![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Social Media Platforms
Dec. 21st, 2018 06:52 amTumblr was a cesspit.
Yeah it's another post about this I'm sure ya'll are tired but hush.
Tumblr was a cesspit. Tumblr was amazing. Tumblr was fifty million gifs of whatever show you could possibly imagine, edited with love to be used for reaction images. Tumblr was silly posts that got art tacked on in reblogs because someone inspired someone else. Tumblr was longform stories, family lore or personal circumstance, sometimes funny sometimes not. Tumblr tried to be educational in its own way, although that was hit or miss. (how to adult posts vs "mix all these chemicals for an amazing cleaning agent" springs to mind)
And Tumblr was home for a lot of people. A lot of good people. A lot of bad people. A lot of people who did bad things and thought themselves good for them, crusaders of whatever morality they chose. A lot of people who thought themselves bad but did good things. Something about that site brought out the worst and best in humanity at the same time. It's hard to reconcile someone who called for the blood of your friends in one breath, and gushed about their pet reptiles or houseplants in the next.
Tumblr has taught me another lesson in duality - you don't owe everyone anything, at all, period. But at the same time oh my gods you owe it to people to be kind. To be compassionate. To carefully reach as far as you can and try to understand someone before writing them off. And yet at the same time it taught me to read someone's warning signs and run like fucking hell if they displayed them in patterns I recognized from previous mistreatment of myself and those I hold dear.
Tumblr was a cesspit. I'll assert that first, should anyone ask.
But it was a common binding agent. Everyone is scattered to the four winds in terms of platform, and the thing is... Tumblr was lawless for the longest time, there, but at least it was something we had in common. People absolutely twisted that to their own worst ends. One guy and a bunch of algorithm codes he threw together himself can't hope to moderate properly. Similarly to how moderation on Flight Rising isn't really a thing, and how the community will massacre you on someone else's word via discord or, again, Tumblr.
So far, no other website is quite meeting our needs like Tumblr did from a functionality and "what's allowed" standpoint. I'm gunshy of pillowfort simply because... hm... Okay so, if someone was chatting amicably with you, real nice, getting along, and then out of nowhere just PUNCHED THE SHIT out of your friend. Fucking decked him. Friend on the ground. You're stunned, shaking. Maybe you have a history of someone being violent around you, towards you, whichever, and now you're trembling and spooked. Because what the hell? This dick just punched your friend! You scoop your friend up, you yell at the puncher, you back away. The person apologizes, gets your friend an ice pack, whatever. "That was unfortunate and I shouldn't have done that and I'll do better," they say, but you're too busy glaring at them with your friend to give that much credit. But hey, they apologized, right?
Does that change the fact that now you're wary around this person? I sure hope not. I know I'm wary as fuck. Because that's basically what happened.
(And as an aside, bitter as I am about pillowfort, at least they communicated. I have no hope or respect for Tumblr, who continues to ignore my friends requests for some word or account retrieval or anything, just as they continue to ignore me and have me shadowbanned when I'm the least NSFW person I know, barring my love affair with saying the word Fuck. I don't know how to help most days, which is why I'm throwing myself into politely harassing all these budding platforms into giving us information about what they will and won't allow. Clarity or death.)
As much as I really want there to be a singular fandom hub again, I don't think it's going to happen. Maybe someday someone will be inspired to make something like ao3 is for social media instead of just written works, but for now we'll drift asea in a little fleet of interconnected profiles I guess.
It's safer that way.
Yeah it's another post about this I'm sure ya'll are tired but hush.
Tumblr was a cesspit. Tumblr was amazing. Tumblr was fifty million gifs of whatever show you could possibly imagine, edited with love to be used for reaction images. Tumblr was silly posts that got art tacked on in reblogs because someone inspired someone else. Tumblr was longform stories, family lore or personal circumstance, sometimes funny sometimes not. Tumblr tried to be educational in its own way, although that was hit or miss. (how to adult posts vs "mix all these chemicals for an amazing cleaning agent" springs to mind)
And Tumblr was home for a lot of people. A lot of good people. A lot of bad people. A lot of people who did bad things and thought themselves good for them, crusaders of whatever morality they chose. A lot of people who thought themselves bad but did good things. Something about that site brought out the worst and best in humanity at the same time. It's hard to reconcile someone who called for the blood of your friends in one breath, and gushed about their pet reptiles or houseplants in the next.
Tumblr has taught me another lesson in duality - you don't owe everyone anything, at all, period. But at the same time oh my gods you owe it to people to be kind. To be compassionate. To carefully reach as far as you can and try to understand someone before writing them off. And yet at the same time it taught me to read someone's warning signs and run like fucking hell if they displayed them in patterns I recognized from previous mistreatment of myself and those I hold dear.
Tumblr was a cesspit. I'll assert that first, should anyone ask.
But it was a common binding agent. Everyone is scattered to the four winds in terms of platform, and the thing is... Tumblr was lawless for the longest time, there, but at least it was something we had in common. People absolutely twisted that to their own worst ends. One guy and a bunch of algorithm codes he threw together himself can't hope to moderate properly. Similarly to how moderation on Flight Rising isn't really a thing, and how the community will massacre you on someone else's word via discord or, again, Tumblr.
So far, no other website is quite meeting our needs like Tumblr did from a functionality and "what's allowed" standpoint. I'm gunshy of pillowfort simply because... hm... Okay so, if someone was chatting amicably with you, real nice, getting along, and then out of nowhere just PUNCHED THE SHIT out of your friend. Fucking decked him. Friend on the ground. You're stunned, shaking. Maybe you have a history of someone being violent around you, towards you, whichever, and now you're trembling and spooked. Because what the hell? This dick just punched your friend! You scoop your friend up, you yell at the puncher, you back away. The person apologizes, gets your friend an ice pack, whatever. "That was unfortunate and I shouldn't have done that and I'll do better," they say, but you're too busy glaring at them with your friend to give that much credit. But hey, they apologized, right?
Does that change the fact that now you're wary around this person? I sure hope not. I know I'm wary as fuck. Because that's basically what happened.
(And as an aside, bitter as I am about pillowfort, at least they communicated. I have no hope or respect for Tumblr, who continues to ignore my friends requests for some word or account retrieval or anything, just as they continue to ignore me and have me shadowbanned when I'm the least NSFW person I know, barring my love affair with saying the word Fuck. I don't know how to help most days, which is why I'm throwing myself into politely harassing all these budding platforms into giving us information about what they will and won't allow. Clarity or death.)
As much as I really want there to be a singular fandom hub again, I don't think it's going to happen. Maybe someday someone will be inspired to make something like ao3 is for social media instead of just written works, but for now we'll drift asea in a little fleet of interconnected profiles I guess.
It's safer that way.
