When Social Media Bleed Together

Odd title for a post? Perhaps a bit. Let me explain what it means.

There are so many social media sites out there. Some are more powerful than others. Some are more nebulous as to their purpose and advantage than others. (I'm looking at you Instagram and Flickr and all those other similar sites.)

There are several heavy-hitters in the social media world:

Facebook
Twitter
Tumblr
Pinterest

Of course we can add Blogger and WordPress into that list. (I also find it interesting that Blogger's spell checker has Tumblr as approved spelling but has yet to add Pinterest to its dictionary as acceptable.)

Of those four, I am on two– Pinterest and Twitter.

I love both equally. I've whiled away many an hour on Pinterest, repinning to my heart's content as I explore the Geek board (along with Women's Fashion, History, Food & Drink, and sometimes Humor).

I have many boards. I used to have four more than I currently do. I'd titled these boards very specifically to my interests. BBC Ruins Me (for Sherlock and other BBC programs), Fantastic Bananas (for Doctor Who), Nerd-dom (for all things geeky which didn't fit those boards), and eventually I added Legends of Hyrule (for Legend of Zelda, obviously).

Why did I delete them?

Because they no longer fit the defining characteristic of Pinterest. I mean, isn't the point of Pinterest that you're visually bookmarking things to reference again later? You pin recipes with the intention of someday making them. Clothes to be able to reference them again and perhaps purchase or find a similar garment for purchasing. Historical fashion and photos can be pinned to reference later in writing research.

But the geeky stuff?

I found my Pinterest was quickly becoming a Tumblr fangirl wannabe. Most everything I ever pinned onto those four board was from Tumblr. I still don't quite get what Tumblr's unique purpose and contribution might be to a future writing platform. And I'm still determined to keep Pinterest largely not about a writer's platform. But I did find that my Pinterest was becoming too much like all the fangirl accounts on Tumblr.

So I deleted them. And have determined to keep a clearer focus on the reason Pinterest was created as I move forward in my use of the website. This is the same goal I have with any of my other social media. Twitter is one giant chat room. One in which, admittedly, I get lost more often than not. Thus far, however, I have yet to see Pinterest and Twitter bleed into one another.

I think the bleeding is more likely to happen between Pinterest and Tumblr and between Facebook and Twitter. Though I do have plans for a Tumblr should I someday be blessed enough to have Heirs of the Seven Realms and all its sister books published. (Assuming Tumblr is still popular then.)

Meanwhile, don't mind the tremors in my hands as I go through pinning withdrawals. (I kid, I kid.)

Online Life and Writing

In this day and age, there's real life and online life. Often those intersect. Lately I've been trying to consolidate things online. I've changed my personal email and am currently in the process of migrating things over. Eventually the goal is to have everything related to my writing career's public life on the domain-specific emails I've set up and everything personal attached to my new personal email.

The only problem with that?

Over the course of a decade or more of the internet being prevalent, there's a lot out there, some I'm sure I'm forgetting. It might take me a year to get everything sorted out. Sigh.

My advice to anyone reading this is to start now, if you think you might ever need to change things around. I'm trying to consolidate my life and hopefully thus make even more time for writing.

The other bit of advice in all of this is to set up your blog under the name you want to write with and not some random thing like I did. Because I've been paying for that decision since the day I made it.

Consolidating emails and sorting out the tangled online web I've created is not an easy task. Save yourself the work and start out now.

If you have a question you're dying to ask me, something you want me to address either here on my site or over at the Dojo, send it to info(at)stephanie-mcgee(dot)com

Comments and other fun stuff can be sent to stephanie(at)stephanie-mcgee(dot)com