#please. tumblr. i'm begging you.

[nachosncheezies]

okay so.

i'm extremely dubious about staff's claims, but i'm willing to allow a 5% possibility that those of us who this post calls a 'small minority' might actually be a minority... and only because my experience IS curated, to the extent that I may have created my own echo chamber that is somehow so secure that i have literally never seen this phantom 'majority' who they keep saying actually want this stuff. (i can only imagine that this 'majority' are not actually users, but rather an amalgam of current and potential users that they're trying to recruit based off some nebulous market research, although like the commenter above i daresay that if you took five minutes to teach people in those focus groups or whatever how to interact with something OTHER than a meta-style interface they'd be SUPER ONBOARD with what we've got here already, but i digress.) I can empathize with wanting/needing to 'grow' the company and userbase because our whole goddamn world runs on the falsehood of infinite growth and maybe you need to play the game a bit to keep up with the assholes.

THAT SAID.

there already is an algorithm! it's on the 'for you' and 'popular reblogs' tabs! and when i want to find something new from outside my bubble to pass around? I LOOK THERE! :D

the important thing is that it's my choice when and how i interact with that. i absolutely DO NOT want that forced on me.

now. if you have to put one of those as the tab that opens first and make the 'following' tab second then fair enough i guess. it's an extra click/tap for me, which would be annoying, but if algorithmic view is gonna attract enough of the The Youngs or something to keep the site afloat through some voodoo i am truly not convinced exists then sure.

but the algorithm-free view MUST stay. i DO NOT have all day to wade through stuff i didn't ask for!!! and if the dash starts wasting my time that way, i'll be here less! not more!

also.

i am a 'creator'. i personally do not want randos to 'discover' my creations. this is not a business for me, it's a hobby, and what i make i make for me and my ~10 weird little friends. would i like more feedback from the fringe of lurkers that surrounds our group? absolutely. am i happy when a new fan who's enthusiastic enough to seek us out finds and engages with my stuff? of course! these are the people i create for; people whose enthusiasm for a thing matches my own.

what i am absolutely NOT here for is to have my stuff pushed and promoted to casual random browsers with no connection to my fandom. that kind of attention would actually be a net negative for me.

anyway. what the above user said is generally bang on. my reasons for being here are: 1. I have control.

that's it. that's the only reason. this is the only place left where i can preserve my public anonymity and curate my own experience. this is my happy place where current events don't exist unless i want them to. strife and the kind of [oft-overheated] debates fostered by the rest of the internet can not reach me unless i seek them out. here, i am zen. take that away and i'm sorry but... i'm not gonna stay just because 'there's nowhere else and it's better than nothing'. because for me, it's not. at present, it's a tool that makes sharing positivity and creativity a little easier. what would life be without tumblr? not ideal, but before i found here i did other things with this time. trolling ao3. reading books. listening to podcasts. email pen pals exist. i have some that i took with me when i ditched other social media. who wouldn't love a few more? and happily, gifs work as attachments!

all told, i'm not naive enough to think i'm not being data mined to an extent here. that's sadly just how the internet works now and infuriatingly it's inescapable. for me, tumblr's genius and appeal rests on the fact that it's a two-way street. i have a measure of meaningful control over both what's harvested and what i'm fed. take that away and make the user the only product you're selling?

well hey, besties. anyone wanna be pen pals? :)

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

I am incredibly serious right now when I beg you all, please, and if you have Twitter or Tiktok or whatever to please spread the word: click on an author's profile on Ao3.

You want to know if an author has written more? Want to know if they're still writing? Want to see more from them? Want to know if they've written a trope or kink or sex scenario you enjoy?

Click on their name. And look at their profile.

I cannot tell you how many times in the last six months someone has read a new or newer fic of mine and said they (a new reader who has read nothing else I've done) "can't wait to see what you do next!" I've written 50+ fics and over a million words already.

"I don't know if you're still writing..." click on my profile. I am. I literally wrote a 128k+ fic for that ship last month.

"Would you ever do X?" "Please do Y!" I already did. Click on my name and look at my works.

Archive of our Own is a library. It's an archive. Not social media. It is your responsibility to fight back against the laziness that corporate algorithms have trained into you.

Click my author name. Just click it. Just click it.

Before you demand more, or ask if a writer will do XYZ, or wonder if the author still writing, or anything - click on their profile. Click on the author's profile.

