I think it's partly platforms and partly a life stages thing, at least it has been for me - when I first started using Tumblr ~10 years ago (after a couple years sort of hiatus from internet fandom post LJ collapse), I did more long-form meta posting than I do now, though not nearly so much as I did back in my forum/LJ days. At that point, when I was in college and then graduate school (I connect with your evocation of your opinionated college self), spending a solid hour here and there writing out my thoughts on something to share could fit into the contours of my daily life more readily than it does now as a more established adult with a career that doesn't allow for a lot of downtime during the day. (Personally to me, I think there's something about the nature of my job, which of course involves very intensively listening to and engaging with other people's inner worlds and stories, and the ways that I need to decompress from that which, even a number of years in, I am still figuring out.)
I think I've also found myself getting more cautious about what I put on the internet, which is partly about anonymity (back in the 2000s I used I regularly post thoughts about theater that I'd seen, which I would feel very very hesitant to do now) and partly about having weathered the vitriolic atmosphere of a lot of social justice circles at this time, and the ways that's seeped into fandom. At the same time, I think I also feel a different kind of confidence now in my opinions about art and media, and I care less about whether other people agree with me, so I don't feel as strong an impulse to write rhetorically.
I do struggle with all this, though - I not infrequently do find myself thinking that I would enjoy interacting with the internet more in the ways I used to, including writing more in my own voice in that way. I certainly think I would be happier if I got back to writing and post fanfic more regularly. But it feels like there are a lot of obstacles to doing so.
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Date: 2022-11-11 07:00 pm (UTC)I think I've also found myself getting more cautious about what I put on the internet, which is partly about anonymity (back in the 2000s I used I regularly post thoughts about theater that I'd seen, which I would feel very very hesitant to do now) and partly about having weathered the vitriolic atmosphere of a lot of social justice circles at this time, and the ways that's seeped into fandom. At the same time, I think I also feel a different kind of confidence now in my opinions about art and media, and I care less about whether other people agree with me, so I don't feel as strong an impulse to write rhetorically.
I do struggle with all this, though - I not infrequently do find myself thinking that I would enjoy interacting with the internet more in the ways I used to, including writing more in my own voice in that way. I certainly think I would be happier if I got back to writing and post fanfic more regularly. But it feels like there are a lot of obstacles to doing so.