#So I'm assuming other sites have algorithms

[thrown-away-opinions]

Remember a couple years back when everyone was rightfully pissed off that NFT bullshit transactions required an ungodly amount of power? Remember how people were blaming blizzards and tsunamis and hurricanes on crypto transactions?

I don't want you to assume that I'm saying the energy waste that comes from crypto bullshit isn't needlessly excessive. Jackasses are out there inventing new shitcoins every day and further overburdening an already gluttonous system.

Advertising is worse in every single fucking way.

LED Billboards, for example, that they keep building more and more of. There's hundreds of thousands of them in the US alone and each once uses an obscene amount of power just to advertise. Even the ones that don't use massive arrays of LEDs and air conditioning to stop them from overheating are massive metal and concrete foundation structures that need to be physically changed with massive quantities of vinyl or paper. Just for a giant fucking ad on the highway. All that fucking manpower and all those resources and all of the pollution it takes to make one, for a fucking ad telling you to stop at the local strip club or McDonalds.

But I want you to expand your thinking for a moment and consider social media. These sites exist as advertising space. Even if you make an account solely with the intent of interacting with your friends, seeing funny memes, or staying informed about things that interest you, all of those things are enticement to use their platform so they can serve you ads. Constant talk of "engagement" and "retention" are just corpospeak for the amount of time they can keep a user on the platform so they can see the most ads possible.

Consider youtube and tiktok and twitter and other platforms that dangle the promise of payouts if a user gets enough views and followers. It is incentivizing users to come up with methods of raising engagement and retention so people can see more ads. Advertising is manipulating people to make themselves into ideal advertising tools.

It's an extremely cynical and interpretation of things, because the value gain from human communication and interaction and other elements far outweigh the evil of the ads, but even that is heavily influenced by the ads. Like when the platform decides that certain words or topics aren't allowed and you get the babyfication of language. Conversely, trends and algorithms and what is likely to get the most clicks, which influences what kind of videos and art people make to stay on top and retain their income.

The value of learning about the latest drama involving Baby Gronk and Mr. Shit is is nonexistent and it is being done purely because drama and gossip content gets good engagement (lots of ad views) and pays well for the creator and gives them another opportunity to get a sponsored ad read, so now it's not just the platform, but the people on it serving you ads.

And those sponsors are quite often bad for everyone involved. Scams or dropshipped plastic bullshit or slave labor produced overpriced shit that is supposed to fix a problem you don't have. Landfills are getting loaded with water bottles and wireless earbuds and the packaging from shitty meal prep services. Feel bad about it? Talk to an unlicensed therapist from a company that is data mining your mental health profile. Go shopping with this cool app that saves you money by datamining you and affiliate link sniping the creator you thought you were supporting. Use that money you saved on garbage from chinese Amazon.

And when you've finally gotten sick of all of that and realized you're wasting your time, you can take online courses with this subscription service so you can learn to create slick, eyecatching, advertiser friendly content become an advertiser too!

Consider the e-waste the comes from so many people thinking they're going to become twitch streamers or youtubers. Trading out for the latest iphone, buying tons of lights and accessories and recording equipment. The amount of content creator-adjacent bullshit that ends up in the garbage when it breaks or when their "career" doesn't take off and they don't get to be an advertising space on the internet. Consider all the people whose entire PC setup exists almost solely for content creation.

And then there's content mills. A global industry of people desperately churning out incoherent sludge as fast as possible. On top of all of the issues above, the manpower, the hardware, the e-waste, the electricity, and the fucking bandwidth, the promise of advertising, affiliate link, and sponsor money from attempting to exploit algorithms for the sake of serving more ads has taken large numbers of people is underdeveloped and economically weak countries out of the workforce so they can crudely animate videos of Slenderman giving Pomni a root canal, because that does well in the algorithm, somehow.

And if we jump back to the NFT/Crypto problem of wasteful internet usage for every minor action, advertising giving way to sludge content and sponsor-driven content causes our entire global information network to be constantly pushing around incomprehensible amounts of bullshit data to feed this shit that exists solely for the benefit of advertisers, wasting untold amounts of energy so you can get ads and sludge content in your endless scroll feed at all times, on every news site, on every search results page, no matter what you do to stop it, because advertising has so much fucking control over the internet that they are now trying to FORCE PEOPLE TO SEE ADS BY TRYING TO SHUT DOWN ADBLOCKERS.

You do not hate advertising enough.

Also I've said this before but advertising is an industry that should be considered as pointless and harmful as fossil fuels.

[vioyume]

It's weird how every once in a while, I'll see a take that tries to turn AO3 into an algorithmic social platform. An archive? With an algorithm? A system where its only purpose is to hold and organize items? Which is all curated by independent writers? Don't make me laugh.

You all just need to learn how to use filters and get a RSS feed.

[getvalentined]

An open letter to @staff

I already submitted this to Support under "Feedback," but I'm sharing it here too as I don't expect it to get a response, and I feel like putting in out in public may be more effective than sending it off into the void.

The recent post on the Staff blog about changing tumblr to an algorithmic feed features a large amount of misinformation that I feel staff needs to address, openly and honestly, with information on where this data was sourced at the very least.

Claim 1: Algorithms help small creators.

This is false, as algorithms are designed to push content that gets engagement in order to get it more engagement, thereby assuring that the popular remain popular and the small remain small except in instances of extreme luck.

This can already be seen on the tumblr radar, which is a combination of staff picks (usually the same half-dozen fandoms or niche special interests like Lego photography) which already have a ton of engagement, or posts that are getting enough engagement to hit the radar organically. Tumblr has an algorithm that runs like every other socmed algorithm on the planet, and it will decimate the reach of small creators just like every other platform before it.

Claim 2: Only a small portion of users utilize the chronological feed.

You can find a poll by user @darkwood-sleddog here that at the time of writing this, sits at over 40 THOUSAND responses showing that over 96 percent of them use the chronological feed*. Claiming otherwise isn't just a misstatement, it's a lie. You are lying to your core userbase and expecting them to accept it as fact. It's not just unethical, it's insulting to people who have been supporting your platform for over a decade.

