#if I dont interact with something its generally because the algorithm

[omkdear]

it's really telling when people decide to interact with other people's work/content. Especially in community spaces. I largely try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but, almost always there's a correlation between how confident someone is in their own craft and said interaction. Or, that person hates your and thinks your cringe. Either way, it's really old and it reminds me school in the worst ways.

[wygolvillage]

a new year's resolution

well, as of 2024 i’ve decided i will no longer be posting on tumblr... this shouldnt be the hugest surprise since ive been pretty critical of staff, the over-monetization of the website, the site culture, and the user experience for the past year and gradually reducing my time spent scrolling the ol’ dashboard- ive even mentioned my intent to eventually leave; well, that eventually is now! gradually ive found myself analyzing the effect that using tumblr for 7+ years has had on me, and the effects of social media in general.

ive never had to write a goodbye letter like this before. while ive joined and left several online platforms over the years, its always been a gradual fade in interest rather than a conscious decision to stop. never have i used a platform as long as ive used tumblr, over 1/3 of my life. ive grown up with tumblr, for better or worse. how do you write a goodbye for that? i guess ill have to try my best. because as important as tumblr was for me, ive recognized the way its hurt me too.

finding other avenues of online self-expression particularly has made me think a lot about this. when i edit my website i feel accomplished, happy, and content, feeling i have put something of myself out into the world, my seed to grow and garden to tend. when i scroll through tumblr i feel as if my brain is mostly idle, and when i do emotionally respond its often out of anger or annoyance, because anger = engagement and social media sites like tumblr WANT engagement. particularly because i have OCD ive found myself upset by certain aspects of tumblr discourse culture, as well- it is basically the Scrupulosity Website and much of the way i react to and interact with media has been colored by my years spent absorbing the viewpoints of said Scrupulosity Website! i even used to look up discourse topics on tumblr just to anger myself on purpose, which is a dangerous road to go down, to build up Enemies and Factions in your mind- this is how discourse culture works. the culture of tumblr teaches you to see the world in black and white, and to feel like youre always in danger of compromising your moral purity or being attacked by the morally impure. If You Don’t Reblog This You Are A Bad Person. even as someone who nowadays tries to stay away from discourse entirely, its still there in the back of my mind, because the way we interact on this website is colored by this. when im online i dont actually want to be angry all the time! in fact i like putting my effort towards more positive stuff. but additionally: tumblr made me unhappy but it also made me an addict

and yeah social media addiction sounds like a silly boomer thing to complain about but one thing i noticed when i started trying to curb my time spent on tumblr was that opening the site was damn near compulsive. we all know those “open tumblr, close tumblr, open tumblr again immediately after” memes but that did describe my behavior pretty accurately. the draw and allure of social media feeds is powerful, if i accidentally click the youtubes short tab ill find myself a half hour later scrolling through random shit i don't care about and asking well how the hell did i get here? i dont even like that stuff! tumblr is no different no matter how much the site tries to coast on the reputation of being the last social media that's a “remnant of the old web” and “has no algorithm”. i like my chronological dash but it is equally as addicting to scroll through the thousands of people ive followed over the years, as it is to scroll through the algorithmic feeds of youtube shorts, because that's just social media!

and kicking addiction is pretty damn hard. before 2023, i made two separate attempts at reducing my tumblr usage and both fell through within a week due to that addiction. for reference this current bought of thoughts about reducing my tumblr usage and making my online/irl balance more healthy, around the start of 2023 when i began working on my website and its taken me an entire year to wean myself off of the hellsite, bit by bit. theres a point where it stopped being a conscious act, and even as i was carefully whittling down how often i use tumblr with extensions like leechblock i still had that compulsion go off multiple times every day, its a really strange feeling. but now that ive found so many more ways to express myself online, i just feel more whole now... i guess what im saying is that when i post on tumblr my first instinct is to complain or wallow about something, when i post on my own handmade blog on my website i always want to talk about things that excite me or make me happy! and its been such a tangible change in the way i think and act and im certain its because of the way social media and tumblr have their own “societal expectations” and structure that is built to feed on this negativity loop.

and a lot of the biggest shifts happened when i began immersing myself in the ideals of the web revival, while creating my own website. finding things that genuinely interested me and niches i want to occupy made me so much happier. i know we make a lot of jokes about having mutuals we never talk to that mean the world to us and i do think that is indicative of something. like, when i post on a forum full of strangers i am engaging with more “face to face” (or the digital equivalent) communication than i do with years-long mutuals. how genuine are these connections, this dashboard, the enjoyment i got from that meme post ill forget in 10 minutes? (not to say that i don’t genuinely care abt my followers and mutuals. ykwim?) i can still get all the things i enjoy out of tumblr in a more curated form via rss feeds; ive been so much more proud of what i post and create and code on my website. what am i here for? i gradually realized that i am losing absolutely nothing when i “miss out” or block tumblr on my phone or what have you.

since starting working on my neocities site ive felt so much creative drive. ive created whole interactive essays and worlds and games and writings and so many things i could never host on social media. my website is a place of my very own, and ive been learning the value of focusing on what i put out into the net compared to what i take from it. its made me feel so much more fulfilled when i spend time online.

