#or at least the last person on tumblr

[cinnamonest]

Also sorry for the temporary delay! Basically last week my phone completely died. I'd had it for 6 years so it was at the end of its lifespan, the battery suddenly went from 80% to 10% in the span of about 20 minutes and wouldn't charge, so I had to go buy a new one (and communicated with my family via skype in the meantime, and used my microwave as a wake up alarm, improve adapt overcome lmao)

Unfortunately since I was logged out on PC and I use 2FA, which is unique to the device it's implemented on, I quickly realized I was totally locked out of my Tumblr, but staff came through for me in less than 12 hours and helped me switch to 2FA on my new phone.

Thank you Tumblr staff 🙏

[mumblesplash]

if you like scurvy you would LOVE the terror 2018

obsessed with the phrasing of this. guy who just watches shows for the diseases

[coelpts]

alright, guess we're complaining now.

[Image ID: First image: A cropped screenshot of Tumblr's Friday, May 26th, 2023 changelog which reads, "On web, clicking anywhere in a post’s header now opens that post. Previously, you had to click specifically on the blog name."

Second image: A cropped screenshot of Tumblr's Tuesday, May 30th, 2023 changelog which reads, "To clarify a point made in last Friday’s post: on web, clicking the reblogged-from blog name in a reblog’s post header now takes you to that blog, not their reblog. Clicking in the empty space in the post’s header, and in the header of each reblog trail item, now takes you to that specific post in the blog view popup. This is one of a series of updates we’re making to the reblog consumption experience across all platforms, to make it more intuitive and consistent, especially for new users." End ID.]

Tumblr, this change is bad. A lot of other people have already shared their own complaints for this new and awful system, but it's time for me to properly throw my hat in the ring instead of at-ing you directly due to user error. Whoops.

[UPDATE 6/11/2023] HORRIBLE NEWS, EVERYONE! This change has hit mobile. There is no longer any way to access the previous version of a post except through theme reblog chaining on desktop. I've added some extra fun comments both as an edit to this post and as a reblog so nobody misses out.

All my complaints are in the read more because this got LONG.

TL;DR- This change breaks a major signifier used across the site, removes post functionality only to replace it with redundant blog links, and completely destroys a primary mode of social interaction that's been used on Tumblr for over a decade. Here's the Tumblr Staff support link so you can give feedback on how bad this change is.

Part One: Signifiers and Consistency

This is my biggest point, so it will be a bit of a doozy. Strap in.

This change is about making Tumblr operation 'intuitive and consistent' by unifying behavior between like-designed parts of the site. Now on the face that's not a bad reason to do things, and making sure users are able to intuit what a button does based on its properties is good design. I'll give an example:

Hearts symbolize the 'Like' function on Tumblr. The heart button on a post adds it to your Likes, the Likes option on your account is accompanied by that same heart, and Likes show up in post notes with that heart. This heart, then, becomes a consistent and reliable signifier. If you see a heart button on Tumblr, then whatever it's attached to probably has something to do with Likes.

So, back to the change. This change relates to the signifier of the 'Tumblr blog url link'. The idea is thus- on other parts of the site, such as the Search tab on mobile and on a blog in the dashboard tray, you will see related or similar blog suggestions like these:

[Image ID: First image: A cropped screenshot of Tumblr's Getting Started help page. It shows an example blog with the 'Blogs like this one' tray visible, populated with four example blogs.

Second image: A second cropped screenshot of Tumblr's Getting Started help page. It shows an example of the Search page on mobile with the 'Check out these blogs' feature highlighted, where two example blog cards are shown. End ID.]

These suggestions are Tumblr blog urls paired with their icon and a little bit of their blog, either the title or some recent posts of theirs. If you click on that url title, the link follows through to that blog. So there's the signifier: click on the url, go to the blog.

But now we have a bit of a snag. What about these?

[Image ID: A cropped reblog screenshot. The crop shows the Tumblr urls of the reblogger @coelpts and reblogged @coelpts-artchives with the reblog symbol between them, the rebloggers icon, and the date that this reblog was posted. End ID.]

Well, these LOOK like Tumblr blog url links. They're styled in the same way. In fact, the reblogger even has a blog icon next to it! So all signs point to these url links pointing directly to a Tumblr blog if clicked on. After this change, that's exactly what they do- so, like, no problem, right?