Claim 3: Tumblr is not easy to use.

This is also 100% false and you ABSOLUTELY know it. Tumblr is EXTREMELY easy to use, the issue is that the documentation, the explanations of features, and often even the stability of the service is subpar. All of this would be very easy for staff to fix, if they would invest in the creation of walkthroughs and clear explanations of how various site features work, as well as finally fixing the search function. Your inability to explain how your service works should not result in completely ignoring the needs and wants of your core long-term userbase. The fact that you're more willing to invest in the very systems that have made every other form of social media so horrifically toxic than in trying to make it easier for people to use the service AS IT WORKS NOW and fixing the parts that don't work as well speaks volumes toward what tumblr staff actually cares about.

You will not get a paycheck if your platform becomes defunct, and the thing that makes it special right now is that it is the ONLY large-scale socmed platform on THE ENTIRE INTERNET with a true chronological feed and no aggressive algorithmic content serving. The recent post from staff indicates that you are going to kill that, and are insisting that it's what we want. It is not. I'd hazard to guess that most of the dev team knows it isn't what we want, but I assume the money people don't care. The user base isn't relevant, just how much money they can bring in.

The CEO stated he wanted this to remain as sort of the last bastion of the Old Internet, and yet here we are, watching you declare you intend to burn it to the ground.

You can do so much better than this.

Response to the Update

Under the cut for readability, because everything said above still applies.

I already said this in a reblog on the post itself, but I'm adding it to this one for easy access: people read it that way because that's what you said.

Staff considers the main feed as it exists to be "outdated," to the point that you literally used that word to describe it, and the main goals expressed in this announcement is to figure out what makes "high-quality content" and serve that to users moving forward.

People read it that way because that is what you said.

*The final results of the poll, after 24 hours:

136,635 votes breaks down thusly:

An algorithm based feed where I get "the best of tumblr." @ 1.3% (roughly 1,776 votes)

Chronological feed that only features blogs I follow. @ 95.2% (roughly 130,077 votes)

This doesn't affect me personally. @ 3.5% (roughly 4,782 votes)

[starcrossed-sky]

Hey Twitter(/Reddit) alternative seekers

Okay, fandom. Everyone's all worked all the time about this or that new alternative to Twitter and how it's either awesome or it sucks. I'm here to tell you about an OLD alternative: Plurk.

(Note that this was originally formatted for Twitter so forgive the jank thread paragraphing)

Disclaimer: This information is specifically aimed at people who use Twitter for fandom purposes; it is not intended to cover the exhaustive list of things that people use Twitter for (professional networking, art/photography promotion world news, etc). It's friend-centric rather than follow-centric, at least as the existing site culture goes.

So what is Plurk? It's a threaded microblogging platform dating back to 2008 that has only ever seen extremely niche use in English-language use. (Its primary userbase is Chinese-speaking.) It has a purely chronological timeline and a lot of privacy features that you haven't seen since the LJ era (assuming you're old enough to remember that).

Plurk functions through an exclusively-chronological timeline on your homepage (desktop) or in the app. Algorithmically sourced content? We ain't got it! (There is a different page for viewing top content but you have to go there specifically.) Instead, your timeline shows your own content and the content of other plurkers you friend or follow, and the occasional ad (MUCH more occasional than Twitter).

Each top-level plurk can be replied to, and this creates a chain of replies that can be used for conversation. Unlike Twitter and Reddit, replies don't form branching threads; each plurk is only one stream of conversation. Plurks with unread replies will be lit up as unread; however, they can be "muted" to stop them from giving you notifications.

(Two small caveats: You cannot mute your own plurks, and there is actually a cap of around 200 muted plurks. Mutes will fall off from the oldest, so you'll sometimes see an ancient plurk pop back up on your timeline if someone comes back to it. You can just mute it again.)

Your plurk timeline has a global privacy control. If your timeline is set to private, only people you have friended can see what you say on there. If your timeline is public, then anyone who comes to you page can see what you've posted, AND logged-in users can share your post on their own timeline with the "replurk" function (works just like a normal retweet), as well as reply to it.

There is also an "anonymous" option, which anonymizes you and also the names of everyone who replies (it randomly generates names like "lemon354" and "libra262" for repliers to differentiate them). Anonymous plurks will stay within your timeline if your plurk is set to private, but can be replurked if it's public.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE, because individual plurks can also be given specific privacy levels: -> Friends only (if your timeline is public but you don't want this one getting around) -> Private to "cliques," which are Twitter circles but you can have more than one -> Individual users (including those not on your friends list - this is plurk's equivalent of DMs)

Your own plurk homepage is also insanely customizable, if you want to break out the CSS or even just have a custom background. You can also alter your display name (though the character cap is VERY short), and your display name color, as well as the standard avatar change. Usernames cannot be changed as a free user, but can be changed by paid users (more on paid options in a second).

Plurk also has its own image hosting, and a pastebin-alike plaintext called Plurk Paste that has no character limit. (The character limit for top-level plurks is longer than Twitter's.)

It also has CUSTOM EMOTES in addition to its (somewhat wild) default selection. They're similar to Discord's customs, except that you can use GIFs from the get go; what's restricted is the number of slots you have as a free user. (And size is capped at 48x48 px.)

Plurk has ads, but they're mostly unobtrusive (and can be clocked entirely with ad blockers, but I didn't say that). Plurk keeps the lights on through a subscription model called Plurk Coin, which is very cheap (under $2.50 USD/month) and can be gifted to other users. Coin gives you a number of benefits including the "Except" privacy option, more username colors, response editing, and a bunch more custom emote slots.

Concerned about harassment? Plurk has one of the most robust blocking systems in social media that I've ever seen. You block someone, and they can't see you (even by going to your profile) and you can't see them. That's it, done. Full no-contact.