and let's not forget about staff. i have broader issues with how automattic in particular has gone about running the site. the ads only took up more and more of the dashboard, and every month it felt like there was some new paid feature doomed to never take off. all while the user experience gradually degraded. using the site without browser extensions to fix the ui and block the ads and tumblr live and all the other shit they threw all over the place makes it look like its ridden with viruses, and i think the fact that its become so normalized to feel like we have to stay in spaces that become increasingly hostile to us, even while the internet is so vast, is really strange (i mean, i also thought that way at first). but Anyway. so much time and effort was spent on features no one liked or wanted in some desperate attempt to get a little extra money, while staff members get in public fights with users who complain about getting monetization shoved down their throat. its so openly pathetic. the merch store had mostly mediocre designs and the digital tumblrmart is absolutely full of useless digital goods with free alternatives. considering this is a userbase that gladly donates to other sites donation drives for hosting costs (i.e. ao3, wikipedia, internet archive), i am shocked that staff never considered the obvious answer of a fucking donation drive once a year or so! the ceo telling people with concerns about the ads being unsafe for epilepsy to “just pay the ad free subscription” is one of the most disgusting things ive ever heard from someone officially representing such a platform. do not be fooled by the reputation tumblr has cultivated: all that it cares about is making money from you. tumblr is “in danger” because it can't turn a profit- because a profit is all they care about!

so why stay here when im happier elsewhere, apart from the addictive compulsion? that's what ive been thinking through for nearly a year, realizing that i have no reason to, and that weaning myself off of the addiction is in my best interest. i can create and blog and have fun online and connect with others and follow other peoples work all without the need for tumblr anymore! and i think id be all the healthier for it.

over the past year ive truly fallen in love with the internet again and ive loved putting myself out there, unrestrained in ways i havent felt since i was very young. but nonetheless ive learned a lot on tumblr, ive had some of the worst and best experiences of my online life, and i dont doubt that i would be a much different person if i had never been a tumblr user for as long as i was. but i had to break out of this shell eventually.

i keep going over this wondering how i can express every feeling in my head, how i can word everything just a little better, how i can make the perfect goodbye. but i think this will have to suffice.

you can still keep up with me online here:

-explore my website: i keep it consistently updated and im always adding new things and writing new posts on my blog! you can even speak to me directly on the site! if you sign my guestbook or use my chatbox ill try to respond :) if theres anything on this list you do id like it to be this one! i worked hard on it! you can even send me chat messages on my homepage! just keep in mind it may not display everything right on most mobile browsers, but it should be mostly navigable...

you can also subscribe to my rss feed. if you don't know what rss is, it allows you to use a feed reader to keep up with updates from sites all over the internet! my rss feed will notify you whenever ive made a new post on my blog or made an interesting edit on my site id like you to take a peek at :0 convenient, right?

you can also email me at wygolvillage@gmail.com to message me directly. if you prefer im also “wygolvillage” on discord

thank you and happy new years :) thanks for seeing me off as i sail to a new sunrise <3

[virtueisdead]

tumblr is the only corporate social im willing to use at this point, purely because of how vastly different it is from its contemporaries, structurally and culturally, but they're very clearly doing something that is quickly turning me away. for lack of less sensitive term, staff is practically gentrifying the platform. (forcing shit from other socials that tumblrs lack of were the only reason i still used it)

given i use spacehey daily, im sure youre already aware that im not a big fan of the contemporary concept of the "social media". i wont go on my whole pedantic/esoteric rant about distinguishing the definition of a social media and a social network because thats a whole other essay for another time and its not worth the argument given im already trying to discuss something else at the moment. (ive literally written a research paper about this because i seriously am that obnoxious about the subject)

so; one of the most substantial changes that happened to social websites in general over the past 2 decades was the introduction of algorithmic feeds. for those unaware, tumblr is in fact the very last major social platform that still doesnt operate (primarily) off of algorithmic content, and this is direly important to the continued use it receives from older bloggers. the majority of people who regularly use tumblr today and have for years are still here because it is the last bastion of chronological dashboards. this also plays a huge role in why theres such a dramatically different atmosphere on tumblr compared to other platforms.

reblogs are literally the only way that things can "go viral". posts do not ever spread if people dont actively decide "i want to share this with my friends" and hit the reblog button, as well if their friends dont think the same. whats especially important is that this system is entirely end-viewer-oriented; it does not particularly favor reactionary content like an algorithm does. on a platform like twitter, any kind of engagement at all (replies, likes, qrts, etc) will be taken by the algorithm as an indication that the post is likely to resonate with people in some way, regardless of whether the post in question is receiving positive or negative engagement, and regardless of whether or not it is thoughtful or warrants that- not to mention how this problem is even further exacerbated by the character limits on microblogging social media platforms like twitter.

so people love tumblr for the fact that posts that you wouldnt share with your friends simply will not garner any popularity most of the time. this fosters a far more unique and interesting community and types of viral content, but youll notice that a little while ago, tumblr quietly added the "for you" page. realistically, nobody who actually has used tumblr since before that tab was added would ever even touch it because it is a spit in the face of what makes people love the platform. but they they knew most people dont vocally give a shit like i do.

the first problem arises when you consider that new users from places like tiktok and twitter will naturally assume the tab was always there and likely use it as their primary means of discovery. they wont learn or understand the way that the proper system tumblr uses of follows and reblogs actually works, which is steadily creating an enormous and frankly insurmountable divide between new and old users of the platform. its already fostering the kinds of passive interaction from people who dont understand tumblr's mechanics that is honestly genuinely harmful to the community overall. people misusing the tools that the platform has due to not understanding their function or assuming similarity to things they already know from other platforms. honestly, this in itself would not even be that much of an issue because we could simply ignore the new users who refuse to make the effort to understand how to use the app and fall for the advertising trap that is the for you page...

but the problem is getting way bigger as tumblr is slowly but surely pushing the "for you" page onto other dashboards. youll see posts with a little "based on your likes" banner at the top crop up more and more. theyre quite literally trying to subtly force an algorithm into place where there wasnt one before. (ive been made aware you actually can turn this off from within an entirely seperate settings menu from the regular one that you open on the notifications screen for some reason?? the fact that i didnt even know this after using tumblr for this long is wild, but it doesnt invalidate my argument in that they turned it on automatically without asking or telling users) its not egregious enough to make me leave yet but its definitely been happening more and more frequently to the point that i am seriously doubting if i should consider continuing to use the website/app. this is the biggest structural issue, but its not the only example of what im talking about where tumblr is trying to pretend to be like other contemporary social medias in order to lure in new users without teaching them how things work so that they can use them as advertising guinea pigs.

