Tumblr

Website
Name:	Tumblr
Owner/Maintainer:
Dates:	2007- present
Type:	multimedia blogging platform
Fandom:	not applicable
URL:	http://www.tumblr.com/
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A fannish discussion taking place on Tumblr, with examples of "liking," direct replies, and reblogging.

Tumblr is a micro-blogging platform with social networking features that allows users to post text, images, audio, and video. It is a popular tool for fannish picspams and gifsets. Tumblr users interact by replying directly to posts, "liking," and reblogging with optional commentary.

Users can also DM each other via the "ask" feature, though the receiver then has the power to choose whether to answer privately, directly to the asker, or publicly on their blog, revealing the original question to all and sundry. In 2016 Tumblr added a messaging feature allowing blogs to chat back and forth privately. Lengthy discussions do take place on Tumblr, although they are less structured than on journaling platforms such as LiveJournal and Dreamwidth.

Tumblr fandom in a nutshell: attractive actors, cats, internet memes, and an argument made with compelling visuals instead of text

On December 3 2018, Tumblr put out a post announcing that "Starting Dec 17, adult content will not allowed on Tumblr, regardless of how old you are" [3], with people comparing this to the demise of LiveJournal. See Tumblr NSFW Content Purge and Companies, Copyright and Censorship.

Tumblr user tearlessrain has categorized Tumblr history into three "ages." The First Age is Tumblr pre-Dashcon, the Second Age is Tumblr post-Dashcon but pre-Tumblr Purge, and the Third Age is Tumblr post-Tumblr Purge. Overall, this way of sectioning Tumblr history is meant to show a slow move from a more user-run, fandom-friendly site to a site that's changed corporate owners multiple times and developed purity culture and cringe culture.

See Timeline of Fandom on Tumblr.

Fan Use

Two more things that are popular on Tumblr: otters and Benedict Cumberbatch. Graphic created by Redscharlach.

Tumblr is extremely diverse both in terms of the type of fandom, and the type of fanac hosted there. Gifs, filk, vids, fanart, fanfiction, screencaps, image macros, podfic, recs, RPing and meta can all be found there. A quick search for the tag "fanfic" produced results on the first page ranging from Dragonball Z to Glee, as well as Harry Potter, NCIS, Tiger and Bunny, Doctor Who, Sherlock (BBC) and Justin Bieber RPF.

anonymous ask as a fanart prompt, posted with the fill

Fanfiction posting on Tumblr can take unique forms. Ficlets or drabbles can be built up collaboratively in the Tumblr equivalent of an impromptu round robin, entirely in the hashtags. Single-author ficlets may also appear as replies to a photo post.

Asks are sometimes used to submit prompts for fanfic or fanart. Askblogs are a popular form of RP for fan artists.

fuckyeah (sometimes also "fyeah") is a popular prefix for many Tumblrs devoted to a one specific topic; this is not just limited to media fandom tumblrs. Examples include fuckyeahinazuma, fuckyeahfandomprompts, fuckyeahpodficplatypus, and fyeahcopyright.

Fanfic Flamingo is a Tumblr blog that has gained many off-Tumblr fans. Many Texts From Last Night Meme blogs are hosted on Tumblr. The long-running blog, Fandom Problems, has accepted and posted anonymous rants about various fandom problems since 2012 and remains a popular fan-focused blog in 2024.

One Tumblr-specific meme is for a user to post a picture of an arrow pointing up or down with a caption along the lines of "Your soulmate," "Your future," or "What you'll dream about tonight." When this appears on another Tumblr user's dashboard, it will (usually) be pointing at a picture randomly displayed in a third user's post; if the resulting combination is amusing or apt, it can be screencapped and shared.

Challenges

Tumblr is often used to encourage the creation of fannish content by challenges. In a master post, the rules or prompts are posted and participating creator repost that masterpost with their contributions. Some examples of tumblr challenges

• 30 Day Shipping Challenge
• 30 Day OTP Challenge
• TD 30 Day Challenge
• fictober
• Make Me Choose
• Video Game Challenge

Polls

see Tumblr polls for further details

Tumblr started rolling out its poll feature on January 18, 2023. Tumblr users can post polls with up to ten options and an 80 character limit for the text in each option. Polls have a countdown for when the voting period ends. After the voting period is over, the results are publicly available but not traceable to specific accounts. For example, if there was a poll between the colors blue and red, the results would not show if user "blues-clues" voted for the color red.

While some Tumblr users disliked polls, they became very popular and were used across the site in a variety of ways. Some were primarily not fannish, like a poll inviting tumblr users to make a cake by voting on ingredients, which became a meme after the majority of users voted for vanilla extract. However, the poll system has been widely used for fan use. Sometimes this is relatively simple, such as allowing people to vote for favorite characters, ships, or specific books or episodes within a canon. Some uses are a less straightforward like having people vote to choose their favorite brief not!fic or headcanons, voting on infamous fanfiction, or voting on a character's favorite drink.

The most noteworthy fan use of Tumblr polls is to create blogs devoted to multi-round bracket tournaments. The tournaments might compare ships (e.g., mfshipbracket), characters (example: eldestsiblingtournament), or fandoms. It's common for bracket-runners to refuse submissions of real people, MCYT, and Harry Potter or problematic fandoms. In several cases, fannish poll brackets have resulted in wank. A prominent example of this is the March 2023 Tumblr Pirate Battle.

In the second half of 2023, a number of fannish-focused blogs were created which took submissions and ran polls to find out which characters, shows, fanfics and other related things were well known and which were obscured. They were typically titled some variation of Do You Know This X?

Common Tumblr Terms

• Askblog - an RP tumblr
• -blr - "____blr" can be used to describe a tumblr blog with a certain theme or focus. For example, a "bookblr" is a tumblr that posts about books.
• dash - dashboard, where you can see the latest posts by every tumblr you follow; similar to a journal friendslist
• discourse - An ongoing instance of controversy or drama. Used similarly to "wank" but without necessarily implying that the controversy is fannish in nature.
• feels - intense feelings
• gpoy - common saying on Tumblr that stands for Gratuitous Picture Of Yourself, originally in reference to a selfie; often used as a tag on a reblog of something you identify with/that inadvertently describes you
• notes - all tracked responses to a post, including "likes" and "reblogs"
• reblog - a standard site function that lets you repost a post made by someone else, retaining the link back to the original post; many tumblrs consist primarily of reblogged content. Reblogged images display on all the users' blogs, but the image itself is not reuploaded and has the same URL.
• repost - to post someone else's art or gifsets, especially when the original creator has already posted them to Tumblr. A lot of fanart is downloaded from other sites and posted by someone other than the artist to Tumblr, but even works that are available on Tumblr can receive the same treatment. For example, a Tumblr gifset can be reposted by downloading the individual gifs and then reassembling them in a new post instead of reblogging the existing post; many consider this plagiarism. Also, Tumblr images can be incorporated into new text posts by copying the URL, which does not show who originally uploaded it (e.g. http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_me5zjnBUNB1rzhnr4.gif)
• staff - or @staff, referencing the url of tumblr headquarter's blog. generally regarded as incompetent and the subject of complaints and mockery

Etiquette

Reblogging

Since tumblr is built around reblogging, it is natural that complex and sometimes contradictory forms of reblogging etiquette have developed.

Comments

Conflict sometimes arises when one user reblogs a post with commentary that the OP doesn't like. For instance, someone may post a shippy picspam, and the person who reblogs the image may complain about the problematic representation of that ship in the canon. Other times, someone may post about the reasons why they hate a specific show, pairing or character, and then tag their post so that it appears on the tracked tags page for that topic; this practice has led to the admonishment "Don't tag your hate". In fact, the motto even has its own "tag" on Tumblr. For one example see the Kurtofsky Wanks in Glee fandom. While the concept may sound simple, in practice it can be confusing and hard to apply with Tumblr users being given complicated instructions on when and how to tag and in what order to place their tags. The motto has spread outside of Tumblr and has been seen on Goodreads and other social media platforms that use tagging. It was also featured in E!Online's 2014 article "Sleepy Hollow Star Orlando Jones' Guide on How to Be Your Best Fangirl".

Sometimes posts that go viral or otherwise become popular can break containment, leading to a wide variety of unrelated tags and commentary being added -- all of which OP will see in their notifications. Some posters enjoy this, some do not -- while people may do many kinds of commentary, fandom tags and reblogs specifically have become a recognized thing/widely joked about phenomenon on tumblr (see also Blorbo From My Shows). Even "fandom posts" can get a hostile response when they get attention from other fandoms.

Tumblr users also have developed a preference for where the comments are paced in a reblog. Over time, many users feel that added commentary should happen in the tags instead of the main body. As one user remembers:

"Really though who led us to believe that adding comments in a reblog instead of in tags was a BETTER option? I created a tumblr in January 2011 and very few people confined their additions to reblogged posts in their tags, in fact it was so rare that I thought it was weird, actually. In the time since then I began to see more and more posts openly mocking people’s added comments, and I don’t just mean the posts making fun of strings of “THIS!!” “OMG YES!!” “LMAO ACCURATE!!” reblogs, which by the way don’t deserve ridicule anyway because tumblr is not an entertainment curator it’s a blogging site, let’s remember. I also mean people who would write things, and then get widespread support, like “don’t ruin the OP by adding your stupid comment on it I don’t care what you have to say!!” and “put that shit in the tags, nobody wants to see that!” Well, actually, I think you’ll find that people follow other tumblr users because we find them interesting, what they say interesting, or what they create interesting. That includes their perspective, things like reblog comments. So why the fuck is it exactly that tumblr at large seems to have enforced a culture of writing essays in the tags rather than just adding it on, anyway? Some people prefer that, it’s true, so their words don’t get passed around the whole internet, but I do know that there are also many people, myself included, who feel obligated to clam up and shut down things they might add because tumblr has come to seem like a hostile environment for additions."