NSFW/18+ content is allowed. There's a specific flag for it when you first post a plurk. Plurk does expect you to use that tag when appropriate, but is otherwise very forgiving of NSFW content, at least in my experience. (Again, though, English plurk is a very small community ATM).

The thing to remember about Plurk is that it is very much a remnant of an older internet, from the days before algorithms. Like Tumblr, it's a social media where you won't see anything if you don't reach out to follow and friend people. It predates "going viral" as a goal of internet usage. The goal is to talk to people.

As an aside: Since I originally wrote this up, I've seen rumors about Japanese fanartists moving to plurk and even seen one or two mentions of it in the wild on my Twitter timeline as people talk about following those artists. Fantastic! If that's you, then I hope you find this slightly more in-depth guide to features helpful.

If this sounds up your alley, I've made a public plurk specifically for Twitter refugees to come meet people and get more information on how plurk works! You can find it here.

Twitter version: [link]

Please replurk to spread this information about!

EDIT Sept 7 2024: You can mute your own plurks now, whoo!

[batboyblog]

Your posts do more to promote the good democrats do than any sitting democrat does.

well thats very kind, thank you.

I think it's more we, all of us, live in an age of intention media and social siloing. We have blinders on, we put them on ourselves over years, we only go onto 2-3 web sites, get our news from one maybe two places and talk to people who already agree.

there are studies that show social media intentionally place negative stories in front of users because if you feel shitty you stay on-line scrolling. The traditional media is much the same, if it bleeds it leads, they've long been conditioned to view good news as basically boring and reporting on the good any administration does as serving as the White House's mouth piece

On top of which it's hard to escape the feeling that the media actively misses Trump. He was very good for business, meanwhile books on Biden's well functioning administration of people who get along and work well together are being straight up dropped by publishers because they think no one wants to read that. Trump had all the drama a reporter looking for a book deal could ever want.

All by way of saying Democrats are trying, or some of them are, but people choose not to look, and also social media isn't going to feed it to people by algorithm and the traditional media will at best cover It briefly in passing

also sadly for Tumblr everyone assumes we're dead. So no news organizations have active Tumblrs, no politicians or campaigns. Misinformation from other web pages, bots, and trolls have kinda free reign here

so I'm chugging along with my happy little counter programing because facts fucking matter (and it pisses some people off a lot lol)

[jev-urisk]

Hello Hello? Testing?

So I might be shadowbanned or glitched or something? 🤔

The past month or so I've got a lot less people interacting with my posts and I just assumed what I was putting out wasnt very interesting- but It was pointed out to me that it may be an issue with my blog/tumblr? I want to make sure I'm not being blocked from interacting with folk or meeting new people! 😟

I'm still pretty new to this site- if you have any tips or suggestions lmk!!

@gioiaalbanoart @biblicallyaccuratefruitbat @lychhiker-writes @autism-purgatory @wyked-ao3

@cowboybrunch @zackprincebooks @smellyrottentrees @tragedycoded @aalinaaaaaa

@the-golden-comet @nbkuhn @desastreus @theglitchywriterboi @shanakin-skywalker @honeybewrites

@sincerelydork @the-letterbox-archives @aishwritesblog

[theothin]

I'm not even the OP but apparently 40% of the notes on this post are people interacting with my specific reblog of it. how the hell does that happen?

like, I'm not even surprised by the popularity of my addition itself so much as the specific way people are interacting with it:

why are so many of these interactions with my specific reblog, and not others downstream of it? people will sometimes interact with a specific reblog because of finding it in the notes or jumping back to cut out a later comment, but I don't think either of those things could explain this frequency. especially since so many reblogs of the post are my version of it, so interactions with those reblogs would have no reason to go back to my comment!

I have to assume that most of these notes are from people who did not encounter the post through their dash. the simplest explanation is the recommended posts section: people getting linked to my version of the post through the algorithm, then interacting with it from there. this would also fit how these interactions seem to be more common among untagged reblogs than tagged ones - different approaches to using the site. however, it also seems that most of these reblogs are dead ends - they don't propagate further directly in service of the "traditional" tumblr method of passing posts on, but do contribute to maintain the algorithm's attention on it

if this really is due to the algorithm, it seems to be having a larger impact than I expected!

[olderthannetfic]

Hi hi! I have a question and I apologise if it's impertinent but I really didn't have anyone else to ask. I'm new to ao3 and I'm still figuring out how it works. The problem is this- when I look up a character x reader, I'll see the tag included in many works that have oneshots but since it's a side character, more often than not the oneshot for the character hasn't been written and the tag has been there for months. Is it okay to do that or is it tagging something incorrectly? They say they'll write one eventually but they never do, y'know? To me it kind of feels like they're just trying to reach a wider audience but because of this I can't even filter tags and I have to manually search through the book to check if the character is included, especially when the chapters are titled only by numbers :')

Is it okay to tag things in advance like that?

--

Oh boy...

Wattpad refugees do tend to use AO3 "wrong", sometimes in ways that break the rules and sometimes just in ways I find annoying and against typical AO3 culture.

I'm assuming you are coming from Wattpad based on you calling a work or a fic a "book", which is a very, very Wattpad thing to do.

I'm assuming they are coming from Wattpad given the bad behavior you're describing and the fact that they're a x reader writer.

--

So, here's the thing, if you start writing a fic and there's any amount of the actual fic, even if it's pretty short and bad or in a weird format or whatever, it's still a valid fanwork. Most of the time, AO3 leaves it to the author to decide how to tag (aside from a very few things like death threats in the tags or failing to use the required archive warnings).

AO3 won't stop someone from tagging a future pairing that hasn't appeared yet.

--

But "books" of "oneshots" are such an obnoxious Wattpad thing. This is a completely stupid use of AO3 from the "Please send me prompts" part that is usually in there to the way that unrelated fics are smashed together.

It's not against the rules, but it's a crappy use of AO3 befitting of n00bs.

Sadly, old hands at AO3 also make shitty works that are unrelated stories mashed together. They're often a whole set of kinktober fics or something where the trope tags and the ship tags are accurate, but you can't tell which ones go with which ones without searching the whole fic.

