#blue hellsite

[bapydemonprincess]

[keydekyie]

I wasn't even doing anything I was just reading a post!

[sybilius]

I know everyone is trying to add their two cents to newcomers (purported...) about how tumblr works, what not to do, etc. I was thinking today about how tumblr has genuinely and truly helped my socialization skills, because of reblogging.

Here's how that works: most people on here get zero to negative cool points for being here. That's straight up how it is-- tumblr the uncool gay fandom website that everyone thinks is dead.

However-- this does create a beautiful observational situation where if someone is posting about something, 90% of the time it is something they are 150% die-hard into, and want to talk about with more or less anyone who is engaged and shows interest.

And this, my friends, is the cheat code for making friends. Watch, observe. Engage in small ways (reblog with little notes in the tags! occasionally and with tone-matching, add a reply or reblog note!). If you show genuine and listening interest in someone's pet interest, that is a very hard form of love to turn down. You'll be DMing and chit-chatting in discord in no time.

Tumblr is the easiest place to learn this because everyone here is unironically not here to be cool, they're here to find their shit and scream and chew drywall about it. But let me tell you: this applies to anyone in meatspace too.

Most people have a pet topic. And once you learn to see it on tumblr? You will learn how to pick it out of small talk too :)

So yknow, let yourself be known, and know others on here too! I promise it will enrich your life.

[red-umbrella-811]

You know I want you to reblog this so I get more answers

[gothiccharmschool]

:: sees multiple posts about a clown, is confused :: :: refreshes Tumblr dashboard ::

JESUS WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT.

@staff - did no one bring up that a lot of people have a mild-to-serious phobia of clowns?

HOW THE FUCK DO I GET RID OF IT I DON'T WANT IT IN THE CORNER OF MY SCREEN AAAAAAAAUUUUUUGHHAFOIUJHFERHJANOLKDEJf'OPWJFE

[copperbadge]

If you could buy Tumblr, would you?

Hm, an interesting thought!

If I were capable of buying Tumblr this would imply one of two things: either Tumblr is so devalued and has become so cheap to maintain that a single man living in downtown Chicago with two cats to feed could afford to buy it and keep it, or I have somehow come into enough wealth that I am capable of squandering millions on the Hellsite.

(Or I'm running the most incredible con, which is actually the most flattering option.)

If we're talking a situation where Tumblr would cost me roughly the price of a third cat to purchase and maintain, sure. Buy it, keep it like a pet. This is a bit of an unrealistic vision of things, because under what circumstances would this possibly happen, but as long as we're in unreality, let's pretend I could also simply add and remove features at will. That's some fun shit. Sure, I would.

The more realistic option (for a given value) is that I have mysteriously come into a massive sum of money and could afford to purchase Tumblr. In this scenario, I could likely afford to operate it at a loss only for so long, but I don't actually know how much Tumblr costs on a yearly basis to keep it operational. Most of the problems with most social media, however, come from the fact that they don't just have to break even, they have to turn a profit to continue to function, or they have to have regular infusions of venture capital. A thorny issue.

Ideally what I would do once Tumblr was purchased, and presuming all the other share/stakeholders and investors were paid off, was immediately convert it to a nonprofit. What you can do with nonprofit cash is a lot smaller than what you can do with for-profit levels of investment, but turning Tumblr into a nonprofit has the immediate advantage of no longer having to make money. Tumblr can actually run at a "loss" if it's a public service, because it's all donation-supported anyway. I could think of half a dozen immediate easy targets for major gift fundraising for "Tumblr 503", and I would immediately begin planning both an annual campaign (that's what you see Wikipedia and AO3 doing each year) and a capital campaign to create an endowment to protect the org from future depredation.

Depending on funding I would also be willing to create an arm of the Tumblr Foundation that could start separate initiatives like legal protection for activists on the platform, AI that is better at recognizing illegal content so we don't have huge buildings of poor traumatized motherfuckers doing that moderation work, and such things. This isn't at all uncommon -- the nonprofit I work for now is a medical nonprofit, but even as small as we are, we have numerous different initiatives, from political lobbying to pharma outreach to a helpline for the newly diagnosed to a yearly conference for doctors in the field to funding for young researchers.

Would it work? Dunno. Possibly not, I'm not experienced in backend management of a massive website. But I know people who are, and if the money was there I'd take a stab at it. Worst case scenario, we just take it private again and sucker a couple of billionaires out of their money a second time. Promise if the nonprofit doesn't work and we sell Tumblr to the highest bidder, everyone on the site when we do gets a cut.

[ineffectualdemon]

Just FYI the only time I get even a little annoyed about being blocked is if someone sends me a long shitty message and then blocks me before I can read it but I can still see part of it in my notifications

Like come on. That's annoying

Otherwise if I get blocked I really really don't care

Sometimes I'll mention it as "huh. So that's what did it."

But I don't keep thinking about it past the post where I mention that

I much rather people block me then send me anon hate

[thisweekinfandomhistory]

Do you want an extra hour in the ball pit? This week, for the first time, V and Emily are joined by a VERY SPECIAL GUEST, @thelaurenshippen of the podcast @dashboarddiaries! They discuss the convention to end all conventions, the first (and only) DashCon. From its birth on the blue hellsite to its death in a Chicagoland hotel, DashCon was truly a lesson for the ages that just because sometimes fandom can pull off amazing and inspirational feats, sometimes it… cannot. Lauren brings her expertise in all things Tumblr to TWIFH with humor and grace. Did you go to DashCon? WOULD you go to a DashCon?

This Week In Fandom History is a fandom-centric podcast that tells you… what happened this week in fandom history!

[autumngracy]

Maybe this is silly but I think tumblr is the kind of unique, fandom oriented space where it could genuinely keep itself running without profit if it just held occasional donation drives like AO3.

Name what amount they need to actually keep everything going for a certain amount of time and show how much of it they've received so far, instead of coming up with dumb gimmicks nobody asked for (badges, blaze, socks, keychains, etc.) to try to entice people to throw money at them.

[notasapleasure]

hey tumblr you assholes give us kay back!!! undelete @stripedroseandsketchpads that's my friend >:(

[susann-noir]

There's something that keeps happening on Tumblr [and it's more noticeable in December, when I resurrect a lot of ancient posts] that I really don't understand - people reblogging stuff from the source, rather than the reblogger [who clearly drew their attention to that post in the first place].

Why? There's no extra comment or addition. What am I missing here?

I don't get it :/

[wageronancap]

I think I got shadowbanned, I can't see my own posts on my dashboard all of a sudden

[keydekyie]

In light of recent events, as well as the revelations regarding Tumblr's plans to sell user data, I want to remind everyone that you can find me on multiple other socials via my 🌳 Linktree 🌳

If you want to reliably keep up with The Moth and the Bear or the rest of my work, please follow me elsewhere. I'm probably not going anywhere, because I'm stubborn as hell, but I just don't know anymore, and I don't want anyone to get left behind.

This whole thing really frustrates me because Tumblr has always been my biggest and most engaged audience, and my favorite platform in general, and other socials still feel like throwing my art into a mostly empty, uncaring void. I've just always failed to gain any traction in other places.

But idk, we'll just have to see.

[iamnmbr3]

is anyone else's queue function suddenly all weird and messed up?

[red-umbrella-811]

Friends, could we maybe make an effort to tag our political posts more consistently? Especially those that contain hate speech? I highly doubt we’re going to see less of it in the next 4 years.