There are several reasons for limiting comments to tags:

"The basic premise however is to put reaction comments (also fangirling/fanboying) in tags. Examples include #lol #omg #all my feels #my otp #this. People prefer comments in the text section to add to the post like refutations to a statement as they feel that it adds more to the post. It also makes for neater reblogging."

"I ALWAYS FEEL BAD LEAVING COMMENTS ON REBLOGS?? BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO RUIN THEM WITH MY RAMBLINGS ON THEIR POST??? BUT I WILL YELL THINGS SILENTLY AT EVERYONE FOR THE BEAUTY THEY HAVE ADDED TO THIS WORLD WITHIN TAGS"

Others take a dim view of attempting to limit comments on reblogs:

"am I the only one who finds people who whine about other people reblogging their stuff with less than positive comments actually pretty pathetic?

learn to handle criticism. learn to handle assholes who can’t be bothered to give you actual criticism and just tag your stuff as #gross or whatever too. as long as they aren’t stealing your stuff and reposting it as if it’s theirs they have every right to reblog it with all the kind of comments they see fit, even if they’re negative or just plain rude comments.

call them out on it if you think they’re being unnecessarily nasty, but the “don’t you DARE” kindergarten attitude is just plain ridiculous, especially when OP is a 30 years old mother of 3 or something."

Stripping the Source

A major violation of tumblr etiquette is reblogging posts while stripping the source:

"The single biggest piece of etiquette would be not to strip out your sources. Reblogs with the automatic links back to the Tumblr where you found it are cool, stripping out those links is uncool. If you're posting something cool you found on Pixiv or DA or whatever, link back to the original source. Trigger warnings, cuts for graphic content, putting in text descriptions for images (since Tumblr doesn't make it easy for you to put in alt text properly)...etiquette there varies depending on the circles you run in. Some people are strict about putting in the descriptions to the point where it almost gets ridiculous, some don't give a fuck. Some warn and cut things, some will just throw all sorts of porn gifs and guro and all sorts of NWS shit right out there."

Reblog Don't Repost

In addition to asking fellow fans to not strip sources, many fans prohibit "reposting" of content. This applies mainly to image posts, but can crop up in text or video posts. Creating a new tumblr entry with content pulled from another tumblr post or from a non-tumblr source without permission is considered by many to be a major breach of tumblr ethics. This applies even if the source of the image is listed and full credit given to the creator. And, if you reblog reposted content you are in the eyes of many to be equally guilty. Fans are expected to turn away from such posts or, at the very least, attempt to locate the original artist or creator for permission before reblogging:

"Reminder: If you reblog un-sourced art on tumblr, or support blogs that repost art without the artist's permission, you're a bad person!"

ask permission before reposting

if its a repost u need to find the source

pixiv should be off limits

if possible reblog from artists tumblr."

This has led somefans to add notes on their posts indicating when they have the artist's permission to upload their content to tumblr. Still, for many fans, even that permission note is considered suspect:

"Me: *goes to reblog awesome art*

Post: "Permission to upload was granted by the artist"

Me: *continues scrolling*

Even if permission has been granted to repost, fans are instructed to search through tumblr, find the artists's tumblr blog and use those images instead:

"stop reblogging reposts of artist’s works. stop reblogging reprints from pixiv, drawr, twitter, etc. regardless of whether there is a source or not. not all artists want their artwork to be shared in public without their knowledge. it can range from many different reasons: they may be anxious that you can be making fun of them, anxious that you may be making a profit out of their art. it may be because it is just plain disrespectful or they may be shy about it.

if you asked permission to post, put that in the description with proof. if they stated on their pixiv or other site that it is okay to repost then put that in the description. heck, even try to find the artist’s tumblr if they have one!

stop reposting, stop reblogging reposts and start reblogging from the artist’s tumblr instead to show respect. ask permission to repost to show respect. artists have deleted their pixivs, drawrs, specific pieces of their artwork because of reposts. don’t let this continue happening."

There are daily calls for action against fans who use content without permission or credit. Actions include reporting other users to tumblr abuse and calling on others to blacklist and block offenders and to refrain from reblogging the offender's posts.

"They’ve stolen art and coding from me, harrassed me, as well as stolen coding from farahmir, selkas, tukut, and others. They’ve also tried selling art prints and lying about having permission from the original owner.

The link above is a link to an entire archive with every incident I know of, as well as links and screenshots (Please note some links might not work, as the archive is about a year old).

Please do not follow this user, or support them in any way.

UNFOLLOW and BLACKLIST all of their blogs: softwaring, jubileethemes, naturalpalettes, and 8pxl.

Please continue to spread the word of this user’s actions. This should not be tolerated. Thank you!"

Editing Not Permitted

Many tumblr users feel that it is rude to remove the original poster's text. Likewise, editing or removing the follow-on comments is considered to be equally rude:

"You will come across Tumblr posts that carry user comments, which you might want to consider removing before a reblog. Don’t. Once in a while, users respond to a post by adding in extra information in a comment. Sometimes reblogs happen because of the comments. If you still insist on not including the comments, you can go to the original post and reblog it from there."

Some posters feel devalued when their entire post is not reblogged:

"Heya Lovelies, please please don’t delete what an artist writes below their work. If you’d rather not have the words, then please don’t reblog it. The words are important too. <3

#art #reblogging etiquette #this has really been weighing on me #the artwork was such a personal one too #part of me was not deemed good enough for the reblog"

Reblogging Your Own Posts

Reblogging your own content is considered by some to be acceptable as long as it does not happen too often:

"Hi, so I was wondering: what is a socially acceptable (unwritten) rule on reblogging yourself? Is it simply not-done or are you allowed to reblog your own stuff once without annoying your (already small) group of followers?"

it’s your work, reblog it all you want! I generally see people reblog their posts to hit people in different time zones, or if they posted it late at night, they reblog it in the morning."

Only With Permission

Even when the content comes from within tumblr and remains on tumblr, some tumblr users feel that permission should be granted before reblogging their posts. Exactly when permission must be obtained and for what content covers a vast spectrum, making it difficult to predict when a reblog might run afoul of a specific user's expectations. And, since many tumblr users do not put their reblogging criteria in visible locations, users have little or no advance notice. (Part of the confusion is likely the result of users from different subcultures and fandoms within Tumblr stumbling across one another. A user who usually follows gif-makers might never have been socialized into the personal-blog parts of tumblr.)

The types of content that require permission before reblogging range widely:

"Selfies" - reblogging selfies is even more fraught. Some fans feel you need to ask for permission:

"permission to reblog your fantastic face?

totes always unless i specify otherwise, no need to ask."

Others are offended if you do not automatically reblog their selfies. Here, one fan apologizes in advance for not automatically reblogging:

"/QUICK PSA FOR MUTUALS WHOSE SELFIES I DON’T REBLOG I only reblog the selfies of my friends who I know won’t mind me reblogging their selfies and/or people who post them a lot. If you rarely post selfies and/or we’re not good friends, I won’t reblog without permission. It’s not that I don’t think you’re worth reblogging, it’s that I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. Otherwise id reblog the SHIT out of ur face bc ur all purty angelic beings"

This has led some fans to not comment or reblog any selfie posts:

"Anonymous asked: If people post selfies, is it considered a compliment to comment that they are cute/pretty/”nice hair” ect.? Or is it considered invasive?

realsocialskills said: I’m not 100% sure about this. I also find the boundaries confusing, and it’s a reason I rarely comment on selfies. I think it might be one of those things where there are a lot of preferences and everyone thinks that their preference is a widely understood rule.

That said, there are a few clear rules: Don’t reblog selfies from a personal blog to a public blog without explicit permission."

"Role playing"

"Hey, I understand you run a blog about reblog tattoos, but I did not give you permission to reblog it. This is an RP blog and it's not cool to do that, I could of turned it into an rp and you would of messed it up with your reblog. So if you could take it down that would be great or I will report you."

"IF YOU ARE NOT INVOLVED IN A ROLEPLAY THREAD WITH ME, PLEASE DO NOT REBLOG IT WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION FROM MYSELF AND ANY OTHERS INVOLVED."

undefined "personal stuff"

"Yes, you can reblog my feminist posts, but NOT my personal posts. That’s pretty invasive. Women have a right to free speech and privacy."

"im pretty sure those posts you've been reblogging are personal posts and its rude to reblog those without permission :/ ..... I didn’t mean to offend anyone. I just had been scrolling through and found things that were things that I had in common with some of the posts.....I was just rebloging things that I related to. Also I didn’t know that you had to ask permission to reblog posts, and I didn’t know people would get offended by my rebloging them. I’m pretty new to tumblr. Only been doing this for a month or so."

"stuff I tag 'do not reblog'"

"Sure! Literally anything I post is rebloggable unless I specifically say not to in the tags."