We regularly complain about that on here.

--

A much better way to use AO3 is to make a series titled "My x Reader Oneshots" or "All of my kinktober fics" where each separate story is its own work with its own tags.

My assumption is that this person is using the inaccurate tag both to get more eyeballs on their existing work and because they probably take prompts for that ship or something. (I'm basing this on the kinds of things people say on their oneshot books on Wattpad. Maybe they don't actually take prompts since you haven't mentioned it.)

Some people just don't care that they're annoying others and messing up the tags, but I think some actually don't realize how AO3 filtering works and have no idea this behavior is a nuisance.

On a lot of sites, both Wattpad and algorithm-driven social media, unless a post/work is very popular, it disappears out of sight. Even an inaccurate tag doesn't do that much.

On AO3, one is getting a full list of everything with the tag, going back however far. It's a library catalogue for which you should use accurate data. But this writer is probably thinking of tags more as advertising and a way to get their name out there so readers can follow them pre-emptively. They mean to write the ship in the future, so it's not really inaccurate... (And, tbh, if it were a single work and the ship just hadn't appeared yet, I would agree with them even though those are frustrating too.)

--

So no, they should not do this.

But it's not actually against the rules.

I would mute the annoying people who do this.

[liquid-bonhomme]

Excuse me while I bitch into the void here for a second . . .

I'm fully aware you could argue I'm at least tangentially part of the problem here, if not at least not making it any better-- but.

Believe it or not I'm not really a big fan of "canceling."

That's not to say "canceling all bad all time time?" No, of course not. Duh, I run this cursed tumblr.

Just, canceling as a tool of justice is inherently a symptom of a broken system and a broken social structure. It's mob rule. Which is better than nothing, still not ideal, extremely fickle, and an exercise akin to herding a mob of feral, cantankerous cats. Even if they meander in the direction you want them too, it's still a coin toss as to how shit's going to go down.

The internet as a public space is uniquely, in a way no other space of public discourse in human history has been before, unfriendly to measured discussion. Some sites are worse than others, but it primes people for reactivity, and assuming the worst, most reductive interpretation of people's words. You can be aware of this, and still fall into this.

I don't personally believe people are actually as typically dumb, misinformed and blunt as they often seem online. However, the quality of information has a half-life as it's copied from place to place. This process occurs at lightening speed online, and typically the poster that has boiled down the information to its absolute bare bones, absolute most sensationalized, most emotionally charged state is the version of the information that spreads the farthest.

I do think a lot of people are adverse to complexity. But I don't think they're actually as adverse as the internet might lead you to believe. But, what is very adverse to complexity, is algorithms. Algorithms that don't understand the information they are spreading, but keywords, and search optimization.

It's not just that "clickbait" material works on humans, but the abstract, unthinking machinations of robots.

The ever looming question, "why was this not reported to the police?" Which has an obvious answer no one really wants to discuss: the police likely can't do shit.

And these problems aren't so simple typically as, "legal system bad." Though the legal system us woefully flawed in a profoundly frustrating way, to some capacity there simply is some social issues that can't be legislated away. There are social problems that are residual festering wounds of past injustices that should have never occurred to begin with, and simply not fixed fast enough.

Yet we cannot allow people who have done harm (or perceived to have done harm) in positions where they can revictimize. And so, civilization has in some ways returned to monk. Mob justice. Social rejection. Shaming. Because what the fuck else can anyone fucking do?

But mob justice, like all hammer, makes a nail out of every problem.

All of these factors together do genuinely create chaos. Chaos we can use, but really not something we should ever be okay with.

[rosewaterconley]

I solved a mystery that only I care about lol

ok so I have no clue what I'm doing and social media terrifies me. I will probably never touch this account again. why did I have to follow 3 algorithm-selected accounts to get into this website? I can actually name 3 people I'd want to follow on here and it's none of the people your fucking robot told me to follow. but hey, I feel like I have to post it here rather than my blogspot since nobody in the world actually uses blogspot and I want people to see this!

so anyway, there's this band out of the city of Milwaukee called Hero of a Hundred Fights. they dropped a couple CDs in the early 2000s and seem to have broken up, though all their members have been in bands since. that'll be important a little later. for now, Hero of a Hundred Fights are important to me on 2 levels:

I'm a Wisconsinite who has a tiny bit of an obsession with local history and art and really fuck with their weird mathy little corner of the 2000s hardcore scene

I'm a Faction Paradox fan and their 2001 EP The Remote, The Cold contains numerous references to the series! if you've heard of this EP before, it was probably in the context of some "music that references Faction Paradox" list or another

about #2... see, everyone already knows that track 2 is called Faction Paradox and track 3 is called The Celestis. we've all long since put together that the title is a reference to Lawrence Miles' Interference. but what about the lyrics? unfortunately, we don't know. they're not online, and the vocals are good, mind, but rather incoherent.

well, we didn't know. until I ordered a CD copy for like $8 lol. that's all it took! so here you go, the lyrics booklet plus some of the other artwork featured on the CD. artist Nick Slough did a great job on this art and it's a shame only the cover is widely available online (though that's hardly a problem unique to the physical version of this one album). turns out, this is some kinda concept album based on the Miles novel Interference. cool! really love the lyrics on Rope especially. "I need your blood to get this vessel running" and "my life was in your hands, I cut them off and now they're mine" are both raw as hell.

the cover art is pretty interesting. this album was recorded in 2000, released in 2001. the entire creative process occurred before the first standalone Faction Paradox release, The Book of the War. this means the album is entirely Doctor Who-based, not based on the FP series itself. it also means, if we assume the humanoid characters on the art are supposed to be the Remote, that this is the first-ever professional art depicting them!

disclaimer: the booklet lyrics don't 100% match up with what's said in the songs! it's mostly accurate but unfortunately there are some sections missing, some repeated bits that are only written once et al. that's all par for the course but I figured I'd mention it - especially in the case anybody wants to use this to transcribe the lyrics on Genius or some other site like that.

