#tumblr is probably easiest to curate your experience?

[unreadpoppy]

Internet 101, Fandoms and curating your online experience

I saw some stuff happening both on tumblr and on twitter (and sometimes even on instagram) regarding some fandom stuff and I wanted to make a post about, but in more of a "How to keep your peace of mind and create a healthy space" sort of post. These are just some things that I do that allow me to have a better experience on the internet as a whole, but especially on fandom spaces, and idk, I wanted to share bc navigating this sort of thing can be hard and it doesn't hurt to try and help.

One thing that I've learned very early on by people who had been on the internet for longer than me is that you do not feed the trolls. Listen. People will post shit to stir the pot, and you giving them attention is falling into their bait.

And I get it, I'm human too, I see someone talking shit and I feel the urge to give them a lenghty reply but at some point you gotta stop and think: is this worth it? like, i'm getting mad over a rando on the internet who'll probably just laugh at me. Even if we really feel like answering, it's probably always better to let it go.

And while I'm on the topic, I also want to say the following: no matter how many good arguments you have, no matter how eloquent you are, you cannot change people's minds. I've tried it and all it did was make me stressed. And especially with regards to bigots, they will not change their minds, so don't give them your time and your peace of mind because they do not care about you or your feelings. I'm a queer disabled latina woman, I get it, it sucks and it will always suck, but people will not change what they think because of lenghy ass paragraph someone on the internet sent them, so it's better to just...move on.

And by move on, I do mean do not interact in any way, shape or form. Just...scroll past it. Because it's not worth it, it truly is not, and more likely then not, even by just giving the post or person a small bit of attention, you could cause a whole situation. Do not give people clout, because then they'll get the satisfaction of both having attention AND causing such a reaction from another person.

Like, speaking from experience here, I have received a few hateful/mean spirited anons on my inbox over the years and you wanna know something? You will not find those asks on my blog because I have a 0 tolerance for hate anons. Replying to them only generates more hate anons (trust me, I've seen that happen to other people). When you show someone that you're not affected by the shit they're saying, they'll move on because you are no longer a target. This is why is so important to know when to not interact and just continue moving on.

Still on this topic but more related to fandom. People will have different opinions then you. People will have different HCs then you. People will misinterpret your favorite character. Hell, I've seen takes on my faves that honestly insult my intellect and you know what I did?

Let it go. Just scrolled past, made a mental note not to interact with that person, because again, people won't change their minds. And people are entitled to have their opinions, and enjoy characters in a different way then you do, and the best thing to do is not give them your time. Just don't. It's much better (and probably healthier) to spend your time interacting with people you like and who you can talk to then try to change a person's opinion and pottentialy instigate a fight.

For the sake of not making the same point again and again, I want to talk about blocking people, bc blocking people is the easiest way to curate your experience. There is no morality in blocking. You're not some evil bastard or a super hero because you blocked someone, so don't ascribe morality to that. Just block whoever (and whatever, because blocking tags exist) you don't want to see and move on.

Finally, my last advice is: somethings are best kept private and by private I mean get yourself some friend who you can just talk shit about to. Listen, sometimes the urge to be like "this bitch online is an idiot" is BIG and the best thing you can do about it, in a way that won't cause a fight or whatever, is to go to some friend and say "let me talk shit for a few minutes". Trust me, IT WORKS. So many times I've been tempted to say stuff, only to go to a friend and talk about the stuff and then boom, I was done. I was okay. So yeah, there's stuff that is better to be sent in a groupchat then to be posted about.

This post is longer than I intended but I feel like we should try to just have fun? This is the internet, the good part about it is that we can choose who we can engage with and what we want to say, and it's way more productive to spend your time with people that matter, that you care about and that make you happy then stressing over people who simply do not care and who will not change.

Anyways, peace out

[bloodsalted]

𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐍𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐄𝐋𝐋 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐏𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄 𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐀 𝐋𝐎𝐓 𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐄𝐑. REPOST DO NOT REBLOG !!

NAME : dixon. been going by it for too long to change it. thought about it a couple times but it's stuck with me for a handful of years now. oop! also not my real name.