"untagged posts"

Want your posts to be private and only noticed by your friends? Don’t tag them with anything. Otherwise, you tag something your asking for strangers to read and comment.

- 'public' vs 'private' on tumblr

"asks" - an ask is a way for tumblr users to send a question to the blog owner. The owner can then respond privately or post the question and answer publicly to their blog. This has led some to prohibit reblogging asks, especially in the role playing community:

"Reblogging asks: This is the second worse thing you can do. If you reblog the ask I may not see it but also I may end up too overwhelmed to actually continue the scene. I get a lot of asks and if you all reblog your asks things may never go forward. Unless I've given you permission please don't reblog asks."

"read more" posts. This is where the main text of the post is folded so that in order to read the user must affirmatively click. It is a popular tool on Livejournal-style blogging platforms to spare your followers from having to spend too much time loading images or scrolling past content that doesn't interest them. In the tumblr world, the tool itself can be used in the same way; however, "read more" posts are considered by many to be a type of private conversation that readers should neither reblog nor comment on:

Yeah but the argument here is that Read Mores are akin to talking to your friends in a public space and a stranger bursts in and is a jackass. Privating a post would mean literally no one else sees it. You COULD argue that you could move it to a PM, but a lot of the time it’s more convenient to leave it out for any of your friends to respond to, especially for more than one friend to respond to, so you can get different views on your problem. It’s kind of 50/50.

Some of the above content types (e.g. selfies and read mores) contain potentially sensitive information that on other social media sites could have been friendslocked. The act of reblogging preserves and make more visible content that, at least in the eyes of the OP, was obscure enough to be secure. Thus, some practices on Tumblr, although seemingly antithetical to the spirit of the site, are attempts to overcome its limitations. Because of this, some feel that Tumblr's design violates the "tools not rules" principles of design - that if the operation of the tool requires end users to adopt complex rules, then the design must be changed to fit that reality.

End Result

The difficulties of navigating a social platform built on reblogging is not limited to fandom. Parents who use tumblr to post photos of their children have also objected to their content being reblogged without permission. This has led some to joke:

"Do NOT re-pin my Pinterest pins or RT my tweets. Thanks!!! xo"....Hey guys, could you quit subscribing to my blog? Thanks. And while you’re at it, could you just not read it? It’s a private work, you see."

It is not surprising then, that for many fan users, reblogging remains a source of social anxiety and fear:

".... I often reblog art without thinking about it; I’m scared someone’s gonna call me out for reblogging “stolen art” even though I didn’t know it was stolen."

Others have suggested that tumblr users should not reblog, but should create their own content.

"WAIT! BEFORE YOU REBLOG THE THING WITH YOUR ADDED COMMENTARY

Ask yourself a few questions.

• - Do I actually care about the issue? Or more about being right?
• - Would I listen to myself if someone wrote exactly what I was about to write?
• - Would I say it to this person’s face? Really? I mean really?
• - Is there a better way I can say this?
• - Can I just sit on this for thirty minutes to think about it?
• - Am I making big presumptions about this person’s intentions? Do they really have the evil motives I think they do? Are they really the one-dimensional villain I’m portraying them to be?
• - Am I just piggybacking off a popular blogger?
• - Am I getting hung up on semantics or an innocuous word?
• - Am I diminishing their post by setting up a weak parody of their argument, aka straw-man?
• - Should I privately message this person to ask what they really mean?
• - Could this person actually be right about a few things and isn’t totally wrong?
• - When was the last time I ate?
• - Am I just being a total a-hole right now?
• - How can I use my blog for the good of humanity?
• - Should I take a nap first?
• - Should I maybe roll back my chair or get off my phone and step outside and breathe in the real world before reblogging some faceless blogger who is a human being with the same hopes and insecurities as me?
• - Would it be the end of the world if I just scrolled past this and walked away?
• - Could I just write my own ideas instead?"

Tagging

Part 1 of a June 1, 2015 screengrab of tumblr posts discussing tagging etiquette. Click twice to see full-size. A complete copy of the 4 part screengrab can be found archived here.

Part 2 of a June 1, 2015 screengrab of tumblr posts discussing tagging etiquette. Click twice to see full-size. A complete copy of the 4 part screengrab can be found archived here.

Like reblogging, tagging posts is a central feature of the tumblr platform. Tumblr uses 'free form' tagging which allows users to create their own custom hashtags. Tags serve many purposes. Tags allow blog owners to label their posts to locate them later and to allow others to do the same. Tags can also be used to offer additional commentary to a post (whether an original post or a reblog). And finally tags assist other readers in finding - or excluding- content from appearing on their dashboards.

Because fans rely heavily on tags to find content, some people annoyed when two or more series share the same tag, for example the American TV series and Kdrama Lie To Me, or the animated TV series and the movie Avatar.

To many fans, tumblr tags are a way of expressing additional commentary. Because the tags are stripped when a post in reblog, it is a place where people can express themselves freely without worrying about exposure to a wider audience. But on occasion, a reblogger will find the tag commentary enticing and will include the tags in the body of her reblog.

"#I think the hard thing is that when many of us were the young ones in intergenerational spaces we looked up to older people #and now when we see the ‘ew grow ups on the internet go away!!’ thing it’s like #shit #how did we miss our window? #but the truth is fandom grow ups built shit like ao3 and dreamwidth #and fandom grow ups were so helpful to me when I was a flaily teenager and college student and young adult #and it’s hard to see people talking like nobody over 21 belongs in fandom or even exists #which is crazy when most of the best writers I know are definitely at least that age or older #writing skills usually get better with time! #anyhow this all ties into fandom having lost touch with its own history #from the adults who started cons #to the adults who converted this new internet technology into a place for fandom #so if you aren’t aware that fandom has always been intergenerational and until the last decade mostly composed of adults #that’s a sad failure of our community

I see you hiding your thoughtful meta in your tags,....and I drag them out into the light."

Tags are also used to label posts about topics that many readers find undesirable. An entire subculture has been created over what to tag, how to tag and when to tag. The rules are, if possible, even more complex and contradictory than re-blogging.

For example tumblr users are expected to tag content that might be upsetting or that might "trigger a fan:

"It's important to properly tag anything that could be considered a trigger, as shown above. In the context of Tumblr, a trigger is defined as content that could make someone upset, uncomfortable, or forced to remember or relive a past trauma.

To tag posts with triggers, either type in "trigger warning" or, to be more specific, "tw:" followed by what the trigger is (e.g. "tw: depression"). Trigger tags include death, violence, rape, child abuse, suicide, drug use, kidnapping, surgery, blood, eating disorders, needles, pregnancy, scarification, and any -ism (sexism, racism, etc.) or phobia.

Failing to tag these triggers properly could not only cost you followers but also potentially upset or hurt others browsing your blog."

However others worry that even the use of the word "trigger" might be problematic for some readers:

"What's the difference between tw: and cw:?

tw stands for trigger warning, and cw stands for content warning.

tw is more common I think, but I’ve started using cw which is gaining prominence due to concerns that warning for triggers instead of content establishes a false hierarchy wherein some triggers are considered more authentic and worthy of concern than others; people are more likely to warn for common triggers and also reluctant to assign a tw to something that doesn’t fit their notions of what constitutes a trigger. Content warnings are simpler and don’t place a value judgment on anything, furthermore sometimes it’s helpful to warn people for content that might not trigger them, but could be upsetting or infuriating in other ways."

Posters are expected to walk a fine line - if you tag too enthusiastically you might offend someone else.

"How do you do good tagging?

Tag your posts and reblogs with the primary subject matter and/or your own creative comments but not with a tag which will attract people who do not share your enthusiasm or ‘shove it in the face’ of people you know will disagree/find it upsetting.

For example:

You watched an episode of WWE and a wrestler was acting like a punk with your fave. Write up a rant, an opinion, a review and rip the punk a new one. When you’re ready to tag, put your favourite wrestler’s name in the tag. Maybe put WWE in the tag. Do NOT put the punk’s name in the tag. Tagging the punk means that everyone who likes him and watches his tag is going to see you go off on him and be very upset that you are dissing their favourite. Don’t stop posting your opinion! But don’t rub it in the faces of people you know it will upset either."

Even the order of tags is scrutinized. Here one fan writes that users should keep their opinions and their feels out of the first 5 tags. These first tags are the ones that tumblr uses to track posts:

"tagging psa

don’t put things in fandom tags that aren’t strongly related to the fandom

• i.e.: tagging your feels about a ship, stories about your day that involve your ship, how much you resemble a character, etc., etc.
• “but i like to tag stuff for my blog to keep it organized!”
• well kid have i got the solution for you
• nothing after the first 5 tags gets posted in the tags. so just put 5 nonsensical tags (i typically use my past URLs and things that people don’t check) before your organization tags. that way everyone else doesn’t have to see them.
• basically things that belong in the tags are art, fics, jokes, and discussion/theories
• no body cares about how there’s too much X on your dash and how it’s giving you feels.
• i repeat
• nobody cares"

Others find tumblr tagging etiquette frustrating and nonsensical. This user points out that it makes no sense to prohibit tagging a topic that is being critiqued if the content of the post is a critique of the subject:

"Ok, so here’s my problem with tumblr tagging etiquette, as re-inforced by the fandom police.

See, when I make a post about something, that’s what I’d tag it with. Just what it’s about, not if it’s pro or con.