and while we're here, Hero 100 member William Zientara has been in a billion different bands, and I think he's probably the most responsible for the Doctor Who theme on this album. See, he was also in a short-lived band called Managara - named after a Doctor Who tie-in novel so obscure even I, owner of a complete set of Virgin New Adventures who spends my work breaks combing through digital copies of old fanzines, have only ever heard it discussed a handful of times. one of their songs is called Happiness Patrol. more recently, in 2021, he was in the band Fuiguirnet, who have a song called What Grows From the Seeds of Doom! which means Zientara has been randomly tossing Doctor Who references into songs from at least three different bands for twenty years!

so uhh without any further rambling here's the lyrics and art:

[nuikasa]

hey so uh

You mentioned being shadow banned in ur most recent post, so I assume you’re talking about Twitter, and if you don’t know (as far as I’m aware and have seen; I don’t use the site but the news has been everywhere for me) Twitter in a new update isn’t allowing their users to opt out of their art/images being used to train AI. I’m not sure *when* the update is being rolled out or if it already has, but regardless please moving to bluesky, which is I think the alternative most people are using.

Stay safe! Also, love your art:)

oh hello there nonnie! thanks for the heads up. I'm aware of what's going to happen on twitter and people is moving to bsky due to this, plus the block function will also be changed and it sucks lmao.

in my own personal experience, I'm not the kind of artist that likes to move to another platforms especially when it took me so much time to get my shit done in that. I already have a bsky account, I did it before this shit happened and tried to upload content there but since there's no algorithm, i depend exclusive of interacting and i'm NOT too fond of interacting with people in general in this fandom, it's very draining to me so I might just hop there to post art, share some stuff i see on my feed and that's all.

but since we are at this if people is interested on following me on bsky here it's my account!!

as well for my other platforms. I'm secondly very active on Instagram on stories and I'm trying to post more often there

and lastly my twitter account

you don't have to follow me verywhere but if you wanna see my content more often i post there more than here, i gonna try to be active here but I always forget I have this blog at times haha, once again arigatou gozaimashita and hope you have a nice day!!

[seventeenlovesthree]

You know, one thing about getting older, at least for me, is the realization that keeping up that whimsical spirit is hard. Very hard.

I have spent the past four years trying to maintain routines in regards to self-care and, while it worked out well for a period of time, the "noise" out there is very persistent to break your habits. By "noise", I don't just mean the world out there, the constant stream of social media providing you with news and tragedies, a ruthless algorithm that is very hard to avoid if you're seeking that little serotonin streak out there. Yes, I agree that our attention spans have been pretty much messed up and that it's VERY difficult to get back to some... Quiet.

That's why the noise basically refers to everything - your social life, family, friends, partners, acquaintances, colleagues, all the people out there, but also the things you surround yourself with. Habits, food choices and sleeping rhythms, once again, the media you consume while trying not get consumed by it...

I keep going on about how I had re-started drawing back in 2021 after a rough 10-year-break in which I simply didn't feel like drawing at all. I was occupied with other things during time - and if you're familiar with my tumblr, you know that that's been heavily related to football. I loved my clubs, I loved by NT and for the longest time, I could get by despite the set-backs and bad developments surrounding it. Right now I am staring at my PC and am slowly but steadily realizing that basically all the players that led me towards football have retired. Either just from the NT or completely. There are players, relatable figures, people I (used to) look up to, that inspired me, that brought be through the day, week, month, year. It was a fun time. But then the "noise" took over. The people I rambled with ended up just as frustrated and left. Only a few of them are left, but the majority - me included - has moved on to other things. Why? Because it had become too draining, too negative. The bubble had popped, several figures in the business had turned out to be unbelievably "bad people" (I'll keep this PG), things were so commercialized, unfamiliar and just... Opportunistic. The "whimsical spirit" was so hard to maintain and even if this Summer provided a little spark, it still feels alienating. There is still a glimpse of hope, but, again, you REALLY have to hold onto that.

The same goes for my other "fandoms" to be honest. Don't get me wrong, I still have fun sitting in my little corner and draw, write and create little things - even if it's mostly for myself, sometimes I do wonder why interactions have become so scarce. The atmosphere on social media is incredibly... Empty sometimes. I'm not just saying that because a lot of people have not grasped the reblogging system on this site. You may have heard the concept of people being overexposed by the neverending stream of art, "content" being thrown at them from all sides... It's become more of a product to consume than a thing to look at and enjoy and savour. And I feel that myself. I used to save fanart to my phone and computer and find myself looking at it countless times. I still do that with several art pieces, but... I assume it's because the brain has become somewhat tired that we cannot appreciate it like we used to.

Everything is just... Happening too fast and I feel like I need to have a detox every now and then. My brain still craves the serotonin of seeing new, beautiful art. But to get there, I have to get through a sea of things that get me anxious. Even with filters, even with blocking things I don't wanna see... It's not the same.

The same also applies to media in general - I'm currently in a fandom of a series that's kinda "walking on air". There is the possibility of a new animation being planned out there somewhere, somewhen, maybe... But a part of me isn't even sure if I want something "new". Consider myself "old" when I say this, but a lot of things that come out these days, sequels, reboots, remakes of things I used to enjoy as a kid... Simply don't hit the same way anymore. There's a reason why I find myself rewatching the old stuff over and over again and often have quite a mixed relationship with more recent things. EVA is one of the few franchises that, in my opinion, managed to get to a satisfying ending after ALL these years, but I am TERRIFIED for the new Madoka movie. I haven't even dared to look at Sailor Moon Cosmos, simply because I know my brain is tainted by how much enjoyed the 90s anime and how much of a clusterf*ck Crystal/Eternal/Cosmos has been for the past ten years... On the same note, do we really need a One Piece remake? And Digimon? I would loathe the idea of an Adventure remake... Because it would not only contradict the messages of the previous entries of the series; move on but keep the things you love close to you... It would simply not... Satisfy me. A part of me wants to see how the OG timeline goes on, but what if there'll be things to contradict it all even more? Do I want things to go on for the sake of keeping the nostalgia alive, even though the fear of mischaracterizations is very real? Do I really want the milking of the cash-cow to continue? To hunt for breadcrumbs? The commercialisation and... Opportunism? And why does it feel like I've heard that before...?