PRONOUNS : she/her/numbnuts/idc!

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION : i lose track of tumblr ims very easily. discord is preferred and i will give it to any mutual that might want it!

NAME OF MUSE(S) : dean winchester is my main. i have jack kline @lasthymn and a human oc that gets demon possessed kinda dual muse at @unscriptured . my multi is low activity atm and i'm just replying to what i got at the moment. my spn brainrot is very real.

BEST EXPERIENCE : meeting all the people i have here and enjoying our time together. hanging out with @hostiae / @devourcr at eccc. generally, just the experience of meeting such lovely, awesome partners that become friends and people i cherish. even if we don't speak often. i really do adore the people who i get to share this lil orbit with.

RP PET PEEVES / DEALBREAKERS : not reading my rules. becomes obvious when you don't. especially with a couple character or plot types i list that i don't feel comfortable writing and they get pushed on me. always read rules so you start out on a good page. it's so important! using roleplay to make yourself seem better than others. whether that be that you're more virtuous than them (as my buddy ava said) because they write things you don't like (rant to a bud, get your feelers out, block and move on??) or way more hip, progressive or whatever for plots you do or won't do or fcs or graphics you use. we're all just here writing. it's not that serious. have fun with it. curate your experience. screw anon button on. you'll be way less stressed. and a tiny one. refollowing on repeat. but that just gets a block eventually. and super easy to handle.

MUSE PREFERENCES : flawed heroes, burdened souls that are good people deep down, the distant person that has walls because of self-preservation, kind souls that've been burned too many times that they are cautious to warm up to others. misunderstood, thoughtful types. characters that still need to learn themselves and grow. on the complete opposite side? completely unhinged psychopaths, sociopaths, whatever else that falls under that line.

PLOTS OR MEMES : ava said this really well. memes are the easiest way to get my attention. i don't mind sending them in. or having them sent (though rn my inbox is a little big but i'm working on it, might just take me some time!). and then from there as we build up, if we match well, plotting is something i LOVE to do. i get that some don't though and i'm always more than fine winging it to see what happens. pretty flexible. but i really do love things that stick between muses.

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES : i write a lot most of the time. usually on accident. sometimes i get carried away and am enjoying myself. i, in no way, expect replies to match length and i mean it. i just need smth to work with. i've been keeping some posts purposefully shorter. especially meme replies as i work through my inbox. we can expand or shrink as needed!

BEST TIME TO WRITE : usually really late at night. i'm a night owl with insomnia and, as much as sarah threatens to beat me with a chair? i find sleep difficult. writing helps that!

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S) : i don't know? i'm probably more like dean than i am any of them. but i try to make better choices that won't end up with me getting hurt. though there are people i'd let the apocalypse happen to save. some people are just that important. sorry world. if we're going down. we're going down together at least? dean and i have very very similar music tastes. though some of my stuff would be thrown out the window. we both have stupid humor. we're loyal. i do like my jeans, t-shirts and flannels. but we are VERY different in many ways. or it'd be boring to write someone just like me.

TAGGED BY: @murderdeals TAGGING: anyone who follows me! i'd love to know more about you! tag me so i can read! and this means...YOU'RE IT!

[tyzzieee]

im going to uni in september & my little brother doesnt have a phone so im really struggling trying to figure out what social media i should encourage him to get so i can stay in contact w him

[chaosnightmare]

heyyyy i had a post gain some traction a while ago where i listed some good advice for newbies on tumblr, but some of the information in that post is now either outdated or no longer helpful. here's a better, more accurate version.

advice for tumblr newbies (2.0)

so as i said before, deleting your post will not stop it from getting reblogs. tumblr reblogs work by saving a new version, a "snapshot" of your post, frozen in time, immune to any changes to its content you may make. as such, so long as a reblog of your post exists out there, simply deleting it will not solve the issue if you want people to stop reblogging. HOWEVER, since my last post there was a monumental new feature added to tumblr that allows you to disable reblogs universally across all existing versions of your post. this setting is called "Reblog Control", and can be changed even after a post has already been made. this is now no longer an issue.

