I’m pretty sure the people bitching about not giving money to tumblr are the same ones who complain when AO3 or wikipedia ask for donations, so I’m just gonna clarify something
Running a website is not free
Even if they made no changes and did only maintenance, they still need to pay for server costs, expert programmers for when something goes wrong, storage (although frankly storage is cheap as chips these days which is nice)
They need to keep up with the capabilities of new tech like improvements to web browsers, never mind their own apps keeping pace with old and new tech developments
Backwards compatibility (being able to run the updated app on old tech) is a massive problem for apps on a regular basis, because there are people out here using an iPod and refusing to update software
There’s a reason every few years apps like Animal Crossing will issue an update that breaks backwards compatibility and you can only play if your phone is running more recent software
This shit costs money even before you look into the costs of human moderation, which I’m not exactly convinced is a big part of their current budget but fucking should be if we want an actual fix for their issues with unscreened ads and reporting bigots
Ignoring that it’s apparently illegal for companies not to actively chase profits, running Tumblr is expensive
And advertisers know we fucking hate them here
They’re still running ads, which we know because they’re all over the damn place, but half the ads are for Tumblr and its store
Other ad companies know we are not a good market, so they’re not willing to put the money in
Tumblr runs at a $30 million deficit, every year, because hosting a site is expensive
They are trying to take money making ideas from other social medias because they’re not a charity; they need to make enough money to keep the site going
If you want tumblr to keep existing, never mind fixing its many issues that require human people to be paid to do jobs like moderation, they will need money
Crabs cost $3
One crab day a year can fix the deficit and hammer home for Tumblr that:
A) we do want to be here and want the site to keep going
And B) they do not need to do the normal social media money making strategies we all hate
They need a way to make money if you want the hellsite to exist, because we live in a capitalist hellscape and cannot all be AO3
If they think they can make enough to keep running without pulling all the tricks we hate, they have no reason to pull said tricks
But they need money
And a way to make money
And if we can show them we can do that, there is a significantly higher chance they will listen to us, the user base they need money from, than if we don’t
Tumblr isn’t perfect, or anywhere close. They need someone to actually screen the paid ads they put through, they need to take the transphobia, antisemitism, and bigotry seriously
These Are Jobs That Will Cost Money
People Need To Be Fucking Paid For Their Work
Tumblr Is Not Run By Volunteers For Free And Nor Should It Be
Paying People Is Good Actually
So if you wanna get all high and mighty over $3/year, by all means, go spend that hard earned cash elsewhere
Good luck finding a perfect and morally pure business to give it to though
Being a whiny negative asshole isn’t more appealing just because you’ve put yourself on a moral soapbox, it just means the asshole is a little higher up
For all the whining about “all the new updates are terrible this site is unusable”…. It’s one fuck of a lot more usable than it was in 2017, 2018, 2020
And yeah, it’s going back down and most of the newer ones have been fucking annoying and I would also like them to stop
But it got up somehow and that means it could do that again
Hope is more fun than edgy nihilism
August 1st is a good and exciting day to summon a crab army
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i turn 29 on july 1st. i feel like i make a lot of these notes to myself, to check in. hi, me, here's what's happening.
hi, me. hi, you, too, if you keep reading. here's some rules i have been following:
when a book is bad, i put the book down. i choose something i like instead. when i don't like a movie, i don't make myself watch until the end. i care less and less what people think about me and focus more on being a good friend.
for the 6 months or so, i've been asking people what they think should be my next book or tv show. i ask them where i should go on a walk next week. i ask them what food i should try next, what hobby. and then i write it down in front of them.
the truth is some stuff slips through the cracks. but most of the time? within two weeks, i get to send my favorite kind of text - so i tried the thing you were talking about and !
i have a new policy for split-second choices - it's better to try it. i have social anxiety. i have to talk myself into doing many things. i am constantly battling the desire to run away as far as my feet will take me. and then i stand up and i do the thing anyway. i make myself act and dance and sing. sometimes, yes, i know-immediately never again, i hate this. but most of the time - i just have fun with it.
