#we is like. the collective spnblr we

[gaytedlasso]

Happy Pride, Castiel. We love you.

[scoobydoodean]

Can we assume that there are so few Sam people that they can’t even win polls when they cheat? And if that Jared poll is correct most of the fandom doesn’t like him either. Only like 27% of that poll loved him completely. The rest have no so positive feeling about him. The math of these polls interests me as much as the outcomes.

I honestly don't think SPN polls mean anything. Like they are fun for discussion and a little friendly competition can be enjoyable, but that really is where their value ends. The sample sizes are usually wack, and even when we frame the sample as "spnblr/tumblr users opinions" specifically, we still don't have a randomized sample of respondents. Polls spread from spnblr community to spnblr community through reblogs in deeply non-randomized patterns, and to only the groups of people who are really interested in them, and that creates serious selection bias.

Our fandom is honestly pretty segmented. There's almost a wall between the samgirl/wincest sphere and the destiel/deangirl/casgirl sphere where almost completely separate metas and fanworks usually circulate because the aesthetic interests and vision of the show is typically so different between the two groups.

Even within each of those two larger spheres, there's even more division (to see a small piece of what I mean, check out my venn diagram about fandom feelings on jackles). Like I'm pretty sure there are more than a few groups of samgirls who don't like each other. I mean that isn't shocking considering there'a a group of about 30 hardcore Jared stans on this site who sit around in a knitting circle all day wishing death on actors wives and kids and complaining that Jared's dick isn't being perpetually sucked. I'm pretty sure most samgirls know to avoid them at the least (?). Even within the J1 community, there was a split over intercommunity racism a few years ago where people mass unfollowed each other. So polls don't spread organically (and in many cases, can't because of blocking). Polls generally start with a blogger with certain aesthetic interests and values, and are unlikely to leave their larger sphere unless the topic is of interest to the other large sphere. A week long poll will slowly spread to other little pockets of fans starting with people who think most similarly to the OP. People with generally the same beliefs are therefore exposed to the poll for a longer period of time and therefore have a longer amount of time to get online, see the poll, and vote. Which means wherever a poll originates, that community more broadly gets a "head start" in pushing their opinion most of the time and that can generate a lead that's difficult to reverse early on also because of the larger stock of reblogs sitting in that community slowly collecting votes.

Like if I started a poll right now of "who's the best SPN character", it would immediately take off with deanfans, pushing Dean into the lead, and then probably circulate to the casgirl community (except for the deancrit casgirl subsegment with whom I am mutually blocked lmao). Because samgirls overwhelmingly do not like me or anyone I associate with or at the very least have no interest in what interests us about the show, the poll would in most cases take a couple of days to reach them if it circulated enough to ever reach them at all. I could literally identify by name and on one hand the followers I have through whom posts I make can potentially spread to samgirls and bibros, and if they don't happen to be online at the time or just don't care, Dean (and likely Cas as well) could be pulling ahead for days before Samgirls caught wind of the poll. Put another way, the poll would circulate among the deangirl/casgirl/destiel sphere for a whole week, but only among the samgirl/wincest sphere for 3-4 days maybe. So even if the fanbases were of equal size (which I don't think they are) samgirls would still not be exposed to the poll as long as deangirls and casgirls were, creating a large selection bias. On the other hand, if a deancrit samgirl posted that same poll, the exact opposite would happen with Sam taking a commanding lead immediately. The larger size of the bubble we're sitting in and circulating the poll enough (out of indignation or whatever) might cause a reversal, but it would be more difficult.

TL;DR Samgirls can and have won various polls and I'm sure they win them legitimately on many occasions (though they have cheated in external polls I hosted in the past—it only takes a couple of people!). They certainly don't always need to cheat and it takes a certain type of person to be passionate enough to do that. Sometimes Sam is also just a reasonable choice for a poll and he does great! But also Tumblr polls have zero meaning. I just don't put any stock into them unless it's fun.

[the-rollerchloster]

Found in my notes app, and no less relevant now than when I blathered it to no one back then...

Me, a small-ish discord server owner, reading the notes on this post like: 🤔🤔 these are all valid concerns, but maybe y’all just haven’t found the right home.

My thoughts on tumblr vs discord in the fandom space is that they’re not a one or other, they should be used to boost and enhance each other.

I will admit that I have been burnt by big servers before, and I have landed in a few more that have immediately overwhelmed me and made me nope out, but I have also had some amazing conversations with people I never would have reached out to before if I’d only been following them on tumblr.

When I created @sunshineshellers I had a very clear goal. I saw a gap in the cockles/destiel corner of the spn fandom for people who needed to be able to talk freely without fear of judgement. Screaming into the void of tumblr (as so many of us with less than 200 followers do) isn’t always enough to satiate a full blown fandom spiral. It’s nice to have somewhere where you can say “is this something…?” and actually get a response, but so many spn servers sweep cockles into a dusty corner, which makes people who perceive feel like dirty little outcasts.

I love tumblr, I love spnblr, and it’s great for big brain thoughts like this, and for finding and sharing so many beautiful creations, and for collective meltdowns when something noteworthy comes to light.

But some of *my* best “content” comes to me inside the group chatter of my pocket family. A community of people who Get It is a treasured commodity in this life that can look like a hodge-podge group of people from all over the world coming together to scream incoherently about our shared love of Supernatural. We don’t agree all the time, but that’s okay because we care about each other because we understand the passion and love having somewhere that makes fandom feel less empty.

I’m not saying all this to convince you to join my server and say you must love discord cos I do. I’m saying this just to point out that much like you curate your tumblr dash to your personal preferences, you curate your discord experience to your personal preferences too, and there could be a whole corner of this community just waiting to hear your thoughts if only you’d give them a chance. 💖

[faithdeans]

i don't think we, as a spnblr collective talk enough about What Baking Can Do. like to ME it's an iconic fic, one of the few aus that have stuck with me but like. where's the hype? it deserves hype.

[roublardise]

i didn't see the biphobia yesterday but like. when basically every lgbtqia letters on spnblr eventually talk about experiencing -phobia there. maybe we should collectively rethink how we interact in fandoms for real just thinking 💔

[queerstudiesnatural]

RAIN my beloved, you're the sweetest person!! I meant to say I haven't stopped thinking about Love Is A Scorch Mark On The Ceiling since is read it the other day!! Also you can self-publish on kindle for free :)

you flatter me, kisses for you!!! 💕💕💕

and yeah i know you can self publish for free but i mean like wouldn't it be fun to write a collaborative poetry collection about the cw's supernatural? like personally i know my spn poems won't make it into any of my other collections i plan on publishing bc like. they're about the cw's supernatural. but i think if we were to put all of our poems together we could end up with something pretty cool that spnblr at least could enjoy

[angelofcats]

ok but real shit guys does anyone remember that era of spnblr back in like 2014 where everyone did ship destiel, yes, but for some reason the go to for sam was gabriel. why did we all collectively decide this. am I misremembering in my old age