another example would be the abrupt and frankly pointless introduction of tumblr live, which is entirely unnecessary and has received near unanimous criticism from older users. but a bigger one is something that a lot of people, especially newer users, mobile only users, or those straight other platforms have probably not even noticed- the completely silent removal of subdomain urls. (which is why people here call usernames urls in the first place) this one is way more apparent of an issue as far as my questionable use of the term 'gentrification' goes.

if i asked you the question "what is tumblr?" what would you say? more than likely, you would answer that its a social media- and to be clear, you would certainly not be incorrect in that assessment, but thats not the important part. as far as i can see, thats the first thing that comes to mind when they think of what tumblr "is" in its contemporary state. but if i asked somebody that a decade ago, they would likely give a completely different answer; they would say its a "blogging site". that's because fundamentally, that's what tumblr actually is and is supposed to be. a social blogging host platform. the dashboard and tumblr.com screen was always only half of it as far as the functionality went.

everyone used to have a personal website for their blogs, and people would often hook their tumblr blog up with its own custom domain as well. tumblr was first and foremost simply a blogging platform with social elements. while that subdomain (personal website) functionality does still exist, and you can see it on my blog because i customized my blog's css themes, they actually completely silently added a switch that gets rid of it, and they automatically turned it off for anyone that hadnt fully configured that page already which slowly consolidates everybody towards the exact same uniform tumblr-blog style like what you see on the mobile site. it forces a uniform visual aesthetic and functionality, which is one of the things i hate the most. in the first place, the enormous number of people who hadnt set up their page properly is largely because tumblr has for a few years now actively discouraged, hidden, or obfuscated the 'personal website' aspect of the service for whatever reason they may have using a method ill get into in a moment. it may be because they thought it was too convoluted for newer internet users who dont understand, or it may have been a more calculated effort to abandon older infrastructure and replace it with replicas of more contemporary systems like are used in other social medias, but it doesnt make a difference to me.

blogging is all about self-expression, and restricting that defeats the point so fucking hard. on the mobile app, my page will look something like this.

though this screenshot is taken on desktop. the url here is "https://www.tumblr.com/virtueisdead". this is an entirely separate and pretty recently added functionality called the profile view, which is entirely different from how the website used to operate, which is demonstrated for clearly by the fact that this is not what my blog is actually supposed to look like. in fact, you cant even see what blogs are supposed to look like on the mobile app at all. if you open your browser and go to my actual blog url, "https://virtueisdead.tumblr.com/", you can see the intended design, which is very similar to my spacehey profile.

im honestly not unconvinced that they intend to eventually completely distinguish the old blogging system (akin to wordpress and blogger) from the social media aspect of the site entirely, though thats more of a crack theory. the fact remains that they began to silently get rid of people's actual blog pages, slowly forcing uniformity with the mobile app. (this is less important, but another part of that that drives me up the fucking wall is that i cant even use the tumblr website in my main browser anymore. they made it so it only works in certain browsers, and im sure i dont need to explain why that is absolutely insufferable behavior)

tumblr is absolutely trying to mimic other social media platforms like tiktok and twitter in order to attract users from them or give them a more 'familiar experience' and its absolutely a detriment to the experience for people who use tumblr specifically because it isnt like other corporate social platforms. this is a separate gripe, but...

ive said before and will say again, twitter users should not look for an alternative to twitter, they should just stop fucking using it. thats like going from smoking a cigarette brand that uses slave labor to one that doesnt. youre a more ethical person but youre still giving yourself lung cancer.

[starlightkun]

hello! do you perhaps have any tips/advice for those starting their first writing blog?

my tips r mostly gonna b mindset/writing tips rather than like "hacking the tumblr algorithm" type stuff so if that's what ur into then read on:

first up, let's get the few "notes/numbers" tips i can give u out of the way:

from what i can tell, most readers read from the tags rather than their dashboard, so pay attention to what tags people actually use for fics (throwing your tags in the general tags for groups/idols generally isn't as helpful for getting people to actually READ them than putting them in the actual fic tags bc people go into the general tags more for visual content [pictures/gifs] or updates from my experience. when people want to read fic, they go into those fic tags)

this is just a courtesy thing: please tag your stuff correctly! if your fic is, for example, a reader x taeyong fic, only use taeyong, nct, nct 127, or nct u-derivative tags, do not use any other unit (wayv, dream) or any other member tags, even if those other units or members are mentioned or have substantial roles! (a proper love triangle is different, u can include both legs of the love triangle). i assure you, if you spam tag, and put your stuff in places it doesn't belong (god forbid in completely unrelated fandoms or groups), the people who went in those tags looking for content actually about that thing, are just going to be annoyed at best, and pissed off and block u at worst so they don't have to see ur work in their tags ever again. some ppl use the block button very liberally (as is their right. spam tagging fics is annoying as hell)

also, try to keep up with what tags readers are actually going in to read. i've been reading & writing fic for 10+ years now, and have seen the evolution of language in fandom and around fic writing, primarily on tumblr and i've had to uh, keep up with the times to make sure my fics were following wherever the readers were. this shouldn't be hard if you're an active reader yourself but it was something that caught me off-guard when i realized we stopped using "imagine" at some point (dont even get me started on the change from lemon to smut)

post formatting! figure out how you want to format your actual fics on tumblr and stick with it! (trust me....it's exhausting changing ur formatting across dozens of posts.............. but if u rlly hate it after a while just commit and change it lol);; take inspo (dont just copy and paste bc that's tacky) from some of ur favorite writers, figure out what u like to see in a fic (heading text of the title, picture header, indentation, small text, word count, genre tags, content warnings, pairing info, preview, summary, dividers, etc.), and decide what u want to include in urs!

