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The existence of social media that allows you to reblog things has been a plague upon the Internet.
Back before those sites gained traction, if someone had a blog, you'd be reading their thoughts. Maybe their thoughts were personal, maybe they gave away very little about the person's life but were about some scientific topic. Maybe their thoughts were not well put together or maybe they were really good. But you were reading their thoughts. You could actually form some sort of connection with people. It might not be super deep, but it could be. I met people who I got to know well through Dreamwidth, and I know people have formed even deeper connections.
That's not totally disappeared, but now when I look through Tumblr and Twitter blogs it's mostly reblogs or likes. I'm not actually getting to know the person, I'm getting to know what they like. If I want to find an original thought by this person, I have to trawl through a bunch of reblogs and likes to find it. There's exceptions but that's the rule. And it's not that these people don't have original thoughts (I know that isn't true; I know and respect many of them). It's just that I'm not seeing them.
But it still makes me feel like I can't actually get to know them, which is unfortunate both because there's people who seem cool that I don't know and people I do know that I only really see on Tumblr and Twitter now. Other people somehow manage to form deep connections through Tumblr and Twitter, but I'm genuinely not sure how they do it--whenever I look at the average person's blog, it just seems like a jumble of assorted stuff.
Back before those sites gained traction, if someone had a blog, you'd be reading their thoughts. Maybe their thoughts were personal, maybe they gave away very little about the person's life but were about some scientific topic. Maybe their thoughts were not well put together or maybe they were really good. But you were reading their thoughts. You could actually form some sort of connection with people. It might not be super deep, but it could be. I met people who I got to know well through Dreamwidth, and I know people have formed even deeper connections.
That's not totally disappeared, but now when I look through Tumblr and Twitter blogs it's mostly reblogs or likes. I'm not actually getting to know the person, I'm getting to know what they like. If I want to find an original thought by this person, I have to trawl through a bunch of reblogs and likes to find it. There's exceptions but that's the rule. And it's not that these people don't have original thoughts (I know that isn't true; I know and respect many of them). It's just that I'm not seeing them.
But it still makes me feel like I can't actually get to know them, which is unfortunate both because there's people who seem cool that I don't know and people I do know that I only really see on Tumblr and Twitter now. Other people somehow manage to form deep connections through Tumblr and Twitter, but I'm genuinely not sure how they do it--whenever I look at the average person's blog, it just seems like a jumble of assorted stuff.