I'm not trying to be mean or condescending or anything like that. I'm just exhausted. It's disheartening and frustrating to repeat myself ad nauseam, because someone couldn't take thirty seconds to do the tiniest bit of work to see if I've written lately, if I've written more for their ship, or scan my works to see if I've written what they're asking for. Please. Please. I'm begging.

Click the author's name, and explore before you ask.

[combinecremator]

i swear to god i regret reblogging that estrolabs post because absolutely no one is focusing on the actual issue, which is that it's a phishing site very clearly run by malicious people and giving them any information on yourself could fuck you over big time

their ashwaganda "estrogen replacement" would be useless at best and extremely dangerous at worst, if it actually existed. however the products on that site almost certainly do not fucking exist and never have, and they have zero intention of actually producing them. the listings for the "supplements" aren't on the site anymore.

when scams like this pop up suddenly, they're not legitimate to even the slightest degree. there was never a real product, they were trying to get your money or your card and contact information either to doxx you, harass you, or literally steal from you. it's a PHISHING scheme, not a "making a shitty product to Literally Kill People" scheme. one of these things is far cheaper and far easier for a layperson to do.

while the information on the function of ashwaganda was definitely useful generally, it was/is not the most present danger of this estrolabs/queerquirk situation and people need to be aware of the actual threat these kinds of sites and situations pose.

as i was writing this estrolabs has been taken down, but queerquirk is still up and still advertising it's fake products and has a contact us page. do not give them your contact information, even to send hate. it is not worth getting phished to epicly own the dumbass behind this scheme. report the site and move on.

[ariadne-mouse]

@staff if I have to deal with this every 7 days, so do you.

[akitalockwood]

I'm ready to commit unspeakable crimes for this woman

[wreedenthusiast]

Alright, let's put this possibly nonexistent debate to rest.

[cozylittleartblog]

baby's first polymer clay creation

her name is Annette

[darthteeth]

my laptop crashed 5 times😐🙃so this is all I have rn.🫠

buy me a single cigarette?

tag list

@biconicfinn

@xinakwans @stellarfinn @butchsunsetshimmer

@appsa

@nerdyqueerr @strawwitch @butchniqabi

@batekush

@t4tvampireisms @bryoria @strangeauthor

[autism-calzone]

💗💛 💗 wöæo 💛 💗 💛

[🎵 Me and Michael - MGMT]

[g0r3wh0r3xxx]

༚༅༚˳ .this isn't a joke anymore I'm going to die alone. idc what anyone else says, "oh, but ur so pretty!", that doesn't matter, I'm weird, I scare away anyone who likes me before they can even get the chance to want to date me, it's truly damaging my mental health and I seriously need someone to love me before i rip my skin off and become a monument to all of your sins, god help me .˳༚༅༚

[medusamagic]

I need people to recognize that saying "I'd fuck/get fucked by a trans woman" is a stance that quite a few far-right folks have. You're not special for saying the quiet part loud. If you want me to believe that you actually care about trans women, say something when we try to call attention to issues that affect us.

[ardate]

You know, I've been stuck thinking about that poll that asked people how long they've had their blogs on there, with the 10+ years result not only being high, but being the winner of the poll.

And I'm thinking of the state of the website and the lack of interactions on it.

All this time people have been saying the reason reblogs dwindled was not only due to the results of cringe culture crusades of back then, but because "there are so many new users and they just don't respect our Old Ways, they don't reblog or interact, curse the newcomers"

Well if that post is to be believed, we actually should point at us, the old users, for giving up on what made this website a goldmine of sharing and visibility back in the day.

The new users failing to interact have the excuse of not knowing how this place works and not being used to the site culture (though that's arguable, given they probably copy today's culture, which is to not reblog much at all), but you elders? You've seen what was possible and what used to work. You've seen reblogs taking posts far and wide, you've seen when comments in tags were very common and encouraged further creation. And yet you've stopped doing that?

Yall gave up on a good thing for no reason.

