Arrrrrgh

[kutsuwamushi]

I can rant all day about how Tumblr ruined fandom, but right now I'm annoyed at a specific thing:

People misusing tags to get attention for their stupid, uninteresting blogs.

I'm talking about when someone posts a vague "AU idea" or "imagine" that doesn't have anything to do with a particular fandom, and they tag it with every popular fandom and pairing they can think of to get the most views. For some tags I'm monitoring, there is more of this bullshit than actual relevant content.

And people like and reblog, validating the behavior. Meanwhile I'm sitting on my hands even though I just want to reply, "STOP DOING THIS, UGH YOU ARE THE WORST."

Tumblr incentivizes this bullshit because blogging on Tumblr, unless you already have a social circle, is like posting into a black hole. You have to catch the attention of people through tagging in order to build followers. And the social currency is likes and reblogs, not discussions. So you can understand why people do it.

This is one of the ways I think that the LJ model is much better. Sure, I don't have many active followers, and it's a lot slower than it was back in the glory days, but there are some people who will read this. Someone might even comment, and it will be a name I recognize, rather than an anonymous person who just like my post because it had a certain keyword in it. I don't need to collect huge numbers of notes in order to feel like I'm connecting with people.

Comments

[zhelana]

lol i could never figure out tumblr. I don't even remember my password.

[kutsuwamushi]

The secret is that there's nothing to figure out. It will always be terrible.

[muccamukk]

Personal tumblr peeve: Posting headcanon casting for your RP to the actor's tag. If I'm watching the actor's tag, I guarantee you I don't care about your RP.

[kutsuwamushi]

That just feels - I don't know, rude. I try not to use tags unless I think what I'm posting will be relevant to people watching that tag. Because why would I make them look at my random stuff?

This might be why I have like only ten real followers and a ton of bots, though.

[muccamukk]

I'm pretty sure almost all of my follows are people I met elsewhere online. I banned all the bots, but your follower count never goes down, just up.

[killertofuuu]

I could do the same. A lot of the flaws with tumblr: its impersonal nature, its bots, its tags flooded with uninteresting/irrelevant bullshit, and goddamn SJW's/antis playing Internet police, trolling, and attempting to censor speech the same exact way some overzealous bigot might... sigh. It's mindboggling to me, how people still use this site. I understand it's a large base and convenient, and it is technically possible to form actual relationships, but it's so open to either speaking into the void, or being harassed by haters that I'm stunned people didn't jump ship sooner.

I'm glad people are jumping ship now, though, or at least noticing the BS and calling it out. I've felt alone in my distaste for tumblr for a long time.

[sarajayechan]

In a perfect world, Tumblr would be solely for pictures of food and cute animals. As it is, it's just a big noisy playground full of brats fighting over who owns what toy when the toys are for everyone to play with, or bullies ganging up on some poor kid who bumped into the ringleader and spilled a drop of juice on their trendy new sneakers.

[kutsuwamushi]

I miss most of the drama because I'm not subscribed to all that many people - I use it to follow a few interesting folks, and then it's mostly art blogs and the like.

Honestly I'm surprised drama can even thrive on Tumblr given how terrible its design is for interacting with people. I suppose drama finds a way...

[sarajayechan]

Reblogs and callouts, especially the callouts. I've seen someone accused of being a child fucker because they wouldn't give someone else free art.

[kutsuwamushi]

I guess I have seen some highly-reblogged posts that are responding to someone who posted a shitty thing. I guess I didn't think of it as drama because ... I agreed that it was a shitty thing, and I don't see them encouraging going after the person.

And boy, does that seem like something that would happen on Tumblr. Like, why would you do that? Because I guess if you get it reblogged enough... Ugh, people.

[peachpai]

This sort of thing drives me up the wall! I'm not super active in my fandoms on tumblr (mostly just use it to collect art), but sifting through the tags for content is constantly frustrating.

[chase_acow]

Hi, I followed you over from a friending meme. You've nicely summed up my dissatisfaction with attempting to interact with tumblr. I still like to scroll through it while at work, because it doesn't require much if any energy on my part. I'm trying to post here more again.

Also thank you for the rec in your last post. She is very interesting and fun to listen to!

[kutsuwamushi]

Hey, sorry for never responding to you! I missed your comment somehow. Anyhow, I checked out your journal and have subscribed back.