#fuck algorithms

[red-garden]

Destroy all algorithms now, normalize having friends that send you shit

[themonsterwitch]

This isn't going to be super eloquent but forgive me the brain is rotating the words around.

So like, yall know our attentions spans are capital F fucked, right? I was talking with my bf's mom and I mentioned how I used to read a bunch but ever since the pandemic I haven't been literate, like at all, unless it was required reading for school. And she said she was in a similar boat, and that's what got me thinking.

So, I have ADHD, and so does she, so that definitely plays a part in it, but the big thing is that the pandemic did two big things really well: It gave us a lot of time alone to reflect on how shitty the world is, and it happened to be a time where a certain short form content centered app was skyrocketing in popularity. So naturally, people flocked to these quick dopamine hits for escapism and its gotten us to where we are now. Scrolling mindlessly down videos for hours while time passes in a thick sludge, and our attention spans are ruined because of it.

I have noticed its reversible though. After the election, I realized I was in a huge echo chamber and due to both a desire to stick my head in the sand and a desire to not let myself be fooled into an echo chamber again, I deleted pretty much all my social media off my phone.

Then, I started challenging myself to only watch longer content. LegalEagle and Coffeezilla are usually my background noise (facts are comforting to me), and I've also started watching Bobby Broccoli's videos which are about 50 mins to an hour and a half. I've definitely been able to feel engaged in the videos, and watching political content from facts led sources helps me stay enough out of the echo chamber that I only have the normal amount of dread.

I've also been going out and doing things and forcing myself to interact with my friends so that I'm not zoning out and bedrotting all day. Definitely been helping. I also have been trying to do puzzles to get my brain working again. Plus I've been looking into more actual activism stuff (as opposed to arm-chair activism) and that really helps with political dread.

Recently, I finally got the urge to get books and read again. Most of the books I'm looking at are activism related, but the top of my wishlist is about the aids epidemic. Very excited to read that.

So yea. Fuck the algorithm. Go read a book amd volunteer in your community.

[cyber-corp]

Lately I’ve been leaning towards discovering new music through radio and music video stations, as they do a lot more in helping me find new music than streaming services ever did.

I think the problem is that streaming’s algorithmic nature leads to locking yourself into a comfort bubble with the same old playlists with the same old recommendations. “Made For You” playlists further lock you into that box as long as the songs get more streams.

Meanwhile, I watched Rage recently (the Australian equivalent of MTV) and it got me hooked on Reel Big Fish and Little Simz, two amazing artists I had no interest in before because I was never made aware of their music. I rediscovered The KLF through listening to Radio X on the RadioGarden app. Two mediums of listening to music known for constant repeats of popular songs have done more for me (in terms of finding music) than Spotify has ever done.

At the end of the day, all three still want your money, but Spotify wants your money by locking you in your comfort zone and all your “favourite playlists”.

[elenaferndale]

Deleting instagram entirely for art?

Thoughts of today: I might do something super crazy and.... delete my art-instagram! 😲 I'm so tired of all the algorithms, and competing in reels and which one just "might" go viral. It's exhausting. I just want to create, have my normal turn when people are able to see it on their feed and having fellow artists follow each other for their work, and not the popularity.

Been checking out both Cara and Artfol, and I do like these concept a lot better, and since my followers are very slim - it does not really matter if I change platforms, and delete the whole instagram account for my arts.

However, I will keep my writing/author instagram - just because its a different goal for me with the promotion (when that time comes).

Check me out on Cara: elenaferndale or/and on Artfol: fernie

Have not decided which one to stay on, so atm I am doing both :)

[sinnerbeam]

Rec list part 2- Books and Music :)

Stuff i read and listened to in 2024!

Books

Again, I've not included content warnings here, you may want to look them up for these if you want to read any of them. That goes for the fiction and non fiction too. Also this list isn't spoiler free.

None of the Above - Travis Alabanza

Amazing auto-bio-y book about being non binary and growing up in London. Also I met Travis at the book launch and they gave me a cool pin. A really good read!!

Babel - RF Kuang

What if your magic system was based on the meanings lost through translation. What if that was heavily exploited by colonialism. Really cool book! My friend recommended this to me, and I really enjoyed it. It's a little depressing, but like.. it makes sense for it to be.

Our Wives Under the Sea - Julia Armfield.

Cool meditation on what it means to do palliative care for a loved one, and the complicated feelings about it. Pretty sad. It didnt have as many sea monsters as i was looking for, but it was still really good.