[lpsotd]

important announcement part 2: electric boogaloo

greetings tumblr! i haven't made an original post in (i believe) over a month, and i actually didn't plan on making an announcement about my absence at all, for no real reason honestly, i just didn't want to. however, i think i'm correct to assume there's at least a handful of people who have been my curious about my absence, or perhaps wondering why they've noticed a lack of daily littlest pet shops on their dashboard.

this post is going to be long, personal, and serious. i'm going to be talking about myself, my life at the moment, and what i'm going to be doing moving forward.

you can read everything under the cut. i'm providing trigger warnings for suicide and familial death. the first half of this post is where the warnings apply, the other half is about what i'll be doing with this blog and also relates to my internet presence in general.

the latter half of the month of september was extremely taxing on my mental health, the main reason for my mental decline is not something i'm going to touch on here, as it's too personal and there's no reason for me to air out my private business on tumblr.com of all places. all you need to know is that during late september, i was at my worst. i had been trying to push through and continue my life as normal despite the constant turmoil i was in, and i never had the motivation to do anything with myself besides taking a shower, and even then i was rather neglectful of my hygiene. i had plenty of support from those close to me. my mom in particular did her absolute best to make sure i was comfortable and felt loved and cared for, and i did feel that way. however, at this point in my life i was a ticking time bomb and i don't think any one person would've been able to cut any cords to put a stop to the timer.

on september 26th at around 1:45pm, i made an attempt on my life. i'm not sure what it was about that day in particular, but it was then that i decided i didn't want to deal with anything anymore. fortunately for me, i was stupid enough to post what was essentially a suicide note to my main tumblr blog, which friends of mine took notice of. this, of course, worried people and one of my friends called the police to my house. long story short, i spent a day in the hospital and was sent to a psychiatric hospital the following afternoon.

i was in the psychiatric hospital for little less than a week, and if i were to detail my experience here it would make this post at least 3x longer than i intend it to be. (and i do plan on dedicating a large post to it someday) in short, it was an eye-opening experience and i left with a better view on myself as a person. i was discharged on october 3rd and i'm currently in therapy and looking for other methods to help myself.

the doctor at the psychiatric hospital diagnosed me with adjustment disorder with depressed mood, although i'm made to believe i have borderline personality disorder as i get unhealthily attached to people and my entire mood depends on how they interact with me. due to this belief, i'm hesitant to get too close to people because i don't want to risk becoming emotionally attached/dependent on one (1) sole person and my entire mental wellbeing collapsing due to something like us parting ways. so at this moment i'm not sure if i'll ever be able to pursue a romantic relationship.

for the week i've been home, i've been trying to readjust to normal life again after becoming used to the static routine present in the psychiatric hospital. i've found myself becoming easily irritated and overwhelmed by even the slightest bit of noise in my home because the hospital was always so quiet and calm. i'm unsure if this irritability will go away as i become re-accustomed to the semi-chaotic nature of my home.

on top of all of this, my grandfather passed away yesterday and, as of writing this, i'm in a state of emotional numbness and i've somewhat disassociated from the situation. as it stands currently, life doesn't feel too real and i'm uncertain of how i'm going to deal with this when my emotions finally come to the surface.

that's it for the depressing portion of this post. everything from here will be pertaining to the state of this blog, what i'm going to be doing with it, and also my presence on other social medias among other things.

for the past three or so months i haven't felt very compelled to post to this blog. when i went on hiatus a while ago, i thought time away from this blog would reignite my passion for it and i'd be able to come back and do things like i used to. and while that was the case for a while, i quickly lost interest again and sometime in mid-late july i let my queued posts do everything and i barely posted or reblogged anything aside from gofundmes.

while littlest pet shop is still one of my special interests, i'm no longer as fixated on it as i was when i first started this blog. i once debated turning this blog into a catchall for my toy interest and no longer posting daily lps, however that idea no longer appeals to me and i think i'm going to be calling it quits for this blog.

i'm not happy about this decision, but i no longer get joy from logging on and posting to this blog anymore.

i find it foolish to delete this blog and never use it again, though. i still have over eight thousand followers and i believe i should use that to share and bring awareness to donation posts. so this blog will not be going anywhere.

if you want to follow me elsewhere, my main blog is @joplinspiderz and my art blog is @mushyspiderz. i'm trying to put more focus on my presence in art spaces, as i want to get attention for my art and earn money doing things like commissions, as i'm looking for other sources of income so that i can pay for things i need and can stop feeling like a freeloader in my mother's house (that is half of a joke. but i do really want to help my mom with her bills and such as well as my personal things.)

i also have an instagram, threads, and twitter where i will be posting my art as well. the audience i want for my art is people in my age range (18 and older) as i tend to draw things and characters that are suggestive/sexual in nature. all three socials are currently bare (that will change, of course.) the handle for my instagram/threads is joplinspiderz and my twitter is mushyspiderz.