I don't want to end this post on a negative note. I'm gonna turn 34 in a few weeks, I've been into TV shows and had my hyperfocus topics basically since I was like 7 or so. I might always find things that keep the whimsical spirit alive to some degree. But I need to remind myself to not let the "noise" get too loud every once in a while.

[atlasrayz]

Ok, I'm writing this post to show to my irl friends who only use tt and insta and shit to try and convince those fuckers to join tumblr bcuz its superior.

Tumblr is, as far as I know, the only social media where you can be free from The Algorithm. It is NOT perfect, and there are a lot of things to avoid, but if you give it a chance, I assure you, you may really like it. Tumblr can be an acquired taste, but why not give it a shot, since the rest of the internet is burning down?

Step 1: Customise your blog! 1, it's fun and looks nice, and 2, if you don't, many users will assume you're a bot. Make posts! REBLOG STUFF!!! Reblogs are tumblr's lifeblood, likes do NOTHING since tumblr has no algorithm. Plus, reblogs show signs of human life on a blog. Write a nice note in the tags or something, the character limit per tag is crazy so have fun!!

Step 2: Tumblr has a reputation, I'm aware of that, and yes, it is very deserved. However, this place can be your favourite place ever if you make it one. BLOCK BLOCK BLOCK. Most important thing is to CURATE YOUR ONLINE EXPERIENCE. Block people and filter out content, there are tons of porn bots, so block and report those suckers the moment you see them. Follow the tags you like and the people you like. Check if some online personalities you know have tumblr accounts. Engage in fandom, but NOT TOO MUCH. Find like 5 freaks who have the same or similar headcanons as you and hang with them AND THEM ONLY /hj. Dont like, dont read.

Step 3: Become well aquainted with your dash and learn how to use your settings. LEARN THEM. Take the time to scroll through your blog and account settings and learn how things work. This place is very broken, and the search feature is infamous for working poorly, so dont be too dismayed when things dont work as they should, thats just part of tumblr's great many quirks.

Step 4: Don't treat tumblr like other social media. DONT CENSOR YOURSELF! You can say sex, bitch, cunt, fuck, suicide, etc! And, if you are tagging posts with trigger warnings, then DEFINITELY dont censor yourself, that just makes it more difficult for people to filter those things out.

Step 5: Grow your attention span. This is the text based social site. Yes, there are plenty of images and videos, but tumblr's main content is text posts. Also, practice reading comprehension. Don't piss on the poor. Understand nuance etc etc.

Step 6: Talk in the tags!!!! Tons of people do, its so much fun. It feels less public, and it can be an easy way to get a few quick thoughts out without feeling like you're intruding. ALSO, TAG PROPERLY!!! This is NOT instagram, do NOT EVER add unrelated tags to a post you will be blocked and reported as spam DO NOT DO THAT!!! If you aren't sure what to tag, just go with whatever feels right.

Step 7: SIDEBLOGS! They are like regular blogs, but they are seperate from your main blog, so you can use them for organising your tumblr! You can make different ones for different fandoms, or one for art, or one for reblogging art tips, or one just to rant, literally ANYTHING. Just know that all asks and follows will come from your main blog so if you dont want that, maybe consider making a second blog, seperate from your main.

Step 8: HAVE FUN!!!! Its your blog, so do what you want with it! Dont be an asshole, thats basically the only rule. This place is WILD, so find a group of like-minded people and just talk to each other. Dont be afraid to use the ask feature either, most everyone loves getting them, and if they dont, they wont turn them on.

If i think of more later ill add em

[quinloki]

Writers - Where You Gonna Post?

Hey all, so the TL;DR of this is that I post on Wattpad, Tumblr and Ao3 - All have their pros and cons, and this post is going to get into those (with a neat little summary at the end).

Note this is not an endorsement or criticism of any of them. Just my personal understandings of each, the pros and cons I've noted, and a chance to put it all in one place.

We're going to touch on - Ease of Posting, Visibility, Tagging, Searching, Cost, Security & Visibility, Functionality, and less objectively - Vibe.

word count: 1,874

-:- Ease of Posting -:-

Wattpad: 7.5/10 Tumblr: 9/10 Ao3: 4/10

Wattpad and Tumblr have direct-from-source formatting, meaning your paragraphs, italics, bolds, etc. stay in place when you copy from Word, google docs, or - I assume, Scrivener.

Tumblr has more options for font size, color, and links within the body of the text, and so scores higher than Wattpad's more limited capacity (Wattpad does allow for centering, justified, etc. positioning of paragraphs.)

Ao3 has far more CAPACITY than both, but the ease isn't there. You have to know your HTML markups, and for so people that can be a pain. There's a very useful Google Doc markup template that can do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, but hyper linking, image inserting, and other functions that are available have to be done manually.

This is great, in terms of options, but lowers Ao3 on the whole "ease of use".

-:- Visibility -:-

Wattpad: 4/10 Tumblr: 3 or 9/10 Ao3: 9/10

Wattpad has an algorithm and their tagging system - compared to Tumblr and Ao3 is pathetic. I realize I said I was going to be objective, but that is being objective. It's a spaceless tagging system, so you get really awesome tags like roronoazoroxblacklegsanjixreader and... yeah. There's also a limit on the number of tags, so if you're doing a collection of one-shots it's hard to get everyone in there.

On the upside, their search function doesn't just search by tags (would that it did though.) So having information in your summary will help your visibility. What really gets your stuff visible are reader interactions - knowing someone established on Wattpad and having them give you some shoutouts when you start is your best bet for being seen.

