tomblar and hobbies and musings

[felicitygs]

This is rather dashed off, but it's pretty interesting seeing people all over beginning to consider how to divide time in their hobbies. The most prominent example is, of course, tumblr, because I've seen all over from people migrating away how they want to reevaluate how they interact with fandom. There's so little time; how do we choose to spend it?

maybe all this shit isn't worth it and i'm not having a great time. maybe i got out of it what i wanted? i've now seen these ancient computers operate. i got to see it in crisp RGB on The Good TV, and now like. maybe i'm just Done.

— Graviscera (@gravislizard) December 5, 2018

I keep thinking about this tweet. Honestly, click through--I keep thinking about the entire thread, in relation to so many hobbies. It feels like it recontextualizes hobbies I've bounced off of, hobbies I keep going back to. Those realizations, over and over again, of how our time (what we do with it, how we change it) develops over time. 

Tumblr was, for me, always a great time, but how I was getting that great time changed drastically over the life of the service. When I started, it was definitely interacting with fandom--I was involved with a lot, I was writing more material for fandom than I had in years, and so on and so forth. By the end--and how it will hopefully continue, until finally the site is put down--it was all shit posts and sharing and hoping other people would enjoy the same weird neo dada humour that has been creeping into everything since. 

But a thread I kept seeing--and experience, if I'm honest--was how few people were interacting by the end. Of course there were people who I did, but so much of tumblr fandom was simply being able to churn out enough content to keep people around, or so it felt. It was distressing, and I stopped following several blogs just because it was too much stress to see how much engagement they would get with.. everything, and how much of that mentally I tied to their ability to constantly and consistently put out Content (tm).

idk idk this is all nebulous thinking

content culture is a thing now. time is limited, and grows thinner by the day as there's more and more that demands it. where and how and why do we want to engage with our hobbies--fandom or otherwise? I've dispersed between a few different platforms, and so much of it feels like a balancing act. What do I want to keep? How do I want to keep interacting?

I hope pillowfort survives it's closed beta--but how much of that is it's in between of tumblr and traditional blogging? How much of that is the fact that I don't have the time to devote to a proper blog anymore? How much of that is just not being familiar with trad blogging anymore?

How much of that is the conveniences of the vibrant and thriving Korean blogging community, which is so heavily intertwined with the news sites that it's trivial to find blogs to discuss things with people compared to how neatly segregated from... well, everything Dreamwidth feels?

How do I want to spend my time? 

Comments

[gold_pen_leaps]

This post makes me think about minimalism and being-in-the-moment. You know, stuff that I view as the domain of pretentious hipsters. "Oh, I'm better than you because I only have a spork and a knife in my kitchen drawer." But, in spite of the fact that I dislike people who tend to join communities based around these topics... they kind of have a point. I think there's a reason there are communities about deliberately having less. The Internet gives us more but it is more than anyone could hope to experience.

The problem is, you don't want to get stuck in the trap of wasting your time thinking about how to not waste your time. And FOMO is your foe.

I guess what I'm saying is... don't think about it too hard. Make a plan about when and for how long you do your hobbies, maybe, but decide in the moment what you want to do. If you're not actually enjoying yourself, then what is the point of a hobby?

[felicitygs]

Idk, I feel like thinking about something that is and has been so important for so long is quite worthwhile? I'm kind of a thinky person though. And lolol at the idea of me ever making a plan on when and how to hobby and actually sticking to it.

I think some of this is just spinning my wheels about whether I want to create content or just keep consuming it, and even then how much to read. I know at one point I was reading all the time and making recommendations, and that stopped eventually--and sometimes I do feel guilty about that, because there's good work. So some of this is trying to think through, okay, why did I stop? Would I want to get back into reading, then if so, how much, etc etc. Kind of aimless really.