i have a new mantra - nobody is scorekeeping. at the end of my life, there will be no grand reading of how many calories i'd been eating. no reviews on how many boring documentaries i forced myself through, no calculation on how many hours i endured an extremely dull educational podcast. and so what if i try karaoke and i don't actually nail it? so what if i stumble over my words while trying to make a public announcement? so what if i wear something too-showy to go to the grocery store? nobody there knows me, and: nobody's keeping score.
life doesn't resolve with a grade (i know, i was as shocked as everyone else when i realized it). i am not falling behind, because there's no curriculum to life that i should be following. there are no checkpoints; nobody is making sure i have a fully-furnished life resume. i am just here for as long as the earth will have me, and i get to decide what makes me happy.
i don't have a partner or a house or anything that is supposed to belong to people-my-age. i spend most of my time focusing on being kind, compassionate, ready to listen without restraint.
and honestly? i feel good. like actually. i kind of like it this way.
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the one thing i feel pretty certain about for this episode is that america will not decide the election. a decision will be made, a president will be elected, but america will not be the deciding factor.
succession can’t mimic 2016 or 2020 point blank, that would be boring and have nothing to say. it can’t try to outdo trump because it’ll go too whacky and fall flat like veep’s last season (sorry conheads, no way he’s winning). but what it CAN do is illustrate the immensely corrupt, often arbitrary, and hugely influential nature of news media and conglomerations on political processes. i think probably jimenez will be in the lead, then atn/waystar does something to, i don’t know, discount votes or cast suspicion on jimenez or call the election for mencken early, and the tide will shift, even though the votes are already in. the votes don’t actually matter. the actual result doesn’t actually matter. that’s the power logan (and as an extension, billionaires and CEOs in general) hold. shiv says it herself to logan in s4e2: “just cause you say it’s true doesn’t make it true. everyone just fucking agrees with you and believes you, so it becomes true and then you can turn around and say like, 'oh, you see? see? i was right.'” but it doesn’t matter that logan’s “a human fucking gaslight,” everything he says comes true anyways. not because he was right, but because that’s how it works. he says things and then they happen, regardless of what the truth is or what should actually come to pass. that’s been one of the key throughlines since the very first episode of the entire show when, in response to kendall calling logan out of touch because times are changing and logan isn't changing with them, logan hisses that everyone always says you’re wrong until you do it and prove you were right: “you make your own reality.” you can't miss the bus if you're the one driving it. the election, the votes, the political process? none of that matters. it was always going to come down to the roys and their ilk (allies or enemies, just the top 1%) — that was the whole point of “what it takes” (the mencken episode) last season, after all.
i’ve seen lots of theories about what america will choose and how the candidates will respond and all that and i just don’t think that’s the show’s focus; i think the whole point is to demonstrate the lack of agency, the illusion of democracy. because, i mean, we’ve already seen the fall of democracy via fascist election and fascist election-denial, both in real life and in the countless (usually mid) satires created afterwards. it would be disappointing to see succession use the election to reiterate that same point of 'ohhh alt-right ahhhhh!!!' i don’t think it’ll be about ‘fascism’ at all — at least, not ‘trump-y’ fascism. it’ll be about fascism in the broader sense, the kind that doesn't sport a KKK hood (even when it keeps one tucked away in the attic). it's the fascism that every single roy (very much including shiv and kendall) aid and abet -- the fascism that so many succession fans don't seem to regard as fascism, despite it quite literally being the definition of fascism. trump wasn’t the entrance of fascism into our political process. he wasn’t the lone sign of the failing of american democracy. democracy in america has long been illusory, trump just made it more blatantly evident with his particular brand of hate-speech-ridden masculinist in-your-face fascism.
so i think that’s what this episode will hopefully focus on — america will not decide. corporations, news media, and the roys will. thus, the president will most likely become president not because the country supports his policies the most, but because he’s likely to agree to help block a business deal for a major media empire, and the other candidate is unlikely to. and this will likely come to pass due to said major media empire's interference and influence: they create their own reality. they say it, and everyone agrees with them and believes them, so it becomes true.
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