finally for this part: THERE IS NO TUMBLR ALGORITHM. EVERYONE CURATES THEIR OWN DASHBOARD EXPERIENCE AND ITS BEAUTIFUL AND MORE PEOPLE NEED TO PUT IN THE EFFORT TO DO THAT AND FOLLOW THE WRITERS THAT THEY ENJOY READING IN THE TAGS SO THEY CAN KEEP UP WITH THEM AND CONTINUE TO LIKE AND INTERACT AND ACTUALLY GROW AND DEVELOP A CONNECTION AND COMMUNITY

and now my more "mindset/writing" tips:

this is literally in my pinned: i write for fun and for free. i write things that i like, and because i enjoy doing it, and i post them on the internet for free. it is not my job, and coming online should not be stressing me out. and i've been able to keep that up for a year now since my comeback after an unexpected hiatus, and it's honestly been one of my best years of writing as an author.

i think that figuring out a way to write in a way that's sustainable and fun for you is the most important part. people will stick around if you can find that. i've been able to create a community around my works no matter what fandom i was in, for 10 years, and that includes 10 years ago when i was literally like 12, 13, 14 years old writing things that 12, 13, 14 year olds write. and i do think it's because i was always having fun, and interacting with the people who stuck around. and when i stopped having fun, i was done. nct has officially been the longest fandom i've written in, even discounting my year hiatus, which is crazy to think about btw

when you get someone who follows and interacts and is a recurring reader/reblogger/asker/commenter, i'm sure u will already be like '!!!!!' bc that's what my brain does anyway, but make them feel welcome. don't just focus on the tags and the numbers and the notes. what really makes me feel good at the end of the day is seeing the same few people come back and talking to them and knowing that they like my stuff so much they wanna read more. to me, the tags are a means to an end. the tags are a way to hopefully get a few more people like that to find my blog and follow and stick around for more in the future.

small blog org tip: make your blog easy to navigate for people who are checking it out for the first time from finding a fic in the tag or from someone else rbing it or smth! i always link my masterlist at the end of every fic, it's in my pinned and description, and i just try to make it very easy for people to find more fics of mine if they want to :)

i think that compared to other social medias, you'll find that it's slow but steady growth on tumblr (or at least, that's been my experience), but as long as you're writing what you like, it'll make the rocky start feel a little less rocky (i know it sucks when ur not getting any notes. i know. i promise. it's like bringing a cake to a party and nobody eats it. but sometimes u just have to have a piece of ur own cake and go home and bake another one bc u like baking and hope maybe next time everyone will see it)

and just remember that this is your blog! post stuff you like! don't be afraid to let people see the personality of the person posting all these fics that they're reading. most people like knowing that kind of stuff, even outside of stuff like ur bias or fave unit or wtv. i make all my unhinged posts (which, admittedly, have ended up costing me some followers but if u can't handle me at my unhinged perfume jungwoo posts then u don't deserve me at my buzzer beater sungchan) and post pictures of bread and complain abt work or whatever in addition to all my stuff about my wips and then the final fics. i think treating ur blog like an actual blog does a lot to make it feel like there's a real person behind the acct

[rubbership]

i download all my favorite songs off of mp3 rip webbsites, and listen to every individual song on repeat until i need something else, i dont do playlists and i especially dont do randomized playlists or playlists made for me???

i dont watch tv unless i have a very specific show i want to watch in mind or have specifically something new i want to try. if i don't have streaming services i just won't engage with the tv at all. i'm someone who doesnt like tv in general, it is very hard for me to watch tv.

i don't engage with the tiktok algorithm correctly, this kind of pisses off my partner but i don't like to like/dislike things a lot on tiktok mostly because im. curious? i like to see what it gives me with low interaction. the only times i try to "game" the algorithm is by liking every video under a specific tag of a weird animal i like (so i get a lot of "exotic" animal videos) but even that is like. an actively sought out activity.

i guess i do rely on the youtube algorithm but i've been watching the same youtubers for so long that i rarely rely on the algorithm and typically just go directly to their channels. which does make youtube irritating for me because i struggle to find new things to watch on there

i dont use other social medias. uhmmmm. im trying to even think of when else id even come in contact with an algorithm. i dont know. i really do try to avoid them and have for the longest tikme and its didnt start as a political statement its genuinely that i really am just someone with a lot of extremely niche and monotropic interests and algorithms piss me off because they have never known what i actually want and id much rather just do it myself.

people think im fucking around when i say i dont like algorithms and avoid interacting or engaging with them at all costs because theyre like oh sure the hipster conspiracy theorist doesn't use algorithms. but its true its not even a political thing i just don't use them well?? like even if i WANTED to. i am too direct for that. ive never had cable, ive never had like randomized suggested media or music. everything i consume or engage with is mostly entirely purposeful or sought out, the onlt exception is tiktok and even then i wouls not say thats where i actively search for information in general

[miiilowo]

hullo, whats your favorite platform to post on? thinking of going outside tumblr but i dont know which sites are good for new artists

honestly? tumblr. 100%. theres no hidden algorithm that pushes you around for one, which is GREAT. you want to self promo by reblogging your own art? awesome! nobody will judge you for it. wanna spam a shitton of tags so it gets more reach? awesome! nobody will judge you for it! theyre hidden!

once you DO gain a following, its a lot less draining than other social media. theres no urge to want to like...Keep up, yknow? You generally wont lose followers or traction for not posting, and even then, since followers are kinda hidden outta view on tumblr its less of a factor that could weigh on you. outta sight outta mind.