Working Guys - Jack Parker

An anthology written by trans masc(+enby) sex workers, covers alot of topics really thoughtfully, and it's a really informative read.

Deadendia vol 1 - Hamish Steele.

I love this series, now that I've read the first comic, I'll rewatch the show. The vibes are so good.

Music

Apashe

His whole new album slaps, I saw him live earlier in the year, with Waisu too, and it was just really great. They had an 8 piece brass band with them, who looked like they were having the time of their lives. The remixes he's bringing out are really cool too. Also i found out about monkey man cause Apashe was in the trailer lol.

Fav songs: Catch Me, Gasoline, anything from the Requiem EP

Kim Petras

Love her so much, my friend and I saw her this year and she put on such a good show. The costume changes were amazing, the dancers were fantastic and overall the energy was really good.

Favs: anything from Slut Pop

Femtanyl

I'm obsessed with her music, although I'm not really sure what genre she comes under. Something that ends with -core probably. So excited to see her tour next year 🙏

Fav song: Katamari (the whole chaser EP is great, or maybe M3 AND MIN3)

Bloodywood

Love them, such good music too get angry to. If you like metal but want to hear something really new, and wanna hear people singing about abolishing the caste system, and punching rapists then they are the band for you maybe.

Favs: Dana-Dan, Aaj

Megan Thee Stallion

Her album this year was so good?? And I've not seen it in any best albums of this year lists???? This is a crime???

Favs: BOA, Cobra, Her

Tanerélle

Every year she's on my spotify wrapped, and every year she deserves it!!! Her vice is so soulful and gorgeous.

Favs: Boys Like You, Won't, No One Else

Honourable mentions:

Bambie Thug - Egregore

Zamilska - Fuck Fray, Hospital, Front, Dual 35

Horsegiirl - My Barn, My Rules

Shygirl - Encore

Luede - Gay Power

Heilung - Alfadhirhaiti

Wardruna - Himinndotter, grá

Irrepressibles - Most Beautiful Boy in the World, In this Shirt

Nine Inch Nails

Health

[loreliaod]

My tumblr is basically dead, you can find me on bluesky and tiktok

I've got accounts a lot of other places too but those are the most active

[offonaherosjourney]

Some websites (who am I kidding, this is about Amazon) really need a button to turn off the algorithms whenever you buy certain things. I just bought a damn toaster, I'm set for the next 5 to 10 years, you can stop suggesting me other toasters I might like. And that Funko I bought was a birthday present, I couldn't care less about them. Also, my cousin is the one that had the baby, not me, so please, chill with the books about babies and give me back my queer fantasy and sci-fi book recs! Two years ago my mother asked me to buy her a toilet seat and I'm still feeling the ripples of that in my recommendations.

[notetoriouslylazy]

I stopped using Tumblr for a while and recently picked the app up again. I didn't even realize that the default tab has changed from Following to For You. The content was so similar (actually in some cases more niche and radical rather than posts with popular appeal) that I didn't even notice the difference for a week.

[elizamint]

I've been finding myself really missing the Internet of the late 2000s - early 2010s. The current mainstream Internet is a fucking nightmare. If it weren't for Fedi, and to a smaller extent Tumblr, I probably just wouldn't be online anymore. I hate how hyper capitalistic and bottom line driven every corner of this hellscape feels now. I hate how algorithmically driven and manipulative every fucking website feels now. Almost none of the modern Internet is tolerable to engage with as an end-user, and I'm increasingly struggling to see the point of even bothering to.

[ardathksheyna]

Do It For You

I haven't been posting my art as much. The reason? I'm tired of attempting to coerce whatever algorithm each site is using to reach my current followers or even new followers—and that includes Tumblr. I was doing pretty good on Instagram... until they changed their algos to favor big influencers more, which happened sometime in August.

Actually, Tumblr seems to be the worst offender compared to other sites. Or I'm probably getting pissy because of the tabs "For You", "Your tags", and "Following"—all three show me the same shit I saw a few days ago. And don't even get me started on Tumblr Live. If I wanted Only Fans, I'd go to Only Fans. But I digress...

Since then, I've slowed down on posting artwork of any sort on all platforms that I'm part of. Yesterday was probably the first piece I've posted in a while, and that was basically done on a whim.

Anyway, what it boils down to is I am (and a lot of other people) are tired of sacrificing mental health for likes because in order to keep the engagement, you have to constantly churn out piece after piece. Unfortunately, the algorithms seem to favor quantity over quality—you can bust your ass on a piece, but someone else churning out prompts (yes, I'm referring to AI art) can get more engagement because that's what the algos favor: speed.