deleting your blog or posts may cause oddities to occur on existing reblogs, such as empty OP, empty notes, and so on. if you notice these in the wild, that's what happened.

tumblr does have an algorithm, but its barely functional. you'll mostly have to curate your experience on here by yourself. follow blogs you want to see, block people you dislike, reblog posts you enjoy, and you'll find a community you like in no time.

reblogs are really the only way to boost attention for work somebody else has done. if you're not recieving any more attention on a post even though it has tons of likes, it's because you'd need reblogs for that. there is a new feature, called Blaze, where you can pay money to have your post shown to a certain amount of random users. this is never a good idea and nobody ever likes it

that last part is because tumblr is actually broken up into smaller subcommunities, who, due to the nature of the site, can stay extremely isolated from eachother. blazing a post will force people from outside your circle to see it, which can lead anywhere from confusion to hostility. on the other hand, this means that you'll rarely have to interact with people outside of your bubble.

posts don't generally become too old to reblog. if you see a post and hear it's from a long time ago, it's probably still okay to interact with. where this becomes iffy is when you start going though one specific person's old posts repeatedly, which isn't always appreciated. if you aren't sure, check the date.

tags are a very important tool for blog organization. they often work better than the content search function, and can help your original posts gain traction. if you aren't sure how to use tags on a post, take a look at other people's blogs and take note of how they use them for ideas. they do however serve another purpose, and that's to avoid adding a reblog comment.

reblog comments are where you add directly on to a post with something extra. generally, you should only do this if you're really certain that you're adding something of value to a post, or if the original post is one of your own. doing this if you don't have anything important to say is considered rude in most contexts. the workaround for this is simple: say whatever you wanted to say in the tags. character limits on tags are actually quite large, so you can add most anything you want to say. this ensures that what you want to say about the post shows up on YOUR blog, but won't necessarily transfer over to other reblogs, and it isn't considered an inept thing to do.

change your icon/pfp. change it. this website has lots of spam bot users (again, poor moderation) and while some of them do have icons, not changing yours is the easiest way to be mistaken for a bot. just change it to anything you want, but otherwise you run the risk of being reported for spam or blocked. if you're feeling up to it, tumblr gives you plenty of other blog customization options as well, such as headers and fonts and color schemes. if you're on desktop, you can even completely alter how the website looks when somebody visits your blog, but thats better to do when you already know your way around a bit.

xkit is your best friend if you're on desktop

[ms-demeanor]

It’s always interesting to me when “argumate is antisemitic” callouts circulate because they’ll include 5-year-old “whatever the good fuck this is” (that’s how the callout described it, not me) links that, from the outside, appear to be a nonreligious person discussing a variety of different religions in a way that is generally callous, but in order to find that on argumate’s blog you have to scroll past years and years of posts like this:

(also I skipped over the anti-antisemitism posts for 2019 and 2020 because I didn’t want to include posts that might make someone say ‘well that’s just to respond to accusations of antisemitism’ - these are all from before the first callout started circulating)

So people who are claiming that argumate is antisemitic are saying “calling the theological history of my religion and of catholicism irresistible nerdbait is specifically antisemitic” which seems like kind of a reach while they scroll past and ignore the dozens of easily findable posts where argumate makes very clear and obvious statements on how reprehensible antisemitism is.

The callout says things like “argumate is saying that jews proselytize” about this post:

where argumate is specifically talking about a goyish person who was (in addition to describing themselves in terms of loaded jewish stereotypes), at the time, talking a lot about why people should convert to Judaism.

The callout is saying “argumate agrees that Judaism isn’t an ethnoreligion and says that Jews can’t self-determine on this matter” about a post where an anon and two other people are talking about Judaism as an ethnoreligion and argumate simply says “many religions want to be ethnoreligions and institute religious practices to try to achieve this” which A) isn’t denying that Judaism is an ethnoreligion and B) if anything the response *disagrees* with the post claiming that goys don’t have to respect Jewish identity.

