Kristen Lippert-Martin: Use Your Words, Please

Monday, April 29, 2013

Use Your Words, Please

I don’t get Tumblr. I really don’t.

Not to get all Grumpy Old Man about it, but I don’t see the appeal.

Maybe it’s that I’m not all that into GIFs. I don't know. But the fact is, for writers, I kinda feel like GIFs are cheating.

Yes, yes, I know there’s that whole “a picture’s worth a thousand words” thing, but we're wordsmiths. Using GIFs as short-cut explanations for your mood/thoughts/yearnings is espousing a medium of communication that eliminates the very thing you produce. It’s like, I don’t know, a whaler not using whale oil for his own lamps or something. Crazy!

Aye, you go ahead and use that kerosene, young man!

Who needs this smelly oil that I’ve wrung

from the blubber of the sea beast with my own gnarled and briny hands?

Am I right?

Please feel free to persuade me to fall in love with Tumblr.

Comments (18)

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Renee Collins · 622 weeks ago

Haha, I see what you did there! ;)

Seriously though, I do agree that gifs, while very fun, require much less wit and charm than the written word. Anyone can reblog a funny gif.

That said, I'm against Tumblr because it's One More Thing that we're supposed to be doing on the internet. Noooooo *hides from the internet*

1 reply · active 622 weeks ago

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KLM 70p · 622 weeks ago

What's the matter, Renee? Don't you want to be on the Internet ALL THE TIME? I thought that was everyone author's dream.

And, yes, my stupidity verges on cleverness occasionally. Only occasionally. ;)

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@CarrieMesrobian · 622 weeks ago

See, you are way ahead of the game if you can MAKE gifs. I just nick them from the young whippersnappers, see.

Like Pinterest, Tumblr is primarily for my own enjoyment. I don't do much reader outreach or book promotion stuff there. Because no one is reading Tumblr. Unless you write fan fiction. Mostly I like to go to Tumblr and waste away my life liking all the Norman Reedus pictures culled from all over the internet for my pleasure.

Also, porn. Apparently there's porn there. Some people enjoy that, I hear? ;)

1 reply · active 622 weeks ago

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KLM 70p · 622 weeks ago

Making that gif was enormously annoying, but once I'd invested, oh, 2 hrs into it, I couldn't give up until I had something to show for my time.

I know I'm being all judgy about Tumblr but I kept hearing about how awesome Tumblr was and yet every time I'd click a link to it, I'd end up looking at some Dr. Who gif and wondering, WTF?

Porn? On the internet? You lie!

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@AngelinaCHansen · 622 weeks ago

What's tumblr? ^_^

1 reply · active 622 weeks ago

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KLM 70p · 622 weeks ago

I was JUST wondering about you this afternoon. You're all working a day job and stuff. What's that like? *shudders*

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tezmilleroz 35p · 622 weeks ago

I'm with you, K. It really annoys me when people use Tumblr as a blog, because it's not very interactive-friendly. Not easy to comment, or reply to a comment - there's Ask and Respond, and it just gives me the irrits.

And that basically they're just reposting other people's gifs about fandoms that I don't care for.

I'm okay with Pinterest, though.

2 replies · active 621 weeks ago

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KLM 70p · 622 weeks ago

That's it exactly! You just put your finger on what bugs me most about it. It's not interactive. It's not a conversation. Most of the stuff on Tumblr is just "Look at this!" and there's nothing more to it than that.

I've got cat videos to watch. I can't be looking at gifs all day, yanno? ;)

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@CarrieMesrobian · 621 weeks ago

YES. What Tez said. You can merely like or reblog with your own comments, but not really go back and forth that easily.

I usually link any blog post I feel relevant to my Tumblr in the scarce hope that someone's actually reading the captions/text to the images, but otherwise it seems like a wasteland for talking about books or ideas...

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alyndenrolland 1p · 622 weeks ago

I totally agree with Renee here. Tumblr is just one more obligation. I'll pass. Although, I recently bit the bullet and joined Instagram but mainly b/c of pic sharing with family, and it isn't time consuming at all.

1 reply · active 622 weeks ago

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KLM 70p · 622 weeks ago

And furthermore, what is Vine? I don't even know. Do we have to do that too? I wish someone would just say, "OK, here's the list of stuff you're supposed to be doing online to help market your book: Pick three!"

I think I'll be sticking with my blog, Twitter, and a smidge of Facebook. Honestly, I don't want to make a fan page but I think that's a must. But seriously, that's all I can manage for the foreseeable future.

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Mirka Breen · 621 weeks ago

DS is a Tumbler who is so cool he never was on Facebook... It's a generational thing. Let's face it- some of us(not you!) are just OLD.
Yeesh, sunny. I don't get it either.

1 reply · active 621 weeks ago

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KLM 70p · 621 weeks ago

No, I'm old. I'm, like, 104 years old in cranky years. ;) Some days I think, gosh, I'm going to be a nightmare when I'm an old lady.

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meghancward 86p · 621 weeks ago

I never read Tumblrs, and I didn't know they had turned into a vehicle for animated gifs. Interesting! I always thought of it as a cross between Twitter and a blog - kind of like a Facebook page - someplace to post photos and videos. But I've got enough on my plate without taking on another social media platform! (I played with Vine for a while and that was fun. I'll make a Vine now and then, but I'm not interested in doing it on a regular basis.)

1 reply · active 621 weeks ago

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KLM 70p · 621 weeks ago

You must be visiting the right Tumblrs then because every single one I look at is just a string of gifs about this or that thing being either totally awesome or completely sucky. It got to the point where I was like, DOES NO ONE USE THE WRITTEN WORD ANY MORE??? Writers should not be communicating through the visual abbreviation that is a gif more than once in a while. (Cute animal gifs are the exception. You can post all the baby hedgehogs you want, Meghan.)

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Steven J. Wangsness · 621 weeks ago

I don't get Tumblr, either. Not even sure what Reddit is. Barely comprehend Facebook.

1 reply · active 621 weeks ago

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KLM 70p · 621 weeks ago

Steven, God bless ya for even getting out of bed every morning.

I have a theory that a Luddite backlash is coming soon and everyone will return to writing on slate with chalk.

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Chrystos · 592 weeks ago

In some ways its very ego driven. You have people who aren't willing to listen to their peers. I think a lot of animators feel very protective of their work. When you can find an environment where people are willing to open up, every one's work gets better. Our current room at work is a great example. The gauntlet is down anytime. You can anything about any one's shot and not feel like you are hurting anyone's feelings. The work all around the room has gotten better. We think that's REALLY important.
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Kristen Lippert-Martin

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Monday, April 29, 2013

Use Your Words, Please

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