tumblr feels a lot more relaxed than other sites. more natural. stuff like insta feels really performative but i find you can kinda just chill out on here. post whatever you want. no insights either on your stats and how big your reach is. its just less all-mind consuming tbh. feels healthier

instagram sucks SHIT for new artists. it took me 4 years to reach 1.8k on insta and im nearing 3k on here and ive been here less than a year posting the same stuff. the only reason i have a following on instagram at all is because the buzzfeed unsolved dudes included one of my drawings in a fanart post and it boosted my account and got the ball rolling to finally put me into The Almighty Algorithm!

instagram also has a thing where it crops the image to be a better fit for insta which is fucking annoying as all hell and sucks for artists

i didnt spend too much time on twitter, but i can say its pretty decent for artists if youre willing to self promote. specially fandom spaces, cause (idk if this is still a trend) bigger artists would go 'hey! if youre a small artist, drop some of ur art + introduce yourself and ill retweet it' which is cool! big fan of that. on the flipside youll be using twitter. which i do not recommend for anyone ever. because its twitter. like seriously that outweighs anything positive i could say about it

you get better interaction on tumblr anyway cause of the tags. people arent afraid to lose their shit in the tags when they reblog ur stuff. on twt quote retweeting steals interactions from the artists and people are a lot less likely to just comment on something. and insta ONLY has a commenting feature, and it also gets you less interaction. reblogging is the primary way art gets around here, and once it starts getting around, looking at the tags is always my absolute number one fav thing

anyways. thats all i have to say. i think

[boatemlag]

tiktok and healthy media consumption: a base analysis and guide

one time. a while ago. i made a quick tiktok complaining about library patrons who take out a book and just leave them in random places (i'm not digging it up but just trust me i was frustrated)

it was a stupid vent post for me but lucky me, tiktok decided to blow it up. fantastic... /s people crawled out of the woodwork to make stupid jokes about how they would put it on the floor or how they know where the books go so they just put it back. this was before video replies to comments so i was fighting for my life in there clarifying my point

it was exhausting. the most obtuse and hostile misinterpretation of my point on an innocuous post i made for myself talking about my job. i logged off tiktok for a while after that

i had a few more incidents like that on tiktok before i decided it wasn't worth it. so what's my point?

you know how on tumblr you post blows up by chance and you get stupid comments for a while maybe some anons and then you either delete the post or it just dies down eventually? that technique doesn't work on tiktok because that video will continue to circulate if you dont priv it, people will continue reposting you to make fun of you, maybe use the audio even to mock you. come to your profile and say shit on other videos. the library post was small enough and stupid enough that i didn't get targeted hate. but then what about the time i was facing targeted transphobic and ableist harassment? it was relentless. it forced me off of the app.

and because my face was attached to every statement i made, i was mocked for my appearance, my choice in clothes, background, my voice, my mannerisms, anything they could find. i was told that they hope i die of COVID and someone took the part-time wheelchair user from my bio and threatened to "make it full-time"

luckily i didnt have other social media linked. but if i had, i could have expected to be gawked and and potentially harassed there. i don't have thick skin. i'm not ashamed to say that i don't. but the point is is that your face being attached to your opinions and the tiktok algorithm spreading shit far and wide based on engagement and a roulette of random shit is genuinely harmful and dangerous, especially to kids and other people who may have even thinner skin than i do.

the problem with tiktok, besides some of the questionable and "cringe" shit i've seen on there from someone saying the r-slur is reclaimable by people with adhd and the numerous other insane takes on there, is something more sinister.

your face is attached to everything you say and do unless you're very careful about it. self explanatory.

whether or not you connect your contacts to tiktok is a courtesy. the algorithm is uncannily good at showing you family members, acquaintances, people who went to your high school. they will figure it out based on the people you interact with and the content you make, and they will show you that content. yes, this has resulted in people being outed to their parents and jobs. yes, this has resulted in serious consequences for children posting shit about abusive parents, or more broadly for abuse victims and survivors in general.

radicalization happens fast. like really fast. because tiktok is constantly monitoring what you interact with on and off the app, they're constantly refining what the algorithm shows you. this means if you interact with one seemingly harmless person's post, tiktok will show you some posts from their circle. and since there's endless content, endless scrolling, and people spend hours trapped in there, that circle can expand quickly from a meme to reactionary ideology very quickly.

the dangerous propagation of misinformation as fact. tiktok rewards interaction. the more someone interacts with a post, the more widespread it gets. the more its created for shock value or if its creator utilizes a part 2, that engagement goes up. you can just say shit with no sources whatsoever and it becomes "common knowledge". people who "look like experts" gather cult followings.

the wider capability for targeted harassment. this one is a trend that has been happening on the internet for a while. it's become easier and easier to find ways to harass and stalk someone you dislike. there are a multitude of problems with this. (i will mention that in a moment.) this combined with the trend towards "dark humor" and "being a hater" and "rude equals funny" has some pretty dire consequences. e.g. the girl who posted a video of herself cracked out and overdosing which went viral and people were mocking. the rapid cycling of meme content propagates this as well.

the development of an "in" culture as well as a further of "us vs. them" mentality. again, not unique to tiktok, but enabled by the algorithm and the attitude in gen pop that tiktok is mandatory. if you don't get the memes you're "out". i don't feel the need to expand on this because it's been covered extensively in other contexts.

the unexpected consequences of accesible targeted harassment. people are increasingly monitoring everything they do and say, and not in a "wah wah i can't be racist now" way, because no, racists and bigots are not punished on tiktok. (cancel culture is not real for the privileged!) rather in a superficial way, such as what do you like/wear/talk about/share/eat/do/talk like? this is bad with adults who have developed as a human, but for children it is incredibly damaging to be placed under constant scrutiny and surveillance by not only your peers but billions of strangers.