Also here are all the linked examples of “calling xtianity judaism but with jesus”

1 - someone else makes a comment on Christianity as a Jewish sect AND as a Jewish heresy and Argumate comments with a pun on the word “Pharisee” while making no comment about any relationship between christianity and judaism

2 - describing Jesus’ beliefs (not christianity as it exists now) as a “sect of Apocalyptic Judaism,” which, so far as I can tell, is theologically accurate

3 - a very clumsy hipster joke where an anon calls Judaism hipster christianity and argumate makes a pretty bad joke about the taboo on saying the name of god. (of all the examples linked to in the callout this is probably the example that is easiest to interpret as antisemitism and it is clearly a joke, not a claim on argumate’s part that christians are basically jews)

 4 - a joke about Bee Movie that includes the claim that Christianity launched from Judaism (which seems kind of impossible to deny as the former wouldn’t exist without the latter) and that the two religions were then separate for two thousand years until Bee Movie brought them together.

I don’t know that any of these can be fairly described as “calling xtianity Judaism but with Jesus“ but it seems ESPECIALLY ridiculous to take an absurdist joke about a terrible movie uniting two separate religions as “claiming that christianity and Judaism are the same thing.”

Also the callout says that nearly all euphoric redditors are white supremacists:

Over this post:

And buds, I’m tired.

Every time the callout starts circulating again I get anons in my inbox criticizing me for following and being friendly with “known antisemite” Argumate.

Calling Argumate antisemetic over these posts seems like a hell of a reach and looking through 100 posts where argumate talks about the harms of antisemitism then looking at someone saying ‘you should stop talking to your friend because once they said that the theological history of judaism and catholocism is irresistible nerdbait to a certain kind of rationalist thinker and is therefore antisemitic’ just kind of makes you look silly.

If you think my lack of concern over this is antisemitic I invite you to curate your tumblr experience and unfollow me instead of sending me more asks about it.

[fencecollapsed]

your opinion on which social media is the best "doesn't-make-you-feel-bad"-wise?

mm probably tumblr tbh, personally I think the ones I use aren't that bad just cuz I try to curate my feeds to avoid anything I find unhealthy or annoying and I do pretty well for the most part, but tumblr is definitely the easiest to do that with. I don't even need to block many tags because I just. don't follow people who post things that upset me. I've mentioned before I also like my follower count being somewhere I don't pay much attention to? I just don't notice if/when I lose followers here bc I don't ever look there and it's great. that's my main complaint with instagram making me feel bad tbh, and even with that I can just cover it up with my hand when I need to look at my page hgkls I've been doing that for a bit and I feel less bad using instagram now, cuz I'm actively ignoring my follower count

though when it comes to socials I just generally do not pay attention to a lot of things other people pay attention to, so that's probably part of why my experiences are mostly fine. I just don't notice a lot lmao but I understand the critiques I see

twitter is absolutely the worst of the ones I use though. just entirely

[beatrice-otter]

... if you’re trying to curate your own content, getting served posts just because the algorithm thinks you might like them does not allow you to do so. Curating your own content means you choose what you see and what you don’t see. If you’re seeing stuff because the algorithm thinks you might like it ... you’re not curating, the algorithm is. It’s that simple.

Let’s take a look at what similar algorithms did to Facebook and why social media companies like them (even though they’re terrible for user experience).

First, social media companies make money by having people use their service. The more people they have use their service and the longer those people are on their site, the more money they make. They don’t want you to log on, scroll through a few posts, and leave, they want you glued to that screen on doomscroll.

There are a couple of ways to achieve this. One of the easiest ways is to game the system so that mostly you see things you will engage with. Whether or not they’re things you actually want to see. If you’re in the grips of a strong emotion--like outrage, or fear--you will keep going longer. You’ll probably post more, too, reblog more! And that’s good for the site. But maybe not so good for you or your relationships with people on the site or in meatspace.

