#so they need to stay relevant/productive to ensure their commission work doesn't dry up

[vimbry]

something I should have added actually, cause in hindsight it's pretty vital to the problem I had with it, is the tags I saw ended with "unless they think likes do something here" which pretty much confirms that the person who wrote those thinks the universal experience of using tumblr is to circulate content for high traction and clout.

the growing emotional dependency on the numbers game is like, really ruining the fun of microblogging/social media, because it's being reinforced to us that the "goal" of being online is to produce some kind of content, make your notifications go up and be seen by as many people as possible. and it will never be enough. I've seen artists who consistently hit 10k interactions take the occasional dip, agonise over the idea that they did something wrong (even if the number's still relatively high), then admit to how bad their response to "low" engagement makes them feel, because at one stage just a few hundred would have made them happy. but that the novelty soon wore off, and they got addicted.