Tumblr's visibility - tagging, searching, etc rely HEAVILY on what kind of writer you are. SFW items are far easier to search than NSFW ones, and the Mature label hides you from people who have opted in to see Mature content, which still boggles me. The in-site search function leaves a bit to be desired, but google searches in better enough to off-set that a bit. Tagging is far more robust on tumblr, but it's also a little hit or miss, especially with new users. (I had no clue how to "tag" properly when I started, believe you me).

There's a solid foundation of readers here, so that makes it a good place to get your feet under you without being on TikTo-- I mean Wattpad.

I'm not going to say much here, because let's be fair, Ao3 was BUILT for visibility. There's no algorithm and the tagging system is robust and customizable. Searching is easy - as long as writers are decent with their tagging, and it's not too hard to find what you want, fluffy or otherwise.

-:- Tagging -:-

Wattpad: 4/10 Tumblr: 7/10 Ao3: 9/10

I've touched on this already in the other sections. Wattpad has a lot of restrictions on its tagging system, and aside from using it to "rank" stories, I'm not entirely sure what else it does. I really don't think it comes into play with searching - key words pull from titles, user names, and summaries at the minimum.

Tumblr tagging is a bless - for the most part. The site deems some words "problematic" and doesn't let you search them, which is poor practice because it doesn't differentiate smut from sex ed. (Personally, not that I want it to block anything on my behalf. If I type it Tumblr, I mean to look for it.) Fortunately, as stated, you can use external search engines to get around this.

Ao3 has probably the most robust, and most customizable tagging system of all three. This is great, as long as you know what you're doing, and terribly confusing if you don't. There's primers out there for tagging in Ao3 and other general "good to know" type things, but it's not intuitive. You really do need the primers.

And Ao3 limits neither content nor tags, so take care when searching, and use the omission functionality if you need to - Ao3 won't hold back unless you tell it.

-:- Searching -:-

Wattpad: 6/10 Tumblr: 6/10 Ao3: 10/10

Smash visibility and tagging together and you get search ratings. Wattpad can be hit or miss because of the Tikto- er - algorithm, my best advice is don't be afraid of the results on page 2 and beyond. As much as it tries to "rate" works, rating is just too subjective. You're going to have to dig, just like you do on Tumblr and Ao3.

Having fan fic reader connections is really your best bet when searching, but slugging through the proverbial trenches yields gems too - and one man's quartz is another man's diamond, so I'm not putting any writing down when I say this - what we're looking for varies, and what's out there is multitudinous and variable.

Ao3 is your best place place for good hunting - it's literally built around it. The only hangups are the limitations of what an author puts in for tags vs what you think to search. Differences in how we perceive some words regionally can limit what bounces back - and sometimes a writer might not think of the word in the first place to add it.

-:- Cost -:-

Wattpad: 3 or 9/10 Tumblr: 10/10 Ao3: 10/10

Wattpad has ads - on the mobile app. You can pay for some stuff on the desktop too, but it's not in your face there like it tends to be on the mobile app. Still, you can use it for free.

Tumblr and Ao3 both request money and offer stuff in exchange for money. Sites need money to run, so it makes sense. Neither locks functionality behind cost (neither does Wattpad, not even on the mobile app), but it's easier to ignore ads on Tumblr than Wattpad's app (and no ads on desktop at all for Wattpad >.> just fyi).

-:- Security & Visibility -:-

Wattpad: ??? Tumblr: ??? Ao3: ???

What's important about security and visibility changes from person to person and I'm not really sure how to rate them numerically.

Tumblr and Ao3 let you make your works private - member or password access only, so there's a layer of visibility control with these platforms that does NOT exist on Wattpad.

Ao3 let's people download works to read offline. Technically you can copy/paste with Tumblr and do this as well. Wattpad does not allow this - you cannot download or copy/paste a work from Wattpad (you can copy/paste when in edit mode on things you own on WP, but readers cannot).

You don't need an account to interact with Ao3 and Tumblr - I *think* you do for Wattpad, but all three are free sign ups - Ao3 is just by invitation (when did that start, btw? I signed up years ago and missed that change).

Which is best, is up to you.

-:- Functionality -:-

Wattpad: 8/10 Tumblr: 7/10 Ao3: 10/10

Let me start by saying that Tumblr's functionality for Short Form Fiction is easily 10/10 - the search limitations notwithstanding. Tumblr's functionality for LONG Form Fiction can be a real pain in the ass, hence the 7/10 overall. Linking posts is a manual nightmare, and sometimes breaks between mobile and desktop for no reason.

Wattpad's limitations on some styles of formatting and linking aside, it does have an easy to use update process, and if there's a limit to how many words can be in a chapter, I haven't seen it, or heard of it.

Wattpad's mature settings are also more functional than Tumblr's, leaving the onus of if the reader is old enough on the reader by the words of their own ToS (I still block minors, personally, since you can see who votes and comments.) They do have stricter limitations, regarding "dark" content, and there is by no means any threat to be levied against minors allowed. Shonen levels of violence, sure, but you're not posting Juno the novel on the site without some issues.

All three sites - Wattpad most recently - have blocking functionality. Wattpad's recent changes allow for deleting comments as well as blocking users, which can be a cathartic ability to have.

One thing Wattpad and Tumblr have that I'd LOVE to see on Ao3 (and if it has it I've missed it) is the ability to schedule your posts and updates. Wattpad added this recently - it's only functional on the desktop, but it works.

For those of us who can write 10k words one day, and none the next two days, it's useful for spreading out your posts. Plus there's just something nice about being able to create a backlog of content, especially if you post on a schedule.

-:- Vibe -:-

No rankings, we die like blorbos.

One of the best things - to me - about Wattpad is a paragraph-by-paragraph ability to comment. Wattpad's readers have a similar vibe as Tumblr's readers - and I mean this affectionately.

You're all GREMLINS.

It gives me life and I love it.

Assholes exist everywhere, but my general vibe of who has the most goes: Wattpad Tumblr Ao3

Maybe some of you aren't assholes, you just don't think about how your comments can be taken before you post.