Like a list of ingredients, say on chocholate. The list ([equal sign]tags) will say what it contains, for example “hazelnuts”. Because that’s what it contains.

And to some people those nuts may be toxic, others might like them. It’s still what the chocolate contains.

So, in my eyes this so-called “tumblr etiquette” is plain stupid and I think it coddles people who are not adult enough to just ignore something they don’t like."

For many the frustration is not so much that there are multiple types of tagging etiquette, but more the fact that some fans cannot embrace tagging diversity:

"Something that I have noticed lately is that, in fandoms*, there are essentially two types of people when it comes to the debate on how Tumblr tags should be used:

Type 1: Like on any other blogging site, the tag is a place to bring your thoughts, and to go to in order to see other peoples’ thoughts on the subject, as well as share visual material (depends on what kind of tag it is) if you’re a fan of the tag in question. Every opinion, whether it is constructive criticism, a character analysis, a statement on how you feel about [tag], or a neutral post that is not a contribution to the tag’s visual material or discourse/debate per se, but perhaps just a request or a statement, are all allowed, as long as the tagging is relevant to the subject, and the opinion is put in a respectful way (i.e. not hate).

Type 2: As a fan of [tag name], posts are exclusively to be tagged under it by people who agree with your feelings on the subject, and are, accordingly, fans of it too: i.e. only entirely positive posts are tolerated, otherwise the OP will most likely get called out. This, because the tag is basically seen as a mini community in which you and your fellow fans can share [positive] material and have [positive] discussions about the subject in question.

And I’m not even sure how to feel about this. I think I just wish this constant battle between Type 1 and Type 2 would stop, because I witness it on my dashboard almost every day and to be completely honest, it’s rather silly. I mean, you are actually yelling at each other over a freaking tag on a blogging site on the Internet."

There has been increased scrutiny on tagging etiquette in the wake of numerous shipping wars, as anti-shippers and pro-shippers would frequently "cross-tag" their opinions. This became a problem in, for example, the Voltron: Legendary Defender fandom where anti-shippers would post gore/vore/child porn images and tag them in the main shipping tags. "Tagging hate" became so prevalent that separate Tumblr blogs were created so that fans could enjoy ship content without having to go into the main tag.

The motto "Don't tag your hate" has since been widely adopted.

Tumblr tags are a convenient way to includes one's own commentary to content, as acknowledged by a tweet about the use of "lrt" (last retweet) on Twitter.

"lrt" is such a poor substitute for tumblr hashtags. we are living like fucking animals

Following

Some fans ask not to be followed: "What I (generally) don’t post here: Social justice stuff, isms, and similar serious matters. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s just that I come to Tumblr for fannish squee and relaxation, not to get angry and worked up over world politics/injustice, and all of that everything. So no, I’m not going to reblog that shit, sorry. If that offends you please don’t follow me."

Liking

Like Facebook and Twitter, Tumblr also offers its users the ability to "like" a post with a single click. Here too complex forms of etiquette have sprung up around selfies:

"Likes are ok from pretty much any follower. Non-followers would be a little weird."

"Liking" on Tumblr can be confusing. A fan in 2014 wrote: "It is a weird thing about tumblr that it keeps telling you that someone “liked your post” when in fact they don’t like your post, they like something else that someone said in response to it, and that thing may be the complete opposite of what you posted."

Linking

There are three types of "linking" on the tumblr platform. One where a reader links to a tumblr post on a platform outside of tumblr (Facebook, Twitter, Livejournal). The second is where the tumblr post links to another tumblr post (not a reblog). The third is where a tumblr posts links to content that is offsite. Naturally, there are multiple etiquette forms for each and they vary widely across time and among fan communities.

Linking to tumblr posts from the outside

The discussion of whether to obtain permission before linking to fan posts, fanfic or vids is part of an ongoing and much larger discussion in fandom (See Linking to Public Fan Sites and Goodreads). This has led to some confusion over whether one fan can link to another fan's tumblr post on their rec page, twitter account, blog, or Facebook.

"ANONYMOUS ASKED: YOU KNOW HOW SOME FIC AUTHORS PUT AT THE START OF THEIR FIC "PLEASE DON'T REPOST THIS OTHER PLACES W/O MY PERMISSION" - I ALWAYS ASSUMED THEY WERE MOSTLY TALKING ABOUT GOOD READS ETC. DO YOU THINK THEY ALSO MEAN LINKING TO THE FIC VIA TUMBLR? I ASK YOU B/C I THINK I MIGHT HAVE SEEN A DISCALIMER LIKE THAT ON ONE OF YOUR FICS B4 AND I DON'T WANT TO UPSET ANYONE BY DOING RECS.

Hi anon! Yeah, my specific disclaimer is just about not putting my fic up on GR etc. I thought it was pretty clear that it was just third-party review sites like those, but I suppose I could make the wording more clear that links on tumblr/ recs and stuff like that are perfectly fine— in fact I would be flattered and thrilled that you liked something enough to rec it.

As per other authors, I’m pretty sure other disclaimers I’ve seen on fics are specific to GR as well, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask the author in question just to be safe."

Others feel that linking to fannish content posted to tumblr is acceptable (fic, vids, art) but personal tumblr posts are another matter. Unfortunately, there is little clarity as to what is and is not personal, and who makes that decision.

Interestingly, for some fans, the permission requirement is not limited to just tumblr content. In an informal survey, one artist asked her followers to "vote" on whether it was OK to link to their fanworks without permission - whether linking to the fanworks at the source or at a reblogged location. The "Nos" outnumbered the Yays" 4 to 1.

Linking to a tumblr post instead of reblogging

"I have never seen criticism of regular old citations, such as someone writing an essay with links to other posts or websites as reference.

That being said, there is a strong preference on Tumblr for keeping all discussion and commentary in reblogs of the original post, for three reasons: Links tend to die on Tumblr because of blog name changes. When someone > changes their blog name (it's easy and it's free), links get broken. Because of the lack of privacy tools on Tumblr, name changes are the only way someone can avoid discovery by family, friends, and co-workers; it's not always a whim.

In addition, there is a reluctance to click on links at all. Most Tumblr users browse through the phone app, so their ability to navigate the web can be limited.

But the main reason is that reposting instead of reblogging content is viewed as feedback theft. It seems weird to us 1990s web folks because we grew up without a reblog function. When we quoted someone in a blog post, no one viewed it as theft, because content was static and stayed where it was. Our pages couldn't travel around and "go viral," eclipsing the original post.

Likes and reblogs are how Tumblr creators get feedback -- pretty much the only way -- so they are very protective of their content. Even a paragraph of it showing up somewhere else is going to feel like a theft of feedback to them. But the love of feedback in stark numerical form is not a new thing; remember the 90s obsession with page hit counters? Basically a Tumblr post is a page that's getting hits, and putting its content (even a small portion) somewhere else is taking away hits.

The importance of likes/reblogs going to the original creator is something us 90s folks need to grasp to be decent Tumblr users. But even though I understand it, I feel that in the long run it is futile. I don't think Tumblr/Yahoo gives a shit about preserving content. It would not surprise me if Yahoo arbitrarily blew away everything pre-2012, for instance, to save a few bucks. Tumblr is spending all its time and money on the phone app, because mobile advertising is by far the biggest source of Tumblr profit. I think web-based Tumblr is going to slowly die of neglect."

Linking on tumblr to outside content

Tumblr's terms of service state that one should not include copyrighted material on tumblr without permission. Some fans interpret this to mean they should not upload the content to tumblr's servers, but should instead link to the content where it is sourced. This is the preferred method for many fans for sharing outside fan art on tumblr; however even then it is not without controversy:

"Linking things from DeviantArt.

It’s not a secret I don’t like people reposting other people’s art here on Tumblr. I find it is gathering notes and fame and glory and likes with the work of someone else.

Now, linking things from deviantArt is a bit more complicated thing - when doing that, you’re not a poster, but a linker - meaning you provide a link and the name of the maker. This is of course a better option,

BUT

as a person who uses both Tumblr and deviantArt I still find this action a bit dodgy. DeviantArt does NOT tell me if someone has shared my deviation in Tumblr. I have to go find it here myself, or someone needs to link it to me. (At this point I usually reblog the deviation link telling it’s my drawing and leave it at that.) At least I am now aware of the amount of notes it has gathered. Also, how many of Tumblr users will actually a)click the link and b)comment the actual post of the original artist, instead of just c) pressing that cute little heart button on tumblr, leaving their appreciation probably unknown to the artist. My guess is 99% the c-option.

I just have so many mixed feelings about this site."

Others, somewhat bizarrely, focus on whether it is a violation of tumblr's terms of service to link to the outside content. For example, most YouTube videos have embedding enabled - the video streams from Youtube to wherever the code is embedded. This leads to confusion among tumblr users:

"tumblr’s rules aren’t very clear and they’re really quick to ban, so i asked them specifically if linking to youtube videos that you didn’t create is allowed, like you know when you go to make a new video post, and you post the youtube link and it embeds the video automatically? that’s against the rules of tumblr so dont do it or you might get banned unless you made the video

“Hello, You should only post copyrighted content on your blog if you’re the copyright holder or have permission from the copyright holder. If you can’t find a way to get such permission, you shouldn’t post the content in order to comply with copyright law.

