Maybe all of you could help me out with some things I've been pondering? C'mon inside!
I must be getting old! I can remember back in the days of hitting up the Nifty server on the Carnegie Mellon network for their LGTB ftp login, where I'd pop on everyday in the hope that there would be some TG fiction posted that I could download and read (@ 14.4k speeds!) .. and then there was the Transformation Story Archive mailing list that was fairly active in the mid 90's, before Fictionmania became a thing. I'd also do mIRC for chats, follow Pretty Sissy Dani and most of the other Geocities sites, lots of web-rings, Bimbo Sanctuary, and then Rachel's Haven (been an admin for over 11+ years now!) Plus various things that are not quite at the tip of my memory.at the moment.
It's interesting to see where things have gone in those 25+ years (DAMN!) what stuck around, and what vanished .. people that perhaps have been reinventing themselves time and again, shedding previous personalities like a proverbial caterpillar transforming into a butterfly.
I've been pretty much ME for almost 20 years now, and I don't intend to be anything but me going forward .. and I find that many people find that comforting. Like the Haven, I haven't gone anywhere, and I've been steady in my production. Almost to a fault, I have thought from time to time.
And for the most part, I've tried to keep up with technology, and followed the different trends.
I've mostly kept to the Haven and this blog. I've resisted things like Pinterest, Deviant Art, and Patreon for different reasons, many to do with initial copyrights on the source photos I use, charging for things that should probably remain free, along with the whole "lets just share this without acknowledging the original creator" that some of the other sites seemed to employ.
I'd thought about writing short stories and selling them on Amazon, but I also like to enjoy my anonymity that could be compromised .. and I don't want anything to take away my time from making captions .. one of the other reasons for not making a Patreon at this point in time .. it possibly ceases to be fun if I'm 'cranking out product' for paying costumers to fulfill a quota with a deadline.
BUT I sit here now typing the proceeding lines into a blog that's been up for 11+ years now. I'm not really sure that blogger is much of a thing anymore! I get a good amount of page hits, and I would put my comment section up against anyone else's for quantity and quality of replies. I'm perfectly happy to keep doing this, but will people keep coming here, or will they fall away slowly, and head to other more modern ways to connect with the community?
SO, I am asking for replies to this pondering of mine .. where do you consume your TG content? Do you still mostly hit blogs and/or specific webpages .. or do you hit Pinterest, Youtube, Deviant Art, Patreon, eBooks, etc ... Are you currently paying for any sort of content, and if so, where are you purchasing said content. I am not sure I want to be a dinosaur in the community, and perhaps I might be able to freshen up things or keep them interesting at the very lease. Who doesn't want to feel relevant in the world for a little bit longer? Please do respond, as I'm very interested in what you all have to say!
Maybe I'll do a follow up posting in the near future?
Really digging this new Gojira album. This video has some metamorphizes too!
I read mostly blogger, but there is a little tumblr and Deviantart, and some standalones like Femulate.
ReplyDeleteIf it makes you feel better, I started with a 300 baud on Quantumlink... now known as AOL. Though I've changed nearly as much it seems sometimes...
I've never done tumblr, but that might be because it seemed to be a "dumping" ground where people would just gack captions from all of us blogger, but not give attribution .. or so I remembered. LOL
DeleteI do belong to DeviantArt but I respect the people that do the work there, and I've had a few times where I've had to pull down captions because people gave me photos to use that belonged to a model on D_A, so I acceded to their wishes and removed the picture from the story.
What is that saying what is old new again. Well if that wasn't exactly true. What if it was a mixer of both.
ReplyDeleteSoooooo, mostly just Blogger for you? LOL
DeleteI use blogger allot. I also look up YouTube and Pinterest. I subscribe to two creators on Patreon.
ReplyDeleteAll on a new laptop now so easier to see.
I too remember the old slow tech from the nineties and how we thought it was the best thing since sliced bread at the time, but now doesn’t compare to gigabit speeds and all the new formats, yeah.
Dee, keep writing here, you’re definitely relevant in the the world and not a Dinosaur. I’m saying that for my own sake too of course.
There are drawbacks on other platforms to anonymity. The money might be nice though. Could tho get led into something.
Today’s caption, I enjoyed, great picture and that fence won’t get painted by John/Jane, some poor kid will now be enlisted.
Thank you for saying that I'm not a dinosaur, and still relevent! I did receive an invite for ummmm, discord or something like that, ok, it's discord. That was one of the reasons I decided to write this blog post. It's not every day that someone called you a "legend" which also usually means you are dead, or close to being deceased! LOL J/K
DeleteI don't plan on leaving here, but they really haven't updated the tools or the ways to make it look more modern in a LONG time. I'm also noticing more and more people accessing this blog through a cell phone, and wondering how pleasant an experience that actually is. I am not sure I'd do that!
