I've discovered that I prefer Dreamwidth

[cimorene]

After a while of using the desktop less and the laptops and phone more, I've started to use Tumblr much less (Tumblr Mobile is awful), and I find Dreamwidth more pleasant and more interesting now.

Dreamwidth doesn't have nearly the volume of content (well, unless I look at the Network, but that is almost bewilderingly large) and it has few images, so it doesn't give you the dopamine hit that more modern social media sites were engineered to create for the purposes of addiction so they could sell ad space. Reloading Tumblr or Twitter will almost always give something new that catches your eye if you're having that restless, bored ADHD-brained feeling, but it's not as pleasant or as interesting. I am more engaged by my Dreamwidth circle that lets me actually keep up with the lives of the people I follow (well, to varying degrees), and the more writerly post style.

I do miss images though! I'm really grateful to the people I follow who post pictures regularly, and I always mean to post more of them, but I rarely get around to it. Here's a few though:

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

Someday I should figure out photos online. I just haven't done that with any platform other than texting photos on my phone to people.

[cimorene]

It's not exactly hard, but there are several steps. I tend to do it from my phone because that's what I take the pics with. You have to upload them, then follow the link of that page to the View All Images page and copy the addresses or the thumbnail code from there manually and paste it in an entry.

That's why I used to post more to Tumblr... but their mobile app isn't worth using so I simply haven't been posting at all of late.

[spark]

Love the one of Tristana on your shoulder! Your shirt matches her eyes :)

[cimorene]

That picture seems to really GET Tristana, too. 😆

[ilyena_sylph]

Awww, catten!

They are all lovely, which one is which?

I also much prefer Dreamwidth, but... no surprise there, right?

[cimorene]

The top picture is Anubis, the little supermodel. The little gray cat is Tristana and the big ginger one cuddling with her is my special boo, Snookums, who is diabetic and 14 years old.

[which_chick]

Yay cats! I should do some pictures of my cats, too. My house is kinda dark and very... disorderly, though. I'd have to clean first.

[cimorene]

You only have to have a good spot behind the cat, not a whole presentable residence!

[torachan]

The shoulder perch!

It would be nice if DW had easier/better image hosting, but I know that's one of the most expensive parts of a website, so I'm content to keep hotlinking the cat pics from tumbler and hosting the Disney pics on my website. But it's also not a big deal for me because inserting them is the sort of simple HTML that I've been using for decades and I'm used it it.

For me, while I do use other social media sites to read, I hardly post on them (except the cat pics) because they just don't suit my way of posting. I'd prefer to do one post (of whatever length) talking about multiple topics, than to post a dozen times a day with a single line or picture. (It doesn't help that there are currently so many sites, with different friends prioritizing different ones, so if I were to start posting that way, I'd feel like in order to interact with everyone, I have to post each thought to five different sites and there is just no way that is going to happen. I do it with the cat pics because that's fairly quick, but even that feels like a chore sometimes.)

[torachan]

Oh, and as for Tumblr, I did used to use it a lot years ago, but then I dropped off for a while and when I started paying attention again the whole style of posting had changed and become this "you must post your thoughts only in tags" thing and I hate it and just refuse to do it on principle lol.

[cimorene]

Yeah same, I can't blame DW, but when the easier alternative is there it's harder to get around to it.

Lol @ Tumblr culture. That's true, but I think I had already gradually become a pretty passive Tumblr user. I usually can't be bothered to write comments, whether in the tags or not, in more recent years. And even when I would add something occasionally my posts were all just reblogs of things I saw and liked, you know? And I think a lot of Tumblr is like that now, especially the norm about not adding to a post unless it's something somehow earth-shakingly relevant. Most people's Tumblrs are more a window into what they engaged with on social media or the internet than any kind of journal or personal content.

[stultiloquentia]

I love these. Your cats show so much personality in their faces.

[cimorene]

I do find these young guys unusually expressive, but they also react to things more than Snookums because he's just sleeping most of the time now.

Partly it could also be how short the fur is, though, and the eyes and ears being slightly larger than in most cats; those are breed characteristics and they exaggerate the expression a bit.

[cathexys]

Lovely pictures. And I hear you on DW vs Tumblr!!

[cimorene]

Weird thing is that I didn't really know I felt that way until I had spent quite a while off Tumblr for the addiction to fade...

[laurenthemself]

I hadn't even heard of the Dreamwidth Network until this post! I may have to check it out at some point.

Look at those kitties being such good kitties!

I'm aiming to try to use DW more as well. I think part of the reason I still use Tumblr (and to a lesser extent Instagram) more is the ease of image upload, but it's not like I don't know how to do images on here, and considering the current rate at which social media websites are going kerflooey it certainly couldn't hurt to put some cats and baking pics here. I might refrain from throwing all the Tumblr-type content out here; I kind of like how Tumblr doesn't have quite the same sense of permanence unless someone happens to go meandering through a blog's archive and so just going BLAH and splashing thoughts into the posting box there doesn't make me feel the same need for a bit of structure and neatness the way that Journalling On DW does.

[cimorene]

I definitely used to think that a lot too. And I do stop and check for typos a bit more on Dreamwidth. But I think I've also come to realize that I don't want my old posts to vanish, and they really can be quite a pain to access or even find on Tumblr!

But of course that's not inherent to the platform. Before Twitter people used lj like that. I would post 18 times a day sometimes in the early days, often just a single thought or query.

[torachan]

And the memes! So many people used to post multiple quiz memes daily on LJ, and I think these days that sort of stuff tends to be more on tumblr these days.

[cimorene]

Oh yeah! I haven't even thought about that in a long time, but you're right, they have nearly gone away from here. They must all be there.

[krait]

Cats! <3

I long ago decided that DW was it for me as far as fannish platforms go, so I'm always delighted to meet someone else who has drawn the same conclusion. It's our place and we're sticking with it!

You've reminded me that I keep meaning to post cat photos and not remembering; I should get on that.

[cimorene]

You should!!

[numinousdread]

Love that one of your cats (Tristana) looks like a cartoon.

[cimorene]

Wax likes to say that she moves like a cartoon character as well. She's very funny. Sort of silly and furtive.