Tumblr - Trust & Safety abuse at tumblr.com”

if you want maybe you should spread this around so that people don’t get banned from tumblr for linking to youtube videos."

Controversies

Companies, Copyright and Censorship

In May 2013, Yahoo! bought Tumblr for $1.1 billion, leading some fans to predict a slow and gradual demise of the platform as a fandom community.

On 12 August 2019, it was announced that Verizon would be selling Tumblr to Automattic, the parent company behind Wordpress, just two years after acquiring the site in its purchase of Yahoo. Fannish glee ensued as it was revealed that Tumblr was sold for "less than $3 million", a significant writedown on the $1.1 billion that Yahoo paid to acquire Tumblr in 2013.

Fandom Migration

"Fandom is leaving me behind" by moving to Tumblr.

Some journal-based fans have expressed concerns about fandom migrating to Tumblr. In light of the 2018 Tumblr NSFW Content Purge, some of those sites experienced an upsurge of fans returning to journals.

Needs Citation: This article or section needs more citations. See Fanlore:Citation for more information on why.

Fanart

Many fans post fanart taken from sites such as Pixiv or deviantART without proper credit to the original artist. This is often because the tools one uses to post to Tumblr through one's web-browser do not adequately 'scrape' the link of an image you are blogging, as a result of Tumblr's rules about its API.^{[citation needed]} Users must manually enter the URL of the fanartist's page in the "content source" field when uploading an image. See Sharing Fanart.

According to some, the problem of unattributed fanart has lessened as more fanartists join Tumblr.

Adult Content and Purge

On December 3, 2018, Tumblr announced that a full NSFW ban would go into effect on December 17, banning "photos, videos, or GIFs that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples, and any content—including photos, videos, GIFs and illustrations—that depicts sex acts." Staff specified that users could still freely post "exposed female-presenting nipples in connection with breastfeeding, birth or after-birth moments, and health-related situations, such as post-mastectomy or gender confirmation surgery", as well as "Written content such as erotica, nudity related to political or newsworthy speech, and nudity found in art, such as sculptures and illustrations".

Prior to December 2018, Tumblr's official stance on the posting of "adult content" was:

Is NSFW content allowed on Tumblr?

Sure. We have no problem with that kind of stuff. Go nuts. Show nuts. Whatever.

In December, this changed:

Is adult content allowed on Tumblr?

Starting Dec 17, adult content will not be allowed on Tumblr, regardless of how old you are. You can read more about what kinds of content are not allowed on Tumblr in our Community Guidelines. If you spot a post that you don’t think belongs on Tumblr, period, you can report it: From the dashboard or in search results, tap or click the share menu (paper airplane) at the bottom of the post, and hit "Report."

See Tumblr NSFW Content Purge (November 2018).

Tumblr Post Plus

On July 21, 2021, Tumblr announced that they would be testing Tumblr Post Plus, a new premium content service and positioned as a direct competitor to Substack and Patreon.

This raised concerns for users, not least of which was running afoul of copyright law. In | Tumblr's official announcement, the company mentioned fanfic directly as possible premium content.

This is just an added, optional feature you can take advantage of to empower your favorite artists, fanfic writers, or maybe even that one mashup Supernatural/Studyblr blog you’ve been following since 2016.

On July 23, Tumblr | reblogged their initial post with more information to respond to concerns, which included:

Fanfiction and fanart are frequently considered fair use and we support our Creators’ fair use rights. Monetizing fan work does not necessarily mean that it isn’t fair use.

It is unclear whether Tumblr staff consulted with lawyers on this point.

Ban on Fictional Minors

In November of 2022 tumblr updated their terms of service to include a ban on depictions of fictional minors in sexual situations.

Harm to Minors. Don't post or solicit content that features the abuse of a minor, that includes suggestive or sexual content involving a minor or anyone that appears to be a minor, or that facilitates or promotes child sexual abuse. "Content" may include photos of real individuals, illustrations, animation, or text. Posting or reblogging child sexual abuse material is a serious crime for which we have no tolerance. We report all such instances to child protection organizations and law enforcement around the world, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

While the proship community was initially skeptical that this change was meant to be taken as a flat ban on child and childlike characters in fiction and art, a sudden rash of unexpected account terminations swept the site. This ban was proven to be deliberate and strictly enforced in May of 2023 when several community blogs realized exactly what was getting their accounts terminated.

Fan Comments About Tumblr

2012

Tumblr culture is very exuberant. Which is fine if you like that, but it can be a bit of a culture shock if you're not ready.

The SJWs are both awful and constantly on patrol. It's actually pretty funny from an outsider's viewpoint. People will send anonymous (always anonymous) asks saying things like "So you said you liked Lady Gaga DON'T YOU KNOW HOW *IST SHE IS I thought you were cool if you continue to like her I'll lose all respect for you because you will be a horrible person no exceptions" (that is like nearly verbatim from something I saw on an artist's tumblr) or whatever the de jour judgey topic of the day is, with the ultimatum always being "IF YOU DO NOT RECANT AND APOLOGIZE YOU ARE EVIL FOREVER" on a scale of annoying passive-aggressive :) to straight out aggressive insulting ... unless you try to make things better in the exact specific ways your anonymous stalkers tell you to do it, you're irredeemable. I really don't get the appeal behind the eat-your-own dynamic that thrives there - part of me suspects it might be just another co-optment of SJ as a unassailable cover for bullshit fandom drama because I see it most often in the tumblrs of people producing popular content in fandom. A sort of "I'll expose you as *ist! That'll teach you for being popular" mentality, maybe.

A Sorting Hat Song For Tumblr

Ere all of YouTube's pretties

Twas early times on internets—

We lived in GeoCities.

United by our goal to share

Our favorites with the world

Garish backdrops and auto-play

Beneath our keyboards unfurled.

[snip]

But the Cites, they went public

And Yahoo gobbled them up

Changed all the Terms of Service

and fandom users felt the snub.

But! LJ launched in ‘99

Was it a new safe haven?

Alas, it wasn’t ever to be

Eternally fandom-laden.

Some fled to DreamWidth, or to-

AO3. Some moved to DeviantArt.

MySpace, Facebook, FFN

Gave others their new(ish) start.

But then in 2007,

A newcomer hit the web

Just in time to inherit

LiveJournal’s discontented ebb.

“Our apps are great,” said Tumblr,

“Even Spotify’s supported!

Obama’s got a blog here,

Adidas have we courted!

So fandom come and make your home

(and reserve your backup names)

Post gifs and fic and playlists

We can format ALL your aims!”

[snip]

(To read the entire song go here).

Tumblr is for porn. And for interacting with fans without really having to interact.

If you are after serious discussion and conversation, you won't find it on tumblr. However, if you just want a place where you can zone out for a bit, scroll through millions of pretty things, flashing gifs and silly humor, without having to emotionally or intellectually commit, then go ahead. For me it's not a replacement for lj, where talk and fic and discussions happen - it's an additional space about squee and prettiness. Unlike lj, I don't feel guilty if I fall behind in tumblr. Most times I just keep scrolling through my dash until I get bored and then close the tab.

You can actually have comment discussions in a post if you/the person whose post you're commenting on has set it up to use Disqus. It's not available in all layouts, though, and not many of the people I follow seem to use it, nor do many people use it to leave me comments even though I have it set up on all my Tumblrs....Other than that, a lot of the communication is more indirect. Likes are, well, about the same as FB [Facebook] likes or AO3 kudos or whatever -- someone enjoys what you posted! Someone you don't know subscribes to you? They like what you're posting! Reblogs can either mean someone liked something and wanted to share it, or disliked it and wanted to tell everyone about it -- you'd need to look at them individually and see if they added any comments about your post, if not assume it's positive ..... There is some fanfic there, but in the fandoms I follow it's pretty uncommon, and nothing I haven't already seen cross-posted to LJ/DW and/or AO3...things may be different in other fandoms, of course.

2013

tumblr is primarily an amplification tool, not a discussion tool.

Right now, we’re in the Tumblr generation because we’ve got a LOT of new fans finding fandom via Tumblr, and the thing about tumblr is that it lacks the structure that a lot of the other mediums of fandom had in which accessing our collective history was a lot easier. That’s a whole aside in my fandom theory in which I think it’s going to and already IS causing a dramatic shift in fandom culture.

But part of what I see going on in tumblr is that a lot of new fans just… don’t give a fuck about fandom’s heritage and where we came from and how we developed this culture with our own mores and standards. And that’s FINE. It really is. I may have leveled up to BOFQ sometime in the past few years, but I’m not one for shaking my broom at the new kids and shouting about the way things used to be.

There are certainly things I miss, like the sense of community and we’re all in this together that I feel like used to be a lot stronger? But I’m sure some would disagree with me that the community aspect of fandom is still very strong.

I'm not sure that the majority of [Livejournal media] fandom moved there. A few did, but for the most part it seems to be that LJ-based fandom sort of died off on its own, as its participants graduated/had kids/lost interest/ actually died, and tumblr became a platform that was popular among teens and college students who then discovered fandom and adapted it to their already-preferred platform.

*The core of Tumblr is reblogs, or something I call 'memetic blogging'.

