Dump.fm user Kalan sent this message to a list of about 150 more-or-less active users of dump.fm:
so i've been hearing all these different perceptions of what dump is from/to the outside world recently: dump as a community of art fakers who want to have something they can use to say they 'do' as artists when they go to parties, a sort of superficial fascia to front the careers of a few prime members, a hip-star meme parasite, etc.... and im interested ethnographically in these perspectives. can people please send (email or w/e would be more surefire? - it's on my website) their or other overheard 'meta'-analyses of dump.fm-ing , what it signifies and suggests etc. i'ma gonna try to synthesize something.
My two cents:
who are all these people saying these terrible things? I guess it's nice to hear that the "outside world" has opinions about dump.fm. Registration has been open and closed depending on how much trolling is going on (not sure the status at the moment) but there's actually no reason for there to be an "outside world" as long as anyone can log on. As a logged-in person, assuming you can figure out some basic navigation on your own, you can speak your mind in the main chat room and you have as good a chance of anyone else of (i) "getting" what it means to "talk with pictures" in a real-time chat situation, either for yourself or others, (ii) making yourself into a "prime member" or person who can brag about dumping at parties. Anyone who hasn't attempted this only makes a half-baked insult; anyone who attempts it and fails to connect is just a disappointed backbiter. As for "meme parasite" what website isn't doing that? The web is a vast unruly organism of content-sucking and content-delivery (from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs, as Marx would say) and it's not fair to draw lines just at one locale. I'd say dump is "content-positive" if only because I get so many blog post ideas and pics from there.