there's more to this. this is not a comprehensive list. but i've laid out the basics of virality, recognizability, and digital peer pressure in a way that can be used to examine the types of user made content we engage with. there are a few main things to think about:

who am i interacting with? is this person affiliated with any reactionary groups? is this person a literal child? is this person making an honest mistake or being willfully harmful? did this person make this post with the intention to be a comprehensive nuanced post or were they doing it for themself? was the intention personal or viral content? is this bait?

is how i'm engaging going to continue this cycle? is this productive? is commenting on this post rather than reporting or blocking the content going to spread it further? is interacting with this post going to tell the algorithm that i want to see more of this content, even if it is something i dislike? if i interact with this post am i spreading it unintentionally to my circle and exposing this rhetoric to others whom it may harm or radicalize?

do i want to put my face on this video? do i want to put my voice on this video? do i want to reveal personal information? would i be safer or happier if this post were friends only or my account were private? is temporary notoriety worth the price?

the answer to these questions are always case by case, and it's up to an individual to decide. but i think approaching internet and tiktok specifically with a do no harm, take no shit mentality while also protecting yourself and your friends, is the responsible way to engage with social media. and as always, try to engage with friends irl as much as possible and on apps other than tumblr/twitter/ig/tiktok. (texting is a good option, and calling is a great option. even being in the same digital space on a call is different than spending time alone consuming endless content thoughtlessly). i hope this helps someone, and i hope everyone enjoyed reading!

[m0tiv8me]

I dont think post+ is viable at all. Tumblr never really was a place to monetize stuff directly, the most successful instances of it actually being done was still roundabout with artists using their blog as an archive/ad to hopefully get commissions or donations to a Kofi or something. It extended to other creatives like writers and crafters buy it still wasn't lucrative. I know you say that the money isn't really the goal but I doubt many people would be interested enough to take part in a post+ blog. Plus not to mention how the porn ban crippled tumblr even all the non horny sides had a mass exodus, I remember years ago you had a whole different crew of peopl who regularly interacted with your posts, its great yall found each other but the way tumblr works with small communities forming because of shared interests and people having to actively search for blogs and interact it never really had what you would call a real fitness side besides you and your friends. Most of the fitness blogs were just reposting hot people's pics from Instagram.

I remember a while back that someone had floated the option of starting a tiktok and honestly that seems like the best thing to use to get people involved if you do make a paid service(whether you stick with it being a post+ thing or decide to use some other subscription/donation based platform is up to you). Tiktok is very similar to tumblr once you get past the initial torrent of the mindless thirsttrapping dances that plague the straight side, the algorithm passively works to put things it thinks you'll like onto your fyp so by extension it let's your own posts reach way more people. It has its own little communities spring up just the same way that it used to be on tumblr and they generally are bigger. Your brand of motivational, thoughtful, and detailed blog posts would fit well on tiktok I think especially now that the videos can be up to 3 minutes long giving you the option to make instructional stuff as well as more of the same that you already do. You would even have to speak if you don't want to what with the built in voice over function. Not quite the same but ive personally seen a few people be anonymous creators on there, most notably this one guy who has a full master chief suit on that never talks but does motivational/funny posts. Tiktok much like Instagram is absolutely packed with fitness influencers but most are very generic 20 something boys that don't put much effort into the content they put out. Plus a lot just end up becoming fatphobic/misogynistic gym humor pages so your style would be a breath of fresh air and would likely do well. You're definitely fit/hot enough to catch peopl's eye as well, and being in such great shape in your 40s makes you stand out even more. There a few downsides though, the comments can get pretty bad with so many trolls around but honestly I feel like the benefits and potential to grow your fanbase are worth it. You don't even have to be solely fitness content, most people do better when they integrate their personality and other interests as well so you could definitely geek out ove marvel stuff as well or make little minivlogs and the like. Having more of an audience would give you that extra commitment you're looking for and would make it so more people would be up for a paid version if you go through with it.

A lot of valuable insight here. Thanks for taking the time to write it all up. TicTok continues to be a highly suggested platform. I’ll have to give it some added thought.

[endcant]

aimless musings on subgenre, citypop, and internet subcultures

theres something very interesting about watching citypop become very mainstream in korea and watching that feed back into both western listeners’ opinions and also into the sometimes-cynical efforts of a variety of kpop producers

a lot of people in the youtube/kpop sphere talk about the growth of citypop as if it were a spontaneous wave that appeared out of nowhere with mariya takeuchi’s plastic love getting picked up by the youtube algorithm in like 2018 or whatever, but thats a very like online-ignorant view of the interaction between vintage japanese music and worldwide online EDM production. citypop has been used in future funk and vaporwave for almost a decade by now, and, as a result, a number of citypop songs took off on social media here and there before plastic love’s acceleration— dress down by kaworu akimoto is one of the big examples off the top of my head, but there’s likely many many more.

“Plastic Love” by Mariya Takeuchi (1984). if you haven’t heard this yet, you’d better listen to it now. The video that first went viral was uploaded in 2017

“Selfish High Heels” by Yung Bae, Macross 82-99, and Harrison (2014) is a popular Future Funk remixes of Dress Down by Kaoru Akimoto (1986)

people who haven’t been very aesthetically literate online over the years— musically or visually, since those things are tied in subcultures— treat things like they come from nowhere. there are ongoing subcultural conversations that lead to certain aesthetic choices, and when someone tries to cash in on a trend without understanding what the trend is, that leads people to call bullshit. calling bullshit is not meanspirited, in my opinion, because it very much is like somebody who can’t speak a language getting up in front of everybody and saying “hey, i’m fluent!” and then speaking some vaguely that-language-sounding nonsense. of course people who genuinely speak that language will be outraged instinctively. it feels like being mocked.

that’s why the difference between music producers picking up on a trend cynically and music producers picking up on a trend with earnest interest in that trend’s origins feels different, even if the producers are similarly distant from the original subculture that produced that trend.