• This is magnified by the super quick and easy way of posting content, as opposed to having to upload photos somewhere else and mess with HTML tags, etc.
• It lends itself to fandom because it amplifies and propagates 'squee' or 'feels' until you feel like you're all in a room together going 'omg i love this?!?', but doesn't go deep into analysis or content
• It doesn't actually focus on social connections, it focuses on propagating content --> memetic
• The added value is 'we experience this together' factor, in-crowd, in-jokes, emerging of 'Tumblrese'/'Tumblrspeak'
• Tumblr as a whole feels like one giant community with many fandoms crossing over rather than being on their own island communities [equals] main fandom appeal?
• Is used for long-winded discussions, but poorly suited for it --> posts and reblogs branch out into threads and don't come together, so information is lost all over.

I find that with tumblr it's easier to randomly spot things that might interest me, because people are more likely to reblog a gif than to make an actual post recommending something, and I'm probably more likely to check something out if I'm just intrigued by a gif than if somebody oversells it in a big explanatory post. But at the same time, if I don't jump on it and look into something right away, it's really hard to ever find it again because tumblr is hard to look back through and fandoms have such a short half-life on there. Plus the ease of reblogging often means there's such a glut of posts about the shiny new thing that I never, ever want to look at that thing again, even if it might be totally relevant to my interests.

I'm not sure if I find things easier because I find tumblr complicated and confusing sometimes and also a terrible archive, but I do think it's provided a way to open people's interests up, as it's easier to find someone who loves the sane minor character you do because they're the only one posting in the character's tag. I think I got lucky in my corner -- I fell in with the gen and het folks first, and then expanded my bubble out to find fans who were closer to my particular brand of reading. But I do remember how sometimes it could get really dude-heavy, and that several times we did a few ficathons to offset it. Slash is still huge, but the new ways of engaging give us more ways to see women in their media (tumblr gifs!). It's not so much than slash has gone away (what's that tag I keep seeing on tumblr, slash is the sound of white dudes fucking...?) but that we actually SEE more women, actually SEE them, in gifs and vids and art that's rebloggable and spreadable and findable in a way MLs and journal posts weren't.

2014

For those of us who aren’t widely followed, it’s kind of hard to call it a community. (I’m nearly at 200 followers, but what does that mean?) Sure we are steeped in the common cultural context, but we aren’t necessarily forming groups. Liking is not analogues to eye contact and reblogging isn’t a equivalent to sitting side by side because it is so much harder to reciprocate in this medium.

I’d hate to call tumblr a popularity contest. That is not a goal for the many well respected voices sharing talent and insight and passion. But the format of tumblr, with content flowing pass us all the time, makes it so much harder to be heard. Charismatic (+ derisive) voices always have relatively more impact in social forums, and the structure of tumblr exaggerates this via reblogging and by adding a point system via notes. When is it worth the work of sharing a moderate opinion (the lack of which has been lamented by emmagrant01 and many others) if no-one is going to see it? Original content takes effort, and that effort has little chance to be appreciate, particularly not on par with the material reappearing on our respective dashes. Is it a community when no one notices whether you showed up?

One problem with the cafeteria analogue is that most of “the noise” is actually quite lovely and thought provoking, but it comes to us in a rush to be absorbed quickly rather than picked up and explored and responded to. As a place to consume (rather than contribute) tumblr is very satisfying. And at worst, we can approximate our positions and ideas with reblogs and continue on as consumers of the work of others, both professional/big scale media and amateur.

.... gone are the days of [Livejournal's] "super sekrit screencap" communities, and fans not getting the latest new because of being locked out of a comm.

All this leaving tumblr talk is making me hark back to the LJ days of old, man oh man.

2015

I want to write an enormous comment about how the Tumblr-ization of fandom has lead to a shift away from (fanfic)creator-lead communities to consumer-lead communities, and the various arguments about whether or not the invention of "I like this" buttons have contributed to the death of comment culture, and how the move away from Livejournal has destroyed the old feelings of fandom existing in a finite space where you generally knew who your audience was..... Except that would all just boil down to "I'm old and I'm sad that I no longer feel welcome in fannish spaces" and that's....not actually all that interesting.

... fandom just feels different for me now, with the evaporation of fandom communities on platforms like LiveJournal. I have a tumblr now, but I don't know many people there, and I don't feel like I have much to offer. I was never a big fanfic author because I preferred to write original works. I participated as mostly a reader. I enjoyed discussions about interpretations of shows, about writing, etc--and those are much rarer now. They still happen--people still make them work--but I feel like a lot of the socialization is moving to a different model that is ... less geared toward creating communities, finding friends, etc.

I was never a fanfiction writer, but I was part of the Gargoyles fandom back in the Station8 days (1997-2002 or so), when the community was a few hundred outspoken people and who-knows-how-many lurkers. Most of us knew each other at least socially in online circles, and many of us actually met in person (turns out I went to jr. high with two other very active members of that community, ha). At least one of the creatives behind the thing we were fans of was aware of / participating in the community. The idea of a community that tightly-knit on the modern net is more or less impossible just due to scale -- a couple of hundred people is maybe a niche in a niche in a niche, and who-knows-how-many of these communities are running in parallel. It's open to a larger world, but it also feels larger and more impersonal.

Rue72: Mostly I feel like nothing that I have to say or create is of any interest to current fandom communities; that we've moved even more completely into an "OOOH SHINEY!" instant-gratification kind of place, and that the smaller little weirdo pockets have been squeezed out by whatever the dominant conversation/ship/joke/etc happens to be.

Like back in the old HP fandom days, the community was SO enormous that even relatively tiny ships still felt vibrant and active; and even when I was like one of twenty people to be hardcore invested in an odd slash pairing in the ATLA fandom, we had our own little LJ community and fic challenges and most of us had each others' personal journals friended, and it felt like a cozy and fun and supportive little corner that was sheltered and separated from whatever batshit nonsense was going on in the big "common areas" of the fandom.

Tumblr tags serve that same purpose superficially, but it all feels so fluid and impermanent -- a community assembled by search instead of something deliberately created. It's harder to talk to people on Tumblr. It's harder to have what feels like a permanent history that can be revisited.

But! It's like I said. Probably I'm just old!

I think the general mindset and culture of Tumblr is effecting what people choose to write about in fic, and how they approach the characters and relationships, and gradually I'm not being able to find anything to read that hasn't been influenced by it. I think fandom really was better on a different platform, but not just for the usual reasons of Tumblr being useless for communication, I think the way it's organized somehow shapes the culture that's arisen, or encourages it.

Tumblr culture has a LOT of serious problems and I'm pretty sure it's self-destructing--but we can't talk, LJ self-destructed too, and we tore each other apart bloody before we did it. I loved LJ fandom like my own family, but I remember a lot of the same culture of ruling fear and mass bullying that goes on on tumblr from there too--that goes back at least to the 80s and 'zine culture, where you even had to be "sponsored" by someone at a con to be taken seriously. We started SJ on LJ, not tumblr--I remember early iterations going back to around 2002-03, it got serious in around 2007, and became impossible to ignore in 2009. So it had been steadily building up until tumblr got started, and many initially went to tumblr to get AWAY from the constant guiltmongering and finger-pointing. If you recall, DREAMWIDTH was originally considered the "special snowflake" haven! My old flist on LJ was all, "Oh, we'll never move to Dreamwidth, all they care about is talking about disability and alternate sexualities there." Then they all did...or went to tumblr, or focused on their offline lives. My point is, the culture's always had issues, it's always been in flux, it's always cannibalized one community after another because it's never been stable, fandom always aspires to goodness while the means we attempt to reach this end is mostly bullying each other like the mean girls in high school, and we always claim the moral high ground while doing this--hell, the Godawful Fanfic archive in 1998 claimed it was helping the authors it mocked behind their backs with "useful crit." Everything people are whining about with tumblr is nothing new, but an evolution of the culture we already had, that was already poisoning itself but we were too young and naive and happy to find our tribe to see it.

I also am fascinated by Tumblr culture and how it’s changing fandom and online interactions. Tumblr has its pros and cons but I love how it allows for rapid creation. For example somebody will make a GIF set and then a bunch of people will write ficlets and create fanart about it. Or someone will have a meta or a thought, and then a lot of people will respond with images or art or other things. I love this easy multimedia collaboration and the fact that you can end up with all of these different ways to get all of these conversation branches that go interesting places about the same thing.

Here is a thing that you could do in zines, and mailing lists, and Usenet, and bulletin boards, and Livejournal, and Dreamwidth. I'm talking 50 years of fandom there.

Person A and Person B are talking about a topic in the fandom. Person C and Person D are listening but not saying anything. Person E adds to the conversation. Persons A, B, C, and D all see person E's addition. Any or all of them can reply to what E said, and so can Person F, who just showed up.

Tumblr doesn't make that possible. In Tumblr, you follow people, not conversations. If I'm following A and B, I will never know that person E has shown up unless A and B find it worthy of a reblog. Neither will C or D. If F replies to A or B, E will never know about it, because the chain of replies has branched, and E isn't on the same branch as F. C and D are still out in the cold.

It is hypothetically possible that A and B are reblogging all replies, but it isn't likely. I want to be able to have a conversation in which new people can participate, and in which people hanging on the pool can see the whole thing. I don't want a conversation whose continuation is entirely up to the choices of the person who started it.

