User:Quaelegit/Notes on tumblr polls

When tumblr first introduced polls I was enjoying all the creative uses people put polls to. I found this The Verge article when I was making the Tumblr Bug Race 2023 page but I remember thinking that that article (though it got the gist) missed a TON of interesting examples and further variation.

• I just found "which one" (a poem by writing-is-a-martial-art presented in a Tumblr poll) and I was thinking maybe I could write my own piece more in depth about how people have been mixing up the poll format. IDK if it belongs on fanlore but this is an easy place for me to make notes.
  • Oh and art for the poem

• Orpheus and Eurydice poem: you may walk out of the underworld but you have to trust that she is behind you. do not look back to check.

• [from Jan 2023] post arguing that polls should have longer time limits. mentions Tumblr Bug Race 2023. Then poll-sandbox added a 10-year poll to the post. (IIRC poll-sandbox blog has done a number of broken polls that gained popularity??? there was more than one blog doing this but i think they were the biggest/most prolific)

• We have poll abilities let’s start discourse. Decide. -- I dont' remember seeing this one back in 2023, but it's really blown up since then. Maybe b/c of the juxtaposition of only 36 votes in the poll (beforeit closed) but 96k notes on the post (as of 19 Feb 2024)

• The Verge artilce that I linked on Talk:Tumblr Bug Race 2023. some other examples/discussion there -- should try to merge that stuff with this page.

• I don't get this one at all, but it's a big meme on tumblr right now about the walrus/fairy poll: original poll by baddywronglegs; response poll by curiositypollz;; snowclone of "the raven" (post by yaldabothadeez) (alt link alt link) -- another snowclone (500 miles)
  • I feel like the people freaking out in the notes/tags about the walrus/fairy thing don't realize how many of their fellow humans firmly believe in the possibility of the fae being real. by traegorn
  • "but what about a walrus dressed as a fairy?" fanart by jeida-chi
  • A whole bunch of debate posts ex 1, ex 2 , ex 3, ex4 (reblog chain on the original poll),ex5
  • this is like the 'where is tom scott today' blog but for mr. beast maybe?
  • is this anything? meme
  • I am callde Fae --"i lik bred" style poem about it
  • recursive poll bringing in the "don't eat food offered by a fairy" folklore thing
  • nerdicorntheshipper meta
  • godzilla meme --i should either split this off on its own page or stop collecting these (and i've already let so many pass me by....)
  • Lewis Carroll pastiche ???

• https://businesstiramisu.tumblr.com/post/722051912962392064/something-that-this-poll-fails-to-capture-is-that a poll for The Dress (white and gold vs black and blue)

• https://www.tumblr.com/businesstiramisu/761012455451279360?source=share -- commentary on "I'm bald" as an "other/not applicable" poll option. TBH i'm still sad this one won out over "vanilla extract"

Tumblr activity re: polls, before Tumblr introduced onsite polls

• Confessions of a Bully has some indirect discussions of polling being important to shipping fandom (and shipwars) in OUAT fandom