the person i have been portraying on this blog has been a somewhat sanitized version of who i actually am, as i wanted to create a safe and comfortable space for those who age regress because i noticed a good chunk of the people interacting with my posts were age regressers. i'm 18 years old and i enjoy consuming media that is sexual in nature as well as horror movies. i like to include sexual themes in my artwork and my writing as well. you will not find anything outright pornographic on my socials, however sometime in the future when/if i'm able to, i would like to create a patreon where i post nsfw locked behind a paywall (profiting off of horny fools sounds like so much fun /silly)

i sincerely thank everyone who followed this silly little blog of mine and interacted with me. the littlest pet shop community is one of the best fandoms i've been apart of, everyone i've met and spoken to has been so kind. running this blog was also the reason i encountered two people who i consider to be some of my closest and best friends. if i didn't create this blog i'm not sure if i would've met them.

i've always felt joy when opening my inbox here and seeing messages from people who say things like littlest pet shop was a part of their childhood, and that my blog brought them back to their childhood and made them happy. i'm so very glad i was able to give people a sense of joy and nostalgia. running this blog has been a big part of me getting over being seen as "weird" or "cringe" by societal standards. i embrace being seen as "cringe" and i have my rare lps on full display in my bedroom.

again, i thank everyone who followed me here, and if you wish to support me you can follow any of my social medias where i will be posting my artwork. i will be logging on here every so often to boost palestinian gofundmes and donation posts, and i encourage everyone who comes across those to share as well.

that's all for now, farewell. 🩷

[orange-orchard-system]

I will not say what this is specifically inspired by but. I think some of y'all out there need to remember that you cannot rely on context clues alone to understand political concepts and vocabulary. Y'all gotta look shit up and actually read some theory sometimes. You don't have to do a lot just maybe. You know. Make sure people aren't misusing a term en masse as the Internet is wont to do. Check a dictionary definition every once in a while. Ask for a TLDR from a trusted source. Do the bare minimum before you start reblogging fifteen thousand posts on a topic because you want to feel well-informed and like you're doing something but your options are limited. I promise you the posts will still be there when you have a better understanding of what's going on. And then you'll have a much lower chance of spreading misinfo or being a bitch! Just something to consider

[le-catman]

So is it just fucking impossible to use a search engine to find images without being totally fucking inundated with ai garbage now or what

[trashmuseum]

LETS HELP A FELLOW GAZAN ARTIST!

"Hello, my friends, this is Amr Al-Najjar, a 27-year-old from Gaza.

I am an interior designer and singer, I have my own band, and I am a theatrical and dramatic actor.

I find passion in spreading culture, arts, and music through musical artistic works in a private studio or through the theater.

I spent 12 years forming and building myself artistically and socially until I became a shining name among artists and engineers. I participated in the production of many musical and theatrical artistic works with local community institutions and international institutions.

I even established my own engineering office for decoration and design, and I used to design beautiful places and homes for every person who loves life.

But all of this was gone in the blink of an eye, in a few minutes, and in a moment of silence, it was October 7, there was nothing left, only rubble and ashes.

My dream, my passion, and my aspirations for the future were all gone.

I took refuge in Rafah, the safe area, and was surprised by the number of children who needed psychological support through music and theatre. I want to continue to provide support for them with my talents.

I hope that you will help me rebuild my home and my life, and achieve my dream- to put a smile on the faces of children and to restore artistic and musical works in Gaza.

All the musical instruments were destroyed and I lost some of my wonderful colleagues.

I need support from you in order to rebuild everything and achieve my dream.

My dream:

I need to buy new instruments and equipment. The cost of rebuilding is prohibitive, and I can't do it alone. Your support means the world to me and the kids. Your donation, no matter how small, would make a huge difference in my life. This will help me continue to pursue my passion for music and provide for my family. It would give me hope for a brighter future. Thank you for taking the time to read my story. Thank you for your generosity and kindness. Together, we can rebuild everything - music, theater, and my office - and keep the creative flame alive in Gaza."

How his house is now and how it was before being bombed (1ts picture). And where they're living now (2nd picture):

Please take a moment to appreciate his beautiful and talented voice.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by susan abulhawa (@susanabulhawa)

Thank you very much, everyone!