You may say "Well, use another platform", but the point is that the new platform where many fandoms have moved lacks, by design, a feature provided by all fandom platforms before it provided. Each of the previous platforms valued extended, branching conversations. Tumblr prevents them. I used to make new friends by entering into existing conversations. I can't do that now, unless the initiators of the conversation follow me back. I can't easily tell one of my friends "Look, there's an interesting conversation about X going on", because following just one conversation between two or three people isn't practical given Tumblr's insistence that I individually follow each person, and its inability to say "I want to see what Jane and Joan say about X" instead of "I want to see everything Jane and Joan posted during the period they were also talking about X".

Somebody in this thread thinks I should just go play bridge like the olds (WTF? My parents are in their 80s, and even they haven't played bridge since the 1960s. My dad's a poker shark, thanks.) but I think I have, with luck, another 20-30 years of fandom, and I'd like to be able to continue to make new friends and to be educated and delighted by other people's conversations.

This has a lot of great points! And it’s a lot of the frustration I have felt on Tumblr. There aren’t conversations in reblogs, for instance, not really. Depending on the fandom, certain power users dictate a lot of the content – what is relevant, important, interesting, funny – simply by virtue of following certain people and reblogging certain posts. There’s no malicious intent behind it, of course, but the cliqueish nature of Tumblr closes conversations many times, and creates a sense of power imbalance between power users/”Big Name Fans”. I think this imbalance is possibly much greater than on other sites I’ve used, to be honest.

Another thing about Tumblr: visuals are always privileged over text. You could write a beautiful fic or meta and post it, but it will never ever get the same amount of reblogs as a picture or .gif set. Never. Even if you put in the same amount of work – sometimes more – as someone who has posted a gif set. The only way text posts usually get many reblogs is if they are sort. A whole paragraph is often too long. Tumblr is a micro-blogging service, which means it was never meant for sustained anything. Ideally a post should be short, simple, and to the point. Hence another reason text posts and conversations wouldn’t take off here, but pictures and visuals thrive. But it also further subordinates the value of text, and the value of conversation via text.

On the other hand, you have to work harder to form actual relationships with other users. I think this is a good thing. In order to learn about people and have more substantive conversations, you have to move beyond placidly reblogging and following whoever is popular, and into writing asks, sending messages, exchanging emails and what-have-you. When you have to proactive I find that kind of relationship more valuable simply because 95 % of the people who follow you and vice versa won’t be interacting on that level.

...yeah I think it’s been tamer on tumblr because of the viral nature of it and also it gets so much more judgey because it’s an opt out system instead of an opt in.

Or, idk, I mean in between the the rare fandoms and squid/hogwarts castle I think I’ve become jaded.

No, I think you’re onto something with the opt out vs opt in system. On lj you usually had to go looking for specific communities to find the weird stuff (or have a friend whose idea of a good time was asking you if you’d read the Girl Scout cookies fic yet, but in her defense that fic was genuinely hilarious ilu katie <3) which meant that aside from the occasional troll, everyone was there because they wanted to be there. Everyone was on the same page. On tumblr the tags are a big mix of every kind of content under the sun loosely bound together by a few keywords, especially now that the site’s begun automatically putting posts in the tags without user imput. Fandom can’t divide itself up into small communities based on mutual interests anymore. There’s no privacy. Add that to the way fandom trolls have hijacked sj terminology and moral purity politics to bully anyone who produces content they don’t like, and it’s no wonder fandom’s gotten less creative over the years. It’s depressing.

I wouldn’t say people have gotten less creative, just more cautious about certain subjects and where they post them. I haven’t noticed changes in kink memes over the years, except that many now implement “must post warnings for these triggers in your subject header.” You still get crack fic on kink memes, you still get the more “outlandish” prompts on kink memes.

And maybe that’s a good thing. You don’t want thousands of people seeing your specific kinky thing sometimes. Sometimes you just want a handful of people to see it.

I think the age thing is also a factor. With LJ, you could make things “no one under 13″ and “no one under 18.” I mean sure we all lied about our ages but the attempt was there, the expectation that truly young kids wouldn’t read your smut was there. On tumblr, you have no idea who’s following you, who stumbles across your post. All you can do here is make a post saying “if you’re underage please unfollow me” but that does jack shit unless the people following you actually do that.

Also I think fanfic is used less to shock and horrify and more to entertain and just be generally good writing. Which I’m honestly ok with, the “read this Dobby/Squid fic omg!” trend seems to have gone away. I still have non-fandom friends who think of fanfic as something gross or ridiculous, who will never see it as a legitimate fan practice, because of shit like that. Someone showed them a fic to shock them, and now they think all fanfic is like that.

Note: The following has hella generalization. If you feel like this doesn't apply to you, congratulations, let me slow clap it out.

Large fandoms--things like Doctor Who, or Supernatural, or Star Trek, or any superhero comic--tend to have unique and separate sides to them: curative and transformative.

Curative fandom is all about knowledge. It's about making sure that everything is lined up and in order, knowing how it works, and finding out which one is the best. What is the Doctor Who canon? Who is the best Doctor? How do Weeping Angels work? Etc etc. Curative fandom is p. much the norm on reddit, especially r/gallifrey.

Transformative fandom is about change. Let's write fic! Let's make art! Let's make a fan vid! Let's cosplay! Let's somehow change the text. Why is Three easier to ship, while Seven is more difficult? What would happen if ______? Transformative fandom is more or less the norm on tumblr. (And livejournal, and dreamwidth, and fanfiction websites, and...)

Here's the big thing: there's a gender split. Find a random male fan, and they'll probably be in curative fandom. Pick a random transformative fandom-er, and they'll probably be female. Note that this is phrased in a very particular way--obviously there's guys who cosplay and write fic, obviously there's women who don't. But men tend to be in the curative fandom, while transformative fandom is predominately women--and/or queer people, POC, etc. Why? Because the majority of professionally-made media is catered towards a straight white male demographic, leaving little room for 'outsiders.' Outsiders who, if they want to see themselves in media, have to attack it and change it--hence slash fic, hence long essays claiming that Hermione Granger is black, hence canons (edit: slipped up, sorry. meant headcanons) about trans characters or genderqueer characters.

And then curative/male fandom tends to view most things that transformative/female fandom does with disdain. Why? Because, in their eyes, it devalues canon. Who cares about knowing about Tony Stark's lovers if somebody's gonna write a fic where Toni Stark is flying about? Their power is lessened. Scream of the Shalka is unambiguously not canon--but it doesn't have to be in order for me to read and enjoy a 30k fic where the robotic Master was secretly in the TARDIS during Nine and Ten's time and they shagged behind the scenes. Canon? No, but who gives a shit?

Also, as transformative fandom tends to be an outsider looking in, they're much more likely to analyze the work from a queer/PoC/neurodivergent/gender perspective. If I come to /r/gallifrey and start to talk about how 'In the Forest of the Night' had a questionable portrayal of mental health/autism, I get blank stare. If I go on tumblr, I get a conversation. This is also where the 'overreacting, shrieking SJW' trope plays in, either because of a redditor's misunderstanding of terms and therefore assuming that a mild critique is a scathing one, or because the tumblr user in question is young/inexperienced and jumping the gun.

So, there you have it: /r/gallifrey's bashing of reddit is part of a larger split in how men and women tend to enjoy fandom, and a lashing against how fanfiction/related things addresses fandom because it's not the right "kind" of fandom. And also because tumblr is popular with teenage girls, and there's nothing reddit loves more than shitting on whatever teenage girls like.

• Fandom is not your safe space
• Here is the secret to fandom: Give zero fucks about what anyone else is doing.
• I think the general mindset and culture of Tumblr is effecting what people choose to write about in fic

2016

i think one of the biggest problems with tumblr is that it’s a blogging platform (personal) which people treat as a forum (public) and there is zero boundary between these two functions. as a result you get people readily and preparedly engaging in public debate with other people who are essentially talking to themselves.

it’s like sitting in your locked bedroom writing in your diary, only at any moment jeremy paxman can pop out and question you on international television (offline shortly after it was posted, had 45262 notes)

Except that blogs aren’t personal, if by “personal” you mean “private,” unless you’re on a system that lets you set them to private – so that nobody, or nobody you don’t specifically allow, can access them – and you choose to actually set your blog private. LiveJournal and its offspring allow this, for example. So far as I can tell, having only been here for a few months, Tumblr doesn’t. Anything you post in the open on the internet is public. Other people can read it. Other people can link to it. Other people can comment on it. If you want to write something that’s private, that only you can access, that nobody else can jump in and comment on – that is, if you want to just talk to yourself and nobody else – then your best bet is that locked bedroom and a paper diary. Anyone who thinks Tumblr is like a paper diary is delusional. Anyone who gets upset when some stranger comments on something they posted on the internet, in public, is ridiculously ignorant/naive, or is deliberately drama-queening.

So remember the old days, when we used to write about other people's posts in our own spaces rather than just reblogging everything, maybe with commentary, maybe with a few thoughts hidden in the tags? I miss those days, so here I am, being the change I want to see.

This post about Tumblr and people's issues* with it was making the rounds a little while ago, and it struck a nerve with me. I don't disagree with the original poster's complaint, exactly -- there often is something dysfunctional about the way people interact on Tumblr, and that detracts from my enjoyment of both the site and of fandom as a whole. But it seems to me that the OP has cause and effect exactly backwards. Tumblr isn't a personal journaling site that people are treating like a public forum. Tumblr is a public forum that people are treating like a personal journaling site. Tumblr is a broadcast medium, specifically designed to promote the sharing of content as quickly as possible to as many people as possible. It is not meant for private conversation or personal journaling, so folks shouldn't be surprised when trying to use it that way is a disappointing experience.