So they make algorithms that do two things: one, show you mostly the things you will have the strongest reaction to (which is why on Facebook you’ll see your cousin’s conspiracy theories and political rants but not their posts about going to the park with their dog). On tumblr, this is called “best things first,” and you can opt out of it and get a strictly chronological list of posts from the people you follow. You used to be able to opt out of it on Facebook, too, or at least click a button and opt out for that particular session; you can’t do that any more because it makes your browsing session shorter and thus less profitable to them. The other thing they do with algorithms is show you things you might be interested in. But the algorithm can’t tell whether you reblogged a post because you agreed with it or because you hated it ... and they’d rather show you posts you hate, because you’re more likely to engage with it and thus stay on the site longer.

Facebook has been doing both of these things (with no way to opt out) for years and it is a lot of why Facebook is such a hellscape. You see the worst things, and people are encouraged to be extreme because that’s what gets the most engagement because that’s what the algorithm pushes and that’s what makes Facebook money. You only see a fraction of the every-day normal posts from people you’ve friended, but you see every hot take and rant. You have very limited tools to curate your experience because Facebook is most profitable when they curate your experience for you. None of this is conspiracy theory, every leak of Facebook internal documents, every whistleblower, every investigation has said the same damn thing. Facebook will never combat extremism or propaganda unless forced to do so, because that would hurt their bottom line. Facebook will never give users the tools to effectively curate their experience on the site unless forced to do so, because that would hurt their bottom line.

I am on tumblr precisely because I’ve seen what algorithms like that did to Facebook.

I am furious that such algorithms are now on tumblr. Yeah, we can turn them off ... but for how long? You used to be able to do that on FB, too.

Do agree that it's annoying to have a new feature added on by default but people bitching about seeing posts recommended to them "based on their likes", it's like, god every day i see posts on here that i don't like, just scroll, it's one post, chill. I think this ties into the thing of people refusing to curate their own content and expecting to only just see what they like and nothing they don't. Funny how the feature is TRYING to help do that for them too but backfired.

--

People are objecting because it's an algorithm thing.

It represents an attempt to make Tumblr more like instagram, twitter, and tiktok. It bothers people on a whole meta level where its implications are far more significant than just a couple of posts one doesn't like.

[moonanagames]

(sorry if this was answered before) As someone who managed to (very succesfully) go through a crowdfunding campaign, do you have any tips for other indie game devs who would also need to fund their game this way?

This will be gigantic, I am sorry =|

Tips for a successful Crowdfunding Campaign ahead:

For a crowdfunding campaign the game has to initially have this good proposal/be good looking or interesting in the first glance. That will make the difference between people getting interested by your thumbnail or not (and even make the difference on #screenshotsaturdays and such). I know it is a bit disheartening to hear this, but crowdfunding campaigns are basically a very hardcore marketing mode (and honestly, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who want to keep their sanity, I think it is a very desperate measure for desperate times, I had a REALLY hard time doing it, but it was really fun and challenging and I grew up a lot out of this experience). Basically it has a lot of downsides, and its brightsides! :3

If you do have an interesting game, it will be probably easy to gather the people interested in it! Some people take up to 1 year to gather a fandom before the crowdfunding campaign. I took about, uh… 6 months! At first I wasn’t thinking about this at all, so I was just randomly posting. Since the game got a good fanbase at start I thought it should be a good idea (also the pressure of bills, lol)

So basically, for starters:

Have an interesting concept and good looking game who works well with gifs/screenshots, have good promotional art.

Build a fanbase, some people take a year at that before the campaign.

Building the Fanbase:

Create a twitter, tumblr, instagram, facebook, IndieDb, Tigsource, accounts in specific forums for your engine, reddit. Whatever suits your game, go there. But focus on the social media your game gathers more fanbase on. For VvtZ that should be Tumblr! For a lot of games it’s twitter or even Instagram. Respect the way each media works also, there’s different mindset for each media, since they gather different kinds of people. Instagram is still a mystery for me, for example. Facebook, pffft… I don’t even know. So don’t get desperate if you have no followers in one of those.

