, after you'd set it all up I mean? Didn't we used to have something like that for Photobucket, or am I getting mixed up?
(either that or would it be possible to add a link to the image-posting tutorial on the Post Comment page itself? I think a lot of people forget about the tutorials board.)

[Beth3346]

Flitter that's a great point! I know that's kind of a big hurdle, especially if you're more of a casual user - and with the death of Photobucket, it's like, where do I easily upload photos? Is Imgur still a thing? Probably! But I don't know how to use it! I usually 'cheat' and upload all my photos on Tumblr, but since I'm posting there... I usually don't remember to crosspost.

I know it's only semi-related, but I saw an interesting tumblr post that said that image hosting is part of what makes starting up any kind of new blogging/social media platform really expensive and difficult, compared to the old-school forum days. It costs a lot of money to have your own server or to pay someone else to host it, so there's far fewer sites getting started in someone's garage, for example. So it sucks not being able to easily upload photos, but it is nice that the Arena is (hopefully) cheaper to run without it!

yeah photo hosting is very expensive these days. even trying to have a site load quickly with images the site owner/designer adds using a service is really expensive. i looked into that for my pony site. i'm talking like $100/month on a fairly small site that will never make money.

allowing anyone to upload images is probably going to be cost prohibitive unless you have access to a lot of capital. but then that means you need to make money to satisfy those investors. and you need to charge for your services and on an on.

also, if you're just allowing anyone to upload images someone needs to moderate the content. the moderators here do a great job and i think that's one of the reasons I stay here. I can't tell you how many times i've clicked on a trending topic on Twitter only to see porn. i'm not a prude but if i click on a seemingly un porn related topic I don't want to see porn.

a lot of those sites came about during that weird era in the late 2000s early 2010s where people were building web apps with free services and worrying about how to monetize later. then they got bought up, shut down, or are kind of just zombie shells or their former selves like Photobucket and Flickr. Websites cost money to maintain and pay employees. and a lot of services sites use to run that were dirt cheap back then are expensive now. the industry is full of greedy people who just start websites and apps with the explicit purpose of cashing out ASAP and not really caring what happens next. they just build clout in the industry and more to their next grift.  this is my rant as someone who fell for that tech utopia dream in this same era i'm talking about and is now jaded and sad. it's always been kind of a con I just fell for it. tech is a mess and it's not going to get better. especially now that AI is the new hype bubble. i feel like forums like this are little oasis in the internet desert. even google stinks now

i think this article sums up the state of the internet platforms well. https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/

and yeah that whole "pivot to video" thing Facebook started back in the day is one of the reasons why everything is a video. people are just feeding the content monster. also it was a scam, facebook lied about their view numbers and a lot of companies went under because of it. but so many people who work in the industry really think that no one will read and people just want to watch videos. i've had so many arguments trying to explain that people will scroll and read if your content is good. if they're not scrolling then maybe your content is just uninteresting and you need to do better!

[Taffeta]

Hosting cost is all about bandwidth really, but it's also about people's attention spans, and accessibility.

I remember someone posting here years ago about white Tootsie and calling her UK tootsie (which she isn't, of course). And when I pointed out that was wrong, they said it was too hard to find info like that. So I put white tootsie into google and it came up on the wiki right at the top, saying she was European but not UK. Writing two words into Google is now an intense investigation requiring deep level brain power. (It's things like that which make me think about taking down my website (lol). I definitely don't pay 100$/month on bandwidth/hosting, I couldn't afford that. But I do have to pay to keep it up.)

@Carrehz, I know what you mean. I hate reddit, but at the same time I do sometimes use it for certain things. But it's obvious there that mostly any kind of actual conversation is shot down by people's awareness of up and down arrows. They are definitely used to intimidate popular opinions.

I'm going to be old and cranky for a moment, but back in the day I was on a Bleach (anime/manga) forum, and back then complex and detailed discussions about character and plot, plus RPG and other stuff were the norm. People who just posted three words or 'lol' were considered to be spamming and would be brought to heel over it. Doubleposting was also NOT A THING. We did have a reputation system, but people who abused it got hammered.

Another site which I know that's relatively new has a forum, but people post on it like it's social media. One post just saying LOL or an emoji or gif is common, as is posting 3 things in succession. It's also common for a group to gang up on one person in a much more hostile way (mostly for nothing things). People looking for trouble and trying to make trouble, rather than having actual discussions about things.

The impact on social media on forums.

Back to Bleach, and critical thinking, but when the manga finished, most of the fans I knew left the fan community. The final arc of the manga rewrote a lot of continuity, retconned stuff and mangled the timeline, as well as having huge plot gaps. People really disliked it. It didn't get an anime adaptation for years.

...Now it has one and people are raving about it because of the quality of the animation and the 'big fight scenes'. Most of those people haven't noticed that the continuity is screwed up and the plot doesn't make sense.

It's not that it's not ok to like something for different reasons, but it's just interesting how fans back then felt betrayed by Bleach's ending, because they were invested in plot and character. But now people are welcoming the new adaptation because they are invested in pretty animation and violent confrontations.

Continuing on that line, I remember one community where people were struggling to write fanfiction, though they wanted to. And they would write AU fiction not because they were inspired by a crossover or another setting but because they 'didn't know how to write x character in character' and so it was easy to not bother trying.

Of course this is not all people, but it is a growing percentage.

Something else I've noticed just from an anime community perspective. So many posts from people who need other people to validate their decision making. Not just "recommend me an anime, I like this kind of stuff" but more disturbing things like, "I've watched the first 10 eps of x show, should I continue?" "Should I watch x or y?" "Should I watch x anime again?" Like the internet suddenly became their mother or their evil overlord and they can't make decisions without ten other people confirming it for them.

On TL;DR - it's such a negative thing to have to apologise/undermine a detailed and thought out opinion because the person on the other end of the conversation can't read more than five words together without needing an emoji break.

There you go. My old cranky rant for the day.

[Beth3346]

you can definitely host a personal site very cheaply if not for free. i was more thinking of a site that gets a lot of traffic and/or is trying to attract a lot of users for image hosting. larger sites that serve people all over the world will usually want to have content hosted in multiple servers so the content downloads from a server close to you instead of one on the other side of the world. it's fractions of a second but on sites that download a lot of images, videos and scripts the saved time adds up.