“Lady” by Yubin (2018) committed hard to the 80s JP citypop aesthetic, musically and visually, down to the sets, all fairly early in the major resurgence.

i’m sure that anyone with a passing familiarity with citypop and kpop can ascertain that not all kpop producers know what citypop is and what makes it citypop. all they know is that it is on-trend and they have to make it. not all kpop listeners know what citypop is and what makes it citypop. all they know is their idol said citypop as a buzzword in their little prepared statement. all this results in some interesting moments for me as a Music Fan, Online.

here is where i get to the thing that spurred this post: loona “did a citypop” for their japanese comeback. it doesnt sound like citypop.

“Hula Hoop (Citypop Version)” by Loona (2021). It has very odd percussion rhythms and mixing for citypop, no real attempt at a citypop verse, and strangely sparse gestures towards citypop in the form of a few seconds of bass and some synthesized orchestral embellishments that were taken from the original mix …all in spite of a very disco-inspired melody that should have worked perfectly for citypop

this is not a very big deal, and im not mad about it or anything. when a kpop act i like gets saddled with an unfortunate B-Side track i dont tend to take it very hard. however, it did raise a little bit of musical discourse in the loona fandom— in the form of remixes.

“hula hoop if it was actually a citypop song” by loonahatetwinks and Olivia Soul on youtube. this one has an original instrumental that is spot-on for contemporary k-citypop

My most favorite one of these remixes is a futurefunk remix by ZSunder, one of the very best LOONA fan producers. The fact that ZSunder thought to make a future funk remix at all speaks more to an understanding of the mutually supportive relationship between citypop and EDM genres than most kpop citypop producers or fanmixers seem to care to know about.

“Hula Hoop (Future Funk Mix)” by ZSunder is futurefunk made and mixed with such love that it has the infectious summery energy of a polished, big-name future funk hit

in the comments of this video, some people seemed to get the citypop-future funk connection and some didnt. many did get it, don’t get me wrong! but also, its not all that surprising for some kpop-focused listeners to not know much about EDM subcultures and the reasons behind various trends among producers, since kpop as an institution tends to take influences from any genre and culture it likes and then decontextualize those influences by just having their names used as buzzwords in the blurbs the idols have to recite when variety show hosts ask them about their latest single. this isn’t a criticism of the genre or the fans really, it’s just a part of the kpop industry that is used to add shine to an endless firehose-like stream of polished pop tracks. there are some issues with using whole genres and subcultures with complex histories as buzzwords, but god help us if we ever want a pop industry to give its influences their dues.

anyway, the intention behind ZSunder’s future funk Hula Hoop remix happened to remind me me of why i love Yukika’s discography so much, especially the Soul Lady album. I’ve seen some reviews online baffled by parts of Soul Lady, because the album in general is an exploration of that relationship between citypop and modern/internet EDM. i’ve seen plenty of Soul Lady reviews especially baffled by pit-a-pet, saying something along the lines of “what’s with the modern-sounding dance track in the middle of a retro album?”, but i think that pit-a-pet is a futurefunk-inspired track, at least in the chorus. considering both that and the Chill Lo-Fi Interludes, it seems like estimate’s team put together Soul Lady for Yukika in a way that shows that they love citypop and understand the online-specific electronic music subcultures that led to citypop’s resurgence.

“pit-a-pet” by Yukika (2020). the stacatto, bass heavy chorus is futurefunk enough, but the soaring orchestral part in the final chorus seals the deal for my interpretation.

“All Flights Are Delayed (1 hour version)” by Yukika (2020). Estimate literally released an hour-long youtube mix of one of the Lo-Fi interludes on Soul Lady as part of their promotion, clearly inspired by “Lo-Fi anime beats to chill out to,” which is another example of online producers from around the world using Japanese samples as a focal point of their music

Estimate, in the end, is still a Kpop production company, just the same as BBC, so they have no inherent claim over citypop, but the way that their exploration of subgenres clearly comes from passion and interest on the part of their production staff makes it so that their work with Yukika rings true. on the other hand, i really appreciate Ryan S. Jhun’s work on LOONA’s JP comeback, as well as on Not Friends, but the citypop mix thing was so clearly an afterthought to the point where fans of Loona who like citypop seem mostly just irritated by the cynical-seeming attempt.

heres one last good modern kpop citypop MV that has nods to the internet culture that led to its revival in the form of the videography— vaporwave, future funk, lofi, and other internet genres along those lines tend to have videos consisting of looping anime and vhs clips. future funk in particular is known for this, especially since a lot of future funk music, esp early future funk, is just loops of very short, catchy segments of citypop and disco songs. it’s all about the loops

“My Type” by Yoon JongShin ft. Miyu Takeuchi (2019). This song is so dedicated to the retro JP citypop sound that it’s almost beyond my personal taste. The singer, Miyu, was a headlining act at a seoul citypop festival and sang this song as part of her act (:

this video of “Only One” by Conscious Thoughts (2015) has a looped clip as an example for comparison with My Type. it also has a pulsing sidechain compressor working in time with its drum beat in a way that is common for future funk and that i think is a good example for my pit-a-pet yukika comparison to future funk

i guess the takeaway here is that media is more and more online, and the creation and propagation of digital audio and video content has been in the hands of literally almost anybody who wants to do it for the past two decades thanks to garage band and fruityloops and audacity and tiktok and youtube and bandcamp and soundcloud and myspace and newgrounds and p2p file sharing and so on and so forth. and therefore like… as with all things, the consumer class more and more is also the creator class, and therefore every member of an audio-visual subculture will have the ability to discern what is and isnt made with knowledge of the audio-visual language of that subculture

[atozfic]

To be honest i dont write my fanfics here. I feel like i must share this. A lot of good fanfics writers are spreading/elsewhere out on different websites. Im not saying delete your account and look else where. Its a gray area because tumblr tags are really messed up. I write my fanfics on wattpad but i read pretty much everywhere and come across amazing and talented writers.