Cultivating the Fanbase:

The Fanbase is the most important aspect of something like this, because you are essentially asking for people’s moneys and they should trust your work for that. You do that by having a demo of your game, by building a good relationship with them (that can be really hard if you don’t feel comfortable around people, and can be really nerve wrecking, so don’t push yourself too much, you can always trust a publisher for that as well!). The good relationship basically comes from you considering people as friends and treating them as, oh well… People? I see a lot of articles on those, and they basically teach you to treat people in this strategical way, like they are robots and stuff, but it’s just easier to treat everyone as people xD In that way, you can really engage with everyone and respect their space, without being annoying. I also try to remember everyone who follows by their avatars (when people change avatars is hell), and I always get excited when someone who likes a lot of posts reblogs and stuff. I also try to welcome them to the blog, sometimes I forget, but when I remember I show them the discord server etc, where we can talk more easily.

It’s basically like how in the first day of school, or work, you don’t know anyone and you try to engage. It’s hard, but once you mingle with people you’ll see they’re not that frightening. (and if you really feel anxious around them, I recommend getting a publisher to handle this job! They like people and a good publisher can really help a game out :0)

(the discord server should be created after you have some fanbase on social medias)

Contacting media:

It’s important to contact media, but you can do that directly on Indiedb. Every time you have news on your game, you go on Indiedb and upload your game page. Media check IndieDb all the time, so that’s great! If you can attend events, go on those. It’s the easiest way to be covered. Try posting on IndieDb on the week days, because that’s when journalists work. The crowdfunding campaign date should start in a weekday and end in a weekday also due to that.

Some tips on media:

Gather emails of journalists who talk about the genre of your game or similar games. Don’t contact just any journalist around, they’ll ignore you. Try to focus on the ones that are interested in your genre.

Siliconera, Alpha Beta Gamer and One Angry Gamer are the sites that were more indie friendly in my experience.

Post on IndieDb at every new big announcement. (I didn’t do this, but it’s extremely recommended)

Don’t harass journalists. Send emails only when you have big announcements. The subject should be the name of the news, like “Name of the game is getting a new boss mode inspired by Popular game”. This is the kinda thing that interests journalists, because they want to awe the reader. The content should be the text you would like on the news, with some introductions for your game! You should have a nice pitch for that. Just search on google stuff like “How to make a good pitch for my game” that you’ll find a large number of useful articles! (To be honest, I never sent an email to journalists and was answered, but a lot of people do it and they get news on their games!)

Pc gamer holds something called “Indie Gif Showcase”, it’s worth to give it a try.

Kickstarter, Indiegogo or Fig.co?

Kickstarter: Excelent outreach, people visit kickstarter every day, more chances of being covered by journalists, the most known platform, they use Stripe Atlas which is a extremely secure form of payment online for the developer and the users. They only accept some countries tho, there’s a list on their website. You can still use the website even out of those accepted countries if you have a stripe account and a US company. You can check that on Stripe Atlas website! (it is really complicated, tho, you should be way more experienced to do this kinda stuff)

Indiegogo: Less outreach, people see it as a scammers platform because of some problems they had with some campaigns in the past (it is not, it’s just a normal crowdfunding site). Used to accept paypal, but not anymore. Accept all the countries Kickstarter doesn’t.

Fig.co: The newest platform and the less known of the 3. It is curated, meaning they chose their games. You can send a pitch to them through their site. They act as publishers and help you out throughout all the process of developing your campaign content and marketing strategies. They work personally with each developer and campaign. They also offer PR services, like contacting journalists for you. They also have a double mode campaign, you can have a normal rewards campaign and also a investments one, where investors invest on your game and get a portion of it upon release.

Last tips:

Post a lot on your social medias;

Connect with your fandom also through discord;

Be honest with them in all of the development process;

Have a demo up on first week of the campaign;

Have a nice looking campaign page explaining everything that is interesting and unique about your game; search for successful campaigns of the same genre as yours to get to know what kind of information they put up there, it’s really helpful;

Also don’t disconsider unsuccessful campaigns and try to find out WHY they failed in the first place. Often it has to do with how their page was presented.

Care about people’s times and mind that when writing on your Campaign Page. Don’t give useless information there;

Weekly updates during campaign’s period. One time a month when campaign is over (or two max);