But, hold on. There's another signifier here! These aren't JUST Tumblr blog url links! This is…

[Image ID: First image: The former image of a cropped reblog screenshot, focused on the urls and reblog icon.

Second image: The Tumblr reblog icon. End ID.]

Our good friend, the Reblog button! That's another classic Tumblr signifier, and it sits right next to the Like button I pontificated about. Reblogs are an integral part of Tumblr, and on top of every single reblogged post you will see that icon. And would you look at that- it's even the same color as the second url link!

Those url links that established the 'url link' signifier that we talked about before, in the search page and on the dashboard tray, aren't attached to any posts. But this url is, and the reblog symbol is right next to it. The reblog signifier modifies the url link signifier. This link should go to the reblog from this user. Right? Because it is a reblog FROM that url link- so that's where it should go! And that's where it used to go, before this update.

[EDIT] I came back to fix some typos I noticed but while I was away I tested mobile to see if this change hit the app yet. It has not, but what I saw instead confirmed the above point- on mobile, selecting the reblogged's url ALSO highlights the reblog icon next to it! These two signifiers are connected, and should be read together.

By changing the url links to be more 'consistent' with other url links across the site, a major signifier that keeps the site together has been broken entirely. What should lead to a reblog- something that is clearly shown through use of a recognizable, consistent symbol- no longer does.

Part Two: Redundant Redundancy

Okay, so that's not all this change does. It also adds a brand new functionality to the post header- the white space is now clickable and serves as a replacement for the original 'to this post' link on the reblogger's side of things. These headers also generate for anyone who adds to the post, and you can click through OP too.

[Image ID: The cropped reblog screenshot from before, but with the word 'Clickable!' written in purple in the blank space above the date. End ID.]

This is also part of that design unity thing; on mobile tapping anywhere on the post header takes you to the post, and you can only tap on the blog url of the person the reblogger reblogged from. That makes sense, since on mobile you're maneuvering your fingers on a small screen and tapping a tiny url next to another tiny url is bound to cause problems.

I don't necessarily have a problem with this on the base of it. I have opinions about mobile and desktop parity that aren't really important here, but it does nicely showcase an issue I DO have- most of the changes made to reblogged posts are completely redundant and unnecessary.

---

[UPDATE] This change has hit mobile now, and it's added a fun new complaint about desktop-mobile parity that is now very suddenly a problem; the headers generated from reblogs with content don't have any responsive feedback for tapping them on mobile. OPs does, but any old Joes doesn't. This is not true on desktop, where on-hover a post header will change color; on mobile they stay completely white and plain with no on-tap color change. On top of that, the new headers are actually harder to see on mobile! There's no clear way to actually see where the header starts and the post continues! Tapping a header was deeply confusing because I got no confirmation I did anything of value until I was wisked away to a post- there's no signifier on mobile that this is a thing you can press.

This is what I was talking about in regards to desktop and mobile parity that wasn't important at the time- what's good for mobile isn't always good for desktop and vice versa. Having a post header be tappable on mobile instead of op's url link, where you have less fine motor control and there's a lot of small buttons clustered together, makes sense; but making all post headers into buttons on desktop isn't a good idea because they aren't 'buttons' and it's very hard to make it clear they are. I mentioned signifiers above and that applies to this change- there just aren't enough signs that show these are all buttons now and where they go. The fact that they're completely unresponsive on mobile really is the cherry on top, because you do not KNOW it's a button unless you tap it accidentally or already know from desktop that all headers link to reblogged posts. The design has been made more confusing; what was a functional affordance on mobile has been applied to desktop without limits or concern, making the original mobile affordance more confusing and producing a poor signifier.

Alright, that's enough from future me. Let's get back to the original post, about how this change that introduces a bad signifier is also redundant.

---

First of all, it's not like clicking the link url just threw you into a post abyss when you clicked it. Clicking through to a reblog…still took you to that blog, both on mobile and on desktop. On mobile all you need to look through the blog proper is to pull down and refresh; on desktop it's even easier, because following a link pulls up the dashboard tray for that blog with the blogs url immediately below their icon.

[Image ID: A screenshot of the previously cropped reblog, now shown on the blog @coelpts. The post is on the left, and the user info card is on the right. End ID.]