AI art is problematic by itself—for many reasons, the least of which is how the AI algo is trained. However, that is a complicated mess and another thoughtful post for another time.

On the flip-side, algorithms also favor videos over static content—Insta's in particular (basically favoring the sloppy seconds of TikTok over genuine content). On that subject, I like YouTube's implementation (Shorts) better than Instagram's anyway.

All that being said, the current climate of the internet is hostile to content creators. Twenty years ago, you didn't have this uphill battle of trying to train an algorithm just to get views. Really, all you had to do optimize for search engines and you were pretty much set.

Now, it's a balance between your mental health and trying to retain the level of engagement that you do have, and then become frustrated when you're doing everything right and still get fucked because some bean-counter decided that they want more profits.

It's almost too easy to get discouraged and think that what you're doing doesn't matter and all you're really doing is shouting into the void. When that happens, you have to ask yourself these questions:

Who are you doing this for? (0 for someone else, 10 for yourself)

Do you like making art? (0 for no, 10 for yes)

Do you want the attention (rate 0 to 10)

Are you only doing this for likes (rate 0 to 10)

Yeah, I made that up on the spot. Whatever score for each question you come up with will tell you where your priorities are. If you're doing this for anything other than enjoyment or for yourself, well... that leads me to my next part:

You see, I learned a long time ago that when you're doing something mental/time-intensive for reasons other than pure enjoyment, it is very easy to get burned out quickly. I know this because once upon a time, I used to enjoy writing code. After graduation, I spent my free time trying to improve my skills—not for myself or because I enjoyed it, but because I thought it was the only way for me to retain a job in my field.

Well, I think we know how that ended—badly.

Because of my past experiences, I made a decision a while ago that what I'm doing, I'm doing for me (and maybe my boyfriend) but not for anyone else. The stories I write, the artwork I create. I'm not doing it for likes, I'm doing it for me, because I like what I do. Because I like the creative process and seeing how far can I push my skills.

So keep that in mind if you're struggling with mental-health and trying to beat bullshit algorithms. It's not worth the stress, and that stress just steals energy from your creativity.

You're doing what you love for you and maybe a few others—not for likes, attentions, engagement or whatever fake internet points exist nowadays.

Remember: do it for you!

[shiutsu]

am I fucking shadowbanned or smth cuz I swear my recent posts don't get seen at all.

Like wtf,I post with the same or similar hashtags but I get the minimum notes.

[kikunai]

twitter is soooooooo good for artists. just made a 500 like tweet and got one(1) single follower. real fun i tell ya

[bathrobesinparadise]

God bless tumblr. God bless blocking tags. God bless curating your dash

[peggycatrerr]

today on the train home the guy next to me was on his phone and at one point i saw him go on tumblr and he just had like. a normie dash. like it was all photography. of nature and architecture. he was using tumblr the way a heterosexual landscaper for rich people might use instagram. i actually had to watch his screen for a few seconds to be sure it really was tumblr because i was so taken aback by the content he was viewing. this is why algorithmless websites are so beautiful btw because i genuinely didn't know that this side of tumblr even existed. he didn't even so much as scroll past any text posts.

EDIT: look i'm not going to turn off reblogs but i cannot stress enough that THIS WASN'T A HIPSTER BLOG DASH IT WASN'T AN AESTHETIC BLOG DASH IT WAS THE MOST WILDLY GENERIC COLLECTION OF IMAGES YOU HAVE EVER SEEN IN YOUR LIFE. I AM NOT EXAGGERATING OR BEING A QUIRKY FANDOM TUMBLRINA WHEN I SAY "NORMIE" I GENUINELY MEAN "SO NORMAL THAT IT CIRCLES AROUND TO WEIRD". CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME? HELLO?

[alpaca-clouds]

Fuck algorithms, tumblr. The great thing about tumblr is, that it does not have an algorithms. It is what the internet was supposed to look like. Don't make the mistake to change that. It will negatively influence the user experience, even if it might make the app more addictive.

So, no. The "newest first and only what you have followed" dashboard is actually great.

It is fairly easy to find blogs to follow here. Sure, the search option could be better - but that's it. That is the one thing that you should change.

Otherwise this is actually a pretty great website. Don't ruin it.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[cheezwhizthecursed]

The primal urge to lie flat on my face and listen to lovey-dovey Nightcore songs all night instead of writing my fanfic

(I'm almost done with chapter 2 but I don't fucking wanna do it...)