I feel like I've been beating this drum a lot, especially since the end of Tumblr comments (and was there ever a more clear sign that Tumblr doesn't want to be a conversation platform than their decision to take away commenting?), and you might fairly ask why I care. It's purely selfish in the end -- I think fandom would be a better place if we would accept Tumblr's limitations and use it for the type of content and interaction that does work well there -- sharing multimedia, links, memes, and other short-form content. As far as I'm concerned, Tumblr works best when you treat it like Twitter writ large. No one expects Twitter to host personal conversations. No one expects an unlocked Tweet to be private. No one expects to avoid spoilers or negative commentary about characters they like. No one expects Twitter to serve as a long-form archive. And yet these are all complains that I hear about Tumblr on a regular basis. The secret to happiness is setting proper expectations, and the way to do that as a Tumblr user is to embrace the site for what it is, rather than fighting the interface to make it into something that it isn't, and was never meant to be.

I get the desire to have your entire community living on a single site. But the days of One Platform to Rule Them All are long behind us, if that particular beast ever even existed. Is it more trouble to go to Twitter for news and links, Tumblr for images and memes, Dreamwidth for meta and discussion, AO3 for fic? Maybe so, but I find that playing to the strengths of each site is making me happier overall. If that means I drift away from some elements of my fandom community, so be it -- I miss some people who I don't see nearly as much as I used to, but I hope to enjoy the time I do spend interacting with them all the more.

*Linking to a reblog because the OP deleted the post. The respondent here words things more strongly than I would have, but as you might guess I largely agree. The fact that the OP can delete but the reblogs live on forever is a whole other can of worms with Tumblr's design, but getting into that would be a different post.

• The Three Laws of Fandom
• Two Cakes Theory

2022

tumblr used to be a high throughput reef ecosystem but then we they banned titties and now we’re like an ecosystem in the abyssal sea floor just quietly chugging along, cycling through nutrients at a much slower rate.

then every once in a while a some huge news comes along like queendeath and it’s like a whale fall, we come crawling out of the woodwork like isopods, hagfish, and burrowing worms to feast on the memes for years

it’s been almost two years since destiel-putin-election and we still linger around those bones like limpets

There was a sense in 2022 that people were migrating from Twitter to Tumblr, and this brought a flurry of "how to" guides (as well as jokes at new users' expense, or suggestions to discourage new people from joining). When Elon Musk brought Twitter in October 2022, the exodus from that site to Tumblr became even more plausible . An example "new user guide" from the-final-sif:

Welcome twitter users fleeing the absolute cesspool that twitter is going to become as Musk gets his way with his awful ideas! Things are better here, and hey, if you're an old user coming back, they've actually improved shit!

Here's a list of important notes for tumblr usage:

• Don't censor words, particularly trigger warnings. Tumblr has a very functional blacklist (found in your settings) that can filter by post content and/or tags. But the word needs to actually be present for the filter to work. Censoring words like r*pe is actively harmful to people attempting to avoid those topics.
• Use tags liberally, you have as many as you want, but don't tag unrelated shit. You'll get reported for spam really fast if you do.
• Set an avatar and reblog things, otherwise you look like a bot.
• You are not obligated to have your real name anywhere in your blog/bio/etc. Most people here use handles.
• You can turn your ask box & anons on or off if you are experiencing any kind of harassment. You can also turn off replies on your posts, and turn off reblogs if you need to.
• Tumblr has keyboard shortcuts on desktop. You can find them listed under the blog/account menu. Go learn them, they make life so much easier.
• Reblog things. Seriously. Also set your dash in chronological order. You can maintain several blogs if need be, but reblogging things is normal, expected, and how you pass along stuff you enjoy.
• The majority of people aren't reading your card/dni/blog bio before they reblog stuff. Posts get passed around and the OP often isn't the focal point of the post. Learn to live with it.
• Fic writers: you have unlimited words, do not post fics as images.
• Reblogs with comments/tags are encouraged. It's not like twitter's QRTs. The OP will see everything there. Know that before you comment.
• You have a queue. This means you can set posts up ahead of time to run while you're busy. You can also completely ignore this and just spam your follows whenever you're online. Both are very commonplace
• It's not weird to go through someone's blog and reblog old posts. That's actually very normal. If you add /chrono to the end of a tumblr page then you can view all the posts in chronological order to make this easier.
• "Spam" liking and reblogging isn't a thing that is a problem. This is invented by people I do not understand. If someone claims this is a problem, they can learn how to turn off or manage their notifications.
• The only form of promotional posts that tumblr has is "blaze". There is no ad targeting or any kind of invasions of privacy with blaze. You just get subjected to w/e someone wants to show you. If you want to give tumblr some money to help the company keep going and providing an alternative to twitter, it's not a bad way to do it. You can make people look at cat photos.
• Also, we have fun[editor's note: each letter in a different color] colors here. Plus actual formatting ability. Use it!
• People lie on here for fun. Don't accept everything you see at face value, check the reblogs/replies or google something if you're skeptical! Critical thinking is good!
• Above all else, be chill, use your block button if you need to, and have fun.

 

Some other examples:

“but im returning from twitter and don’t know anything about tumblr humor!” just threaten to blow up a bank and tag it “#exploding money monday” or something. its not hard

 

Resources/Meta/Further Reading

• Tumblr tutorial, ^{Archived version} by Arduinna (24 May 2012)
• The rise of the anti-fandom fandom, ^{Archived version} by Aja Romano at The Daily Dot (May 2013)
• Slashcast episode #42, Tumblr and the New Direction of Fandom (August 2013)
• Age ranges of tumblr (Dashboard and Web visitors), ^{Archived version} by unwrapping (August 3, 2014)
• Limits on tumblr Fandom Communities, ^{Archived version} by fffinnagain (September 13, 2014)
• SHIT NO ONE TELLS YOU WHEN YOU START TO TUMBLE, ^{Archived version} (Oct 2014)
• fail_fandomanon: Re: Dreamwidth user jae explains why Tumblr is rubbish (for them), ^{Archived version} (January 3, 2015)
• fail_fandomanon: Re: Things you wouldn't admit unanon, ^{Archived version} (April 2015)
• All this talk about unpopular writers reminds me of how tumblr fandom is really lonely. (August 2015)
• Wow such low-life's, unfollowing just because you're being honest in an ask. (September 2015)
• fail_fandomanon: FFA DW Post # 344 - Re: Do you ever feel horribly out of place in fandom?, ^{Archived version} (December 2015)
• The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens, ^{Archived version} at New Republic (February 2016)
• Why Did Fans Flee LiveJournal, and Where Will They Go After Tumblr?, ^{Archived version} at Slate (March 2018)
• Transformative Works and Cultures Vol 27 (2018): Tumblr and Fandom
• To the Pillowfort Users: Can I just say something real quick? by PureSugarKane (December 14, 2018)
• Are You Pairing Fictional Characters the Way I Want You To?; archive link by Ratkinzluver33 (2019)
• Why do you think most antis are younger fans? (2021)
• A Brief History of Online Fanfiction Platforms by Fangirls Anonymous (May 2021)
• so you just joined tumblr: Duke's guide to desktop setup, ^{Archived version} by dukeofash, November 2022 -- step-by-step guide explaining how to configure settings, including new settings added in Summer and Fall of 2022. Also discusses xkit briefly.
• The ficback machine project aimed at saving fanfic posted on Tumblr at the Internet Archive
• Heritageposts a blog which aims to take a look at Tumblr's "dark past".

Terms of Service and Community Guidelines: Changes

Terms of Service

• changes documented (March 2, 2012-May 9,2018)
• Last Modified: 2014-01-27 ("We’re just letting you know, here, that we were recently acquired by Yahoo! Inc. This section also includes an agreement where you're agreeing to agree to the terms of this agreement.")
• Last Modified: 2016-09-08
• Last Modified: 2017-09-26
• Last Modified: 2018-04-17
• Last Modified: 2018-05-15
• Tumblr's Hilarious New Legal Terms Of Service Include A Ban On Pretending To Be Benedict Cumberbatch archive link by Caroline Moss for "Business Insider" (January 30, 2014) -- related Tumblr: Why you should read the terms of service. I honestly can’t see why more people don’t at least skim the document it’s lovely, ^{Archived version}
• What Tumblr users should know about the new terms of service, ^{Archived version} by Aja Romano for "The Daily Dot" ("Tumblr caused an accidental mass panic over the weekend when it unveiled new Terms of Service. Thanks to the complicated dynamics of reblogging third-party content, fear that the site was exercising copyright control over users’ works caused the Internet equivalent of a mass stampede." Ends with "So relax, guys. Sure, it comes with more sponsored ads and less (searchable) porn now, but Tumblr’s still the same laidback, content-happy site you know and love.") (January 28, 2108)

Community Guidelines

• Our Community Guidelines are changing. To keep Tumblr the constructive, empowering place it should be., ^{Archived version}(August 27, 2018)
• A better, more positive Tumblr, ^{Archived version} (December 3, 2018)
• Updates to Tumblr’s Community Guidelines, ^{Archived version} [ archive link] (December 3, 2018)