I’ve wondered the same thing Dee. Blogger just isn’t updated much any more. I’d like my blog to look, act, and feel newer and sleeker, but that doesn’t seem to be possible. I tend to get most of my TG content on blogger, tumbler, bdsmlr, fictionmania, D+X, and various discords. I use twitter in my ‘other’ life, but not as Caitlyn. I do support a couple artists on Patreon, but they both create their own art. Drawn whether by paper and tools or the computer. Like you, I’d worry about copyright issues as I use someone else’s photography.
ReplyDeleteWow, you tend to do lots of different and varied places. I wander around here and there, but not nearly as much as you do. I even had a subscription to SapphireFoxx for a few months during the pandemic.
DeleteI am a patreon for a few creators, but nothing to do with TG. For me, I really want anonymity, and definitely not sure I can get that as either a creator or viewer. Figured that is why I'd ask here. It's another reason why I haven't gone the Amazon short story route either.
Ironically, I had a Twitter account back like 10 years ago as some version of Dee Mentia, but it was mostly to watch Petra and Steffie have lots of kinky weird fun!
The internet ate my response this morning, so I'm trying again!
ReplyDeleteI thought that was a good question.
Personally, I am tethered to Blogger and my reading list, but also hang around on deviantart, bdsmlr (since tumblr changed their ToS many of the blogs I used to follow on there have shutdown without forwarding addresses and no archives) and pinterest (where many of the images from tumblr's shutdowns have been collated and aggregated, including many from defunct and shutdown blogs). When I take the time to check for new captions using the ol'Google the vast majority of sites remain on Blogger and pinterest.
I'm not sure where the next generation go for their TG content, I'm certainly not seeing anything to rival those sites on Blogger but they seem very much my generation (as do the commenters). Are the young'uns seeking out their TG content on PornHub or xHamster or the like? Or, are they in less need of such an outlet and discussing these things in the open, so to speak, on Reddit? Or has the internet finally gone conservative and these new generations don't know where to look?
One thing I have noticed is that fictionmania seems to have lost some of the vibrancy that I recall when I discovered it in 1998. It may be me, but there seems to be very much a niche and rut in what is published there. However, part of this is probably down to the fact that everything seems to have been done in the genre and style that I prefer and how many times does one reinvent the wheel? Also, there seems to have been a shift toward more one-handed and shorter fare, I assume due to attention-spans? I still check Literotica and I have recently been poortling over at Wattpad due to a friend who published there (it's less TG and nore Femdom there to be fair).
Maybe the next gen are on TikTok then? I think there has been an explosion in TG video content on things like youtube, and I have noted that many captions from blogs end up on video compilations with music backing - maybe that's where people are going - and I get the impression that many of these videos do things without proper attribution (not seen any of yours, Dee, but I did see some of your contemporaries like Britney Shagwell and the like). There's SissyKiss as well, but, again, I can't imagine that's where the younger next gen people are.
In short: mainly I think Blogger, for all it's ills and lack of growth or updates, seems to still be pretty much the home of TG content.
I went to a support group, in person, for trans* people this last week and was amazed how few people there (apart from the chair and one other member) seemed aware that there was *anything* on the internet that was TG related - certainly beyond porn. It shocked me. It seems that many people don't go looking on the internet as much as I would have assumed.
I do need to start supporting people on Patreon and the like though, and I think I shall now that I am a little bit more aware and, well, with everything going on in my life. I owe the community a lot, like, *a lot* so that might be one way to give back. As far as I understand Patreon, you don't have to set a schedule or deadline, just point out that one is creating art and that one needs to pay the bills. There are models that are pay-per-art-piece produced too, so, you could ask people to set up a payment that only triggers when you publish, if that would relieve the feeling that you were working for a dfeadline the whole time?
Hmm, given the length, this may be why the internet keeps eating my comments!
And you are *so* culturally relevant, at least to me! (and I thought the caption was lovely)
Joanna
Holy crap. I feel bad that you had to type it in twice!
DeleteI've watched SapphireFoxx's video content, which is very good. Considering she hires voice actors, I know that she puts a lot of effort into it. Many of the Youtube videos that are "captions" seem to be very poorly done. I've bought quite a few Manyvids and Clips4Sale videos where there's a transformational bent, but that's more of a amateur porn actress fulfilling requests.
I can't imagine people just giving me money because I make things occasionally, and since I rely on picture content that technically belongs to others (I can sort of claim FAIR USE" but it's shaky at best, charging people to see it behind a paywall or become my patron seems somewhat risky and not something I would like to do.
It's just that it seems like every year or two you hear about blogger getting more stringent on their policies involving risque material .. I wonder what I will do if the other shoe drops, and it's always nice to get new people dropping by from time to time, even though I love ALL my regulars.
And you don't necessarily have to give money to people to support them. Comments like the ones I'm responding too, or any sort of comments are SO MUCH APPRECIATED! I am not sure people understand just how much a few words can mean!
And thank you for you words! Nice to know that YOU still find me relevant!
Aw Dee, you know how to make a girl blush!
DeleteAlso, yes, this is *why* you get the community you do!