I was also gonna say -- I have some theories about commenting practices and two-way interaction these days.
Part of it, I think, has to do with an anti-comment culture that developed on Tumblr, which then goes on to impact AO3, but now that you mention it... it does seem like bigger sites allowing for bigger "followings" has facilitated a focus on one-to-many conversation, as contrasted with one-to-one conversation between peers. Of course one-to-many has always been an aspect of any posting online that isn't a private message, but there's a gradient here, and it does seem like bigger, centralized sites have shifted the emphasis in that direction.
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I was also gonna say -- I have some theories about commenting practices and two-way interaction these days.
Part of it, I think, has to do with an anti-comment culture that developed on Tumblr, which then goes on to impact AO3, but now that you mention it... it does seem like bigger sites allowing for bigger "followings" has facilitated a focus on one-to-many conversation, as contrasted with one-to-one conversation between peers. Of course one-to-many has always been an aspect of any posting online that isn't a private message, but there's a gradient here, and it does seem like bigger, centralized sites have shifted the emphasis in that direction.