Sorry i hope i wasnt being ride with my other ask i just saw your recent ask and though maybe i could help 👉👈😊

i'm aware a lot of fic writers have moved on to other platforms, which is something i have a deep respect towards but it's not something i see myself doing. i've written on wattpad, i've written on fanfic.net, i've written on ao3, and im under the deep belief that fanfiction's biggest enemy is it's own readers.

yes, tumblr and it's messy tags are to partially to blame for the lack of exposure on this platform. but readers do far more damage to fanfiction than any algorithm or messed up tags. reading fanfiction is still something that's considered a guilty pleasure, something cringe worthy or childish. many, many people engage in the act of mocking and belittling fanfiction and those who write it, yet they're the same people who turn around and read/enjoy fanfiction.

the shame built around reading fanfiction has birthed a lack of interaction between readers and writers. silent readers- those who never interact with the story or the writer- are unknowingly killing the very thing they benefit from. this need to keep it a dirty little secret that someone reads fanfiction means less likes, less comments, less acknowledgement of a story's existence.

i didn't mean to turn this ask, nor topic in general, into this conversation but as i began answering your ask it all flowed out of me naturally.

i type all this to now say i write for myself. if i post my next fic tomorrow and get no interactions, i'll feel perfectly content because it's something i wrote and created for myself to enjoy, hence why i don't see myself moving to another platform any time soon.

also, don't apologise!! your ask wasn't rude at all and i appreciate them help! thank you <3

[somnilogical]

why do you double the quote marks when talking about rationalists? You write: > ""rationalists""

lol i pulled up reblog on my phone to explain this on your post when i saw it. but then i was like, i have other things to do this doesnt seem like its on my adequacy frontier for investment.

since we both thought it needed explaining, thats evidence that it actually is.

its because they used to be people actually trying to be more rational to save the world. then they were people who held up the self-image of being the kind of people to do that. and then they were the sort of people to say they were the sort of people to hold this up as a self image.

its like those images of someone holding a picture of someone holding a picture of someone pursuing ideal optimization.

like if you are fully optimizing, this is contiguous with generating new theorems. which is anti-inductive. so you should be surprised by your capabilities.

but if you are not doing your best, and say "but im limited", and decide in your heart to give up and let death claim you. but dont drop the facade, then you are play-acting saving the world and have a smaller range of things to do. you stop encountering the unexpected and truly surprising and the range of your optimization contracts.

the people i encountered seemed to be play-acting people who were play-acting saving the world.

i expect its gotten even worse after we obliterated much of the decaying illusion holding together the cult.

giving people more self-knowledge via their interactings with us seemed to make those who were evil double down on their evil and become evil-with-more-explicit-metacognitive-awareness. (this is happening everywhere, not just with the ""rationalists"", people mostly arent even making a pretense of appealing to fake moral reasoning or act like they expect others to act like something is missing when they dont.

see: ziz telling the cops that she wants her phone call and the cops saying that she must have watched too much tv. people openly saying they are okay with arbitrarily bad things because of their carnism or the heat death of the universe.

because injustice is contagious, any sustained defense of evil, gets you arbitrarily large amounts of evil. and with the internet you can see basically all the arguments and so sliding in either direction happens faster.) it has also made the not-evil people ive talked with, much more powerful at fighting.

its pretty OP to clip ahead in logical time and live for something better than the best possible thing you can imagine. one of the main things slowing this down is lack of awareness of everyones algorithms and being efficient wrt tenuki and vengeance against people who are talking with you just to crush your spirit and make you accept death and want to draw out your investment in them as long as possible.

[frillshark-fr]

How do you get people to always buy your dragons? Genuine question

i was gonna say something like “haha i have no fucking clue” but that would be a lie i think about this a lot actually so i might have some insights i’ve been breeding dragons as my primary activity on FR since i started playing FR (in 2014...) and people have only started actually buying dragons from me consistently like, 5-6 months ago, despite 2-3 attempts at running a genuine hatchery onsite that always died due to lack of interest & not really being worth the effort. 

so ive thought a lot about what the hell is happening now and why my dragons are suddenly consistently selling and I think ive come down to these being the main points of advice i can give: 1. make friends! be friendly! don’t be weird! be a cool and fun person to interact with! 2. post consistently. post your dragons consistently. post about other stuff consistently. just be an active member of the community 3. POST YOUR SHIT IN THE “#FLIGHT RISING” TAG. THIS IS PROBABLY THE ONLY TRUELY HELPFUL THING I SAY IN THIS POST 4. make pairs that are sexy as hell and be openly proud of them. make dragons and pairs that you like, not what you think will necessarily sell. people can tell when you like stuff and being genuinely passionate about something, whatever the fuck it is, will get other people passionate as well longer versions/explanations under the cut because man this got a mile long. i wasn’t kidding when i said i think about this a lot and i am so sorry if you wanted something concise and useful

1. to be a little glib. i am mutuals/friends with more clout in the FR community than I do kjdshfdsfdhjhkfdf shoutout to everyone who draws their dragons really good on a regular basis because i am riding on your coattails to sell my dragons. i love you this was never my intent, obviously! DO NOT BEFRIEND PEOPLE BECAUSE YOU THINK YOU WILL GET STUFF FROM THEM IT’S JUST A REALLY BAD THING TO DO TO PEOPLE!!! i wouldn’t be friends w/ people if i didn’t genuinely like and get along with them! no amount of pixel cash is worth putting up with people you dont like or abusing people you admire!  but i’d also somehow feel wrong to just... neglect mentioning this factor. idk it’s probably a self-esteem thing