#yes i used ss from my own gifsets what about it it’s still the same

[hoedameron]

lately there has been a lot of discussion about the frustrations us gifmakers have about the huge disparity of the reblog to like ratio. thought I haven’t really found the right words to express how I feel, I do better with pictures.

I’ve been on tumblr since 2011. back then, we didn’t really curate how our blogs were presented. we simply reblogged what we enjoyed. it was messy and sloppy but there was so much content to be shared with each other. liking a post was rarely used and reserved for posts you wanted to find later after reblogging it or something that was for you to privately enjoy. this resulted in posts having a ton of reblogs with not that many likes. the posts below are fandom gifsets from 2012-2014

then it seems like in either 2016 or 2017, a lot of that type of interaction declined significantly. though I’ve been around for a very long time, I never actually understood why there was such a steep decline in interactions. if I didn’t want something on my main blog, I just made a sideblog (aka this very blog is my sideblog since 2011) so more of my “silly” content could be. I still enjoyed these posts and still reblogged them, using my likes as a bookmark keeper. but, yeah, some turn of the century phenomena happened overnight and it’s like everyone became self-aware that the “golden era” of tumblr was cringe and didn’t want to repeat the past. is that what it was? is?

now here are the notes of gifsets from recent 2018-2021

see how SIGNIFICANTLY less reblogs there are and more likes?? I really don’t understand how in a matter of YEARS it could be so drastic. we had so much content going around back then because it wasn’t about notes, it was about sharing what we love. and now, so many gifmakers are getting burnt out to the point of leaving, going under appreciated and their work not being reached to many people. we spend countless hours on photoshop, sometimes struggling with photoshop because it decides to fuck up in the middle of a project. there is so much that goes into gifmaking like t*rrenting, grabbing the video clips, cropping, sharpening, COLORING, subtitles if applicable and that’s just a BASIC gif. there have been beautiful sets with different templates that I just know took HOURS in photoshop.

so, when it comes to the argument of “I don’t have to reblog anything”, you’re right. you don’t have to. we aren’t forcing you to do anything. we are simply asking you to consider the amount of work we put into our set and if you enjoyed it enough to put a like on it, then you should consider reblogging it so that your followers can also enjoy it. with this website actively making being a gifmaker hard as hell, the least you can do is make our days by reblogging it with some tags. those tags make my heart so warm and make me feel good about my creations. it’s the people who reblog and tag with commentary who make gifmaking worth while because without those interactions, I would’ve stopped creating a long time ago. hell, I don’t even make as much content as others do like can you imagine how they feel?? please, help us out by reblogging our work. it takes the same amount of time to reblog as it does to like the post. we do all this for free because it’s only just a fun hobby but sometimes it feels like going to work. we just want to know that we are doing great and that other people like them as well.

sometimes creating content for myself can be so...party of one with nobody to celebrate with. it’s not fun if there aren’t others to share the fruit of my labor with.