Ao3 gives me the most Long Form Comments I get out of anywhere else, and I love them. Please, PLEASE, gush to me about what you loved. Feel free to toss in what you didn't vibe with - as long as you're not cruel about it, I can take it. I can't possibly write something everyone perceives flawlessly.

I post to all three, because I like the combined experience I get from them. Ao3 feeds me in ways Wattpad and Tumblr can't, and honestly you can exchange all three of those entirely.

Ao3 feels like I'm walking down the street perusing sex toy shops and someone stops me and goes "Oh I read your story and really liked it, please keep up the good work!" (sometimes maybe they throw a drink in my face.)

Tumblr feels like I'm at a rave with 500 other people and there's 50 blorbos people are doing body shots off of and we're all having fun - and occasionally some asshole comes in, but they're handled pretty quick.

Wattpad's like... being at a Barnes and Noble having coffee in the cafe that's inside the store, and there's a BDSM class being taught in the manga section that's upstairs, and sometimes people take the escalator up and right back down again cause oops.

That's my breakdown - I hope it's helped you, or at least made you laugh a little. Good luck out there, where ever, however, and whenever you post, I hope you find the words you're looking for.

(I do want to add that Wattpad does, as mentioned, have a bit of a TikTok vibe. If you don't vibe TikTok you're not gonna vibe Wattpad, flaws and all).

[reesestimpson]

The Social Dilemma

After watching the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, my eyes have been opened to the business giant that social media has become. This can be mainly attributed to the use of algorithm tools that have allowed monetization across social media platforms. These algorithm tools have become so powerful because companies can use them to easily predict what people's decisions will look like in the future. In turn, companies use these predictions to influence their users into engaging with their apps in the ways that the social media sites choose. Companies have began to abuse the power these tools have given them, a sort of betrayal to the same users who built these social media giants.

Because our generation has grown up most of our lives with social media having a presence, it's transformed our viewpoints and divided us. I believe social media has given people an easy way to align their opinions with others, rather than create their own. People are either trying to fit in with a group or condemn others for disagreeing with them. What was originally intended as a useful tool for mass communication has become a divisive weapon in our society.

I plan on applying the knowledge I gained from the documentary into my own use of social media. Now that I know what these companies are looking for when I'm using their apps, I can use this for my own benefit in the future. At some point, I'm going to be looking to gain attention from my own potential customers. I assume these social media sites will only continue to grow in the future, as more of the world gains access to them.

[willel]

Why is twitter so toxic? I think you wrote something about it some time ago, that on tumblr, for instance, there’s no immediate incentive to write a hit post and then to come up with the most outrageous claims that create "engagement"? Or because it’s not really about direct conversation made of short messages when everyone wants to "win" the argument, but favors calm analysis instead. Anyway, I just can’t go there anymore right now, too much hate and stupidity, I’m glad there’s still blogs like you and a few others to enjoy some ST escapism.

Twitter's short form context was pretty great when it came out years ago. "Tweets" were generally someone putting random thoughts out in the aether or a quick notification or an alert to check out news on this site or that site. I feel like it wasn't meant for what it is today, for people to be interacting with each other in a meaningful way. Like, what are you gonna talk about in 100 characters or less? That's why you'll sometimes see old tweets of celebrities floating around of the most random nonsensical statements with no context. That's what twitter was as its core.

Now combine that with people starting to use twitter for more than just random thoughts that popped into peoples head. It started to be used for political activism (which isn't necessarily a bad thing) and fandom activities.

We all know how bad politics fandom can get on long form sites like tumblr and reddit. Imagine how much worse it is when you cut away all context and nuance to fit in a tweet.

Imo, it set twitter on a downward spiral. Doesn't matter how much they increase the character limit, the culture now is tweet fast. React fast. Argue fast. If you lose, resort to other means. Anything to win. Anything to get your tweets more attention that the other person.

It's like a game. I'm sure that plays into the desire to be "famous" that a lot of social media enjoyers crave.

I'm not saying tumblr is much better, but I feel the culture here is more like "take your time" or "time doesn't matter, old stuff is good". Tumblr does have an issue with people not reblogging content, causing good posts and content to go unnoticed given there is no real algorithm here, which is sad. But for the most part, ain't nobody here trying to get famous. Everything is talking and creating stuff for the sake of it.

Most of the time even the people arguing here are arguing about stuff that happens off site or they stay in their corners and tag correctly. (if you don't tag correctly and start fights on purpose, I immediately assume you must be from twitter)

People who have been here on my blog for a while are probably thinking "Tch, what do you know about fandom conflict?" and let me tell you, in my youth I participated in a ship war. It was just one,but still. I didn't resort to name calling or doxing people though, that's for sure. I wrote essays and essays in response to people, defended my ship, made stuff for my ship (which I still do), the whole shebang. It was all here on tumblr and deviantart. I do have a twitter for that fandom but I don't use it for any drama. I can say the drama on twitter is MUCH WORSE than anything I experienced on tumblr.

That is the ST fandom on twitter in a nutshell. No one can mind their own business. They're constantly spying on each other, posting using common search terms of the people they don't like and then acting surprised when the people they don't like respond to them. It's all like a game. Every blue moon when I go there to see if there's WillEl things, inevitably I will see shippers using it to fight against each other or crap on Will or El.

Once a week it's the same suspects saying the same things over and over again. Finding something pointless to be mad about. Sending angry anon messages. Never actually sitting down to enjoy the ships/relationships they claim to be a fandom of. Cannot mind their business and always have something negative to say. Denying what is literally in the show because they personally don't like it. Literally the worst kind of people to have in your fandom. (I associate that kind of behavior with like.... Riverdale drama or something. Sorry if you're a Riverdale fan. Lol)

In conclusion, yeah. I think twitter is that way because the short form context has breed a culture of "win or lose". Mixed with a little bit of celebrity idolization and a desperate desire for people to interact with you even if it's negative.