This change then removes one step to get to the front of a blogs page, and puts the original longer path on the new clickable header. They go to the same place, the first is just exactly one click faster. You could do the exact same thing by clicking the user icon instead.

But wait! We can get even more redundant! You know what else is standard Tumblr functionality on desktop? The hover card!

[Image ID: A screenshot of the previously cropped reblog, now showing the card for @coelpts-artchives below the icon. It has the blog title and description alongside three popular posts. A purple arrow points to it from the url. End ID.]

If you hover over any url link for about a second, a card for that blog will pop up. This tray lets you follow a blog, send asks, report them, check their popular posts and do a bunch of stuff straight from the dashboard. It also takes you directly to their blog if you click the url link on the card itself! That's right, there was already a way to go directly to the blog the previous user reblogged from! And every single blog url link does this, too- not just on post headers, but even in the text of a post itself.

So before this change, you had five ways of interacting on a post:

Click the reblogger's url > Reblogger's post.

Click the reblogged's url > Reblogged's post.

Click the reblogger's icon > Reblogger's blog.

Hover on the reblogger's url > Reblogger's blog.

Hover on the reblogged's url > Reblogged's blog.

One of these is redundant, but that's fine- it's just how url links work, and it's better that all urls can do that. Signifiers, we talked about this. But every other link goes to a different place, including the previous version of the post.

After this change, there's six, with changes in bold:

Click the reblogger's url > Reblogger's blog.

Click the reblogged's url > Reblogged's blog.

Click the reblogger's icon > Reblogger's blog.

Hover on the reblogger's url > Reblogger's blog.

Hover on the reblogged's url > Reblogged's blog.

Click the white space header next to a user > User's post.

We now have three ways of getting to the blog of the person who reblogged this post, two ways to get to the blog of the person they reblogged from, ONE way to get to the post, and ONLY if someone added to it!

This change removes functionality and replaces it with needless redundancy. As I said near the top of this section, we could already get to the blog through a reblog link- so all this does is remove getting to previous post iterations.

Part Three: Broken Chains

And hey, let's talk about previous post iterations. Y'know, something that's super important on Tumblr? Different versions of a post float around the site for years- some have been around for a decade or more. And some are only available for one post.

As I'm sure everyone knows, unless a group of tags are peer reviewed and added to the body of the post itself or are appended to the next reblog in the chain, they only exist on that version of the post. This means every iteration of a post is functionally unique, and long before we were given the ability to check the tags on a reblog directly, the only way you could check the tags for a post was by checking every iteration. This practice still exists today with 'prev tags'- users still find it useful to gesture to a previous version of a post and show what other people were thinking or add their own thoughts.

Remember the new redundant links? All that means you can't get to a previous version of a post anymore. Those tags are functionally lost now, unless you dig through that persons blog or through all the notes of a specific post. Sure that may not be a problem for a post with 300 notes or so- but what about 27,000? What about a post that was reblogged three weeks ago? If you're trying to wrangle Tumblr's dodgy search function on the blog itself, what if the post has no text to search for, or if the blog has it's search function turned off? Any post tagged with prev tags now directs to literally nothing. Anyone arguing or conversing in the tags is now speaking at air to everyone else.

There is still one way to trace reblogs. You can access the blog itself- not the dashboard tray, but the actual url.tumblr.com blog- by using a hidden link in the meatball menu off the side of the post.

[Image ID: A screenshot of the previously cropped reblog, now showing the meatballs menu accessed. The first option, showing the date of the reblog, is highlighted. A purple arrow points to this option from the meatballs menu icon and a circle is drawn around it. End ID.]

From there, you can track a post backwards through proper blogs. The reblogged posts will have a 'via Blog' note on them, and you can follow that trail all the way up a chain.

…Unless someone doesn't have a theme enabled. Without a theme, a user won't have a url.tumblr.com domain and it will redirect to the dashboard tray, breaking the chain. And, as of an older update, blogs by default do not have themes enabled- so any and all new users suddenly roadblock this process. Oops.

All of this means that what was once a convenient social aspect of Tumblr has been completely severed with little to no alternative. Trying to wade through hundreds upon hundreds of notes to find the one you're looking for is tedious, time consuming, and potentially impossible if the post is large enough.

Finale: What Now?

Right, so- this sucks. I didn't even go into how this makes it tough to find and block cr/pt/t/rfs if a post passes into their hateful space, or how this makes it harder to copy post links without tracking shit because it's in a different menu now, or how it's now more difficult to access a previous post for reporting purposes. All that shit's also true, but they're side effects of the big three problems the changes introduce.

This change is ultimately user-hostile and seems to follow the worrying trend of 'other sites are doing it, so let's do it too!' Tumblr's been kicking about recently. Tumblr Live, the new change to images and videos, gating viewing posts behind making an account, and attempted algorithm feeds through 'Best Stuff First' and 'Based On Your Likes' are what immediately come to mind. Tumblr's defining, driving aspect for it's continued existence has and always will be its uniqueness. Pretending to be Instagram and TikTok and fucking Twitter will do it absolutely no favors- all it does is undermine what actually makes this site, as a social platform, interesting and vibrant.

But it's one thing to just complain and it's another entirely to provide feedback. Here's a link to the Tumblr Staff support page. They've walked back on new features before when we've made a ruckus- the Shop icon replacement is on the forefront of my mind right now- so it's time to make another.

TL;DR 2- This change makes browsing Tumblr more difficult than it needs to be. It breaks previously established signifiers and removes vital social functions only to add redundant and empty features to cater to a new userbase instead of actually improving the site for the users they already have. It's not a good change.

Thanks for reading ✌️

[luciesartblog]

Don’t hold your head so low that you can’t see the sky

A redraw of something from a couple years ago 💙 comparison under the cut

[ukulelegodparent]

Just went to uni and instead of doing anything spent 3h agonising about ending my relationship. I'm sure this is good and normal

[yoosung-ah]

[dukeofqueers]

i think solomon and hadern explored each other’s bodies

mortal shell sketches from last year that i made while rocking a high fever for several days. i love these sad guys waaaaay too much

[icewindandboringhorror]

reminders of the passage of time moodeboard

[sea-me-now]

thinking back to when i got into a car accident next to the venue right before a night vale live show and a glow cloud cosplayer looked over and just went “ooo! nasty!”

[laurelindebear]

Every now and then, in the summer when the heat makes the asphalt smell just so, or I stop into the mini-mart in the evening, I am suddenly nineteen in Paris, on my own away from home for the first time. I am young again, and I am old. I am another person who cannot be me yet. I am the one who knows who she will be. I am her and I am me, and in my mind's infinity mirror I am all of mes in between: floating in a memory forever, every now and every then.

[adore-gregor]

Lol I keep on doing this, saying I'd come back to tumblr to only disappear again 😂😭

[running-in-the-dark]

got the main thing done that I wanted to do today (built a desk/table/shelf thing for the living room), so while it wasn't a great day overall it was alright. I hope I won't be as tired and exhausted tomorrow (I probably will be though because I did more than I should have again today 🙃 and I will keep doing that until everything is done and then I will not get up off the couch for a month.)

[kyouka-supremacy]

Mmmhh...

[macadam]

Gonna put myself out here for a hot minute to remind everyone that the runner of a poll or little event on tumblr is not responsible for the replies/posts of everyone else in the fandom, nor do they have the power to stop people from reacting in any which way in the notes of their post without turning off reblogs and shutting down the entire thing full stop. I think we can all agree on that? They are not a discord mod, or the fandom's babysitter. Tumblr is the Wild West and by god none of us are the sheriff.

That's all ok keep on keeping everyone

[iwakuraz]

how do people consider tumblr to be confusing or strange to use whenever twitter exists? I genuinely cannot use twitter it is just so. headache inducing.

[huangrenjuns]

Date número tres 😁

Soo went out with work guy again today… and well what should I say… each time we meet each other it gets better and better 😊 Like seriously he is so easy to talk to and I feel very comfortable around him (and mind you I’m a very introverted and shy person whenever I meet new people and sometimes it takes forever for me to open up).

So first we went to visit a botanical garden and then we made our way back to town to go to a museum. Very cool moment: On our way there we passed a small antiquarian book shop and went inside to look around. There was absolutely no one in there, not even a store owner, which made the whole situation even more romantic and magical 😂 After the museum we took a nice walk along the river and had our usual sit-down on a bench 😊

So to sum it up: It was perfect 🙈