Why do I DW?

( Cut for length - policies on LJ/DW )

I've also been thinking about the way that fandom seems to migrate from platform to platform over time. When I first got online, I was in Buffy fandom and most of the activity was based on the Buffy posting board on the WB site. Email lists (that are now Yahoo groups) were the other major way to interact and were the big way to get fic and talk shipping.

Message boards and mailing lists were the main thing for several years and I'd been in Stargate for a year or two before LJ became the inevitable Next Big Thing. LJ stayed the main location for fandom for a long time but started to splinter a few years ago after a lot of the big LJ dramas.

I've noticed over the eighteen months that most of my fandom interaction is migrating to a combination of Tumblr, Twitter and AO3. I use my LJ/DW when I've got something to talk about (like today) that really doesn't suit Tumblr or Twitter's formats (in depth discussions are still much easier in comments on LJ/DW) and when I need to vent or chat about RL stuff.

Tumblr is my happy place where I try not to let the crappier side of RL intrude. Good and happy things, like big comic hauls, totally go on Tumblr. My adventures with IBD stay over here.

And Twitter is where most of my actual fannish interaction seems to be happening now.

I'm sure that in five years there will be another gradual migration to another platform or combination of platforms. I really do hope there isn't a migration away from AO3 because it's genuinely awesome for fic. But it doesn't worry me much that we're migrating from LJ to Tumblr or Twitter and onwards as long as I can keep in contact with everyone during the transition phases. Fandom and fandom interaction has been evolving and shifting ever since people realised they could exchange letters about fannish stuff and it will continue to do so.

I've just learned to go with the flow and move along with it because it's the involvement that matters to me, not the platform we use for it.