Tumblr repost: [untitled pro-ace inclusion post]

(Original post, 2016-04-19)

( Discussion of queerphobia and what-does-queer-even-mean )

Transitive social media

I've seen a number of people on Mastodon bemoan the patterns that show up with broadcast-style social media networks (e.g. Twitter, Tumblr, Mastodon, Dreamwidth) and either waxing poetic about Web 1.0* forums or actively promoting their own. There's also the popularity of Discord servers as places for [description of a group of people] to congregate.

...while I was thinking about these things, though, I realized there's a big advantage that broadcast social networks (and IMs and DMs, for that matter) have over membership-based social networks like forums and chatrooms (and Minecraft servers, for that matter): in membership-based groups, you basically have a package deal when it comes to who you connect to.

It's an advantage as well, of course - I've met some truly wonderful people because they were part of a group I became a part of - but I can't help think of the Five Geek Social Fallacies, of the people in groups I participate in who just constantly rub me the wrong way, of the people at risk of losing connection with multiple friends because someone with a vendetta against them joined the group they hang out with these friends in. The group I didn't join because one of the prominent members had just told me that they weren't okay with being followed by an atheist like me on social media.

Going from broadcast social networks to membership ones is not an unambiguous Better™, is what I'm saying.

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* There's some dispute about what "Web 1.0" means, but if the image that came to mind when you read the phrase is "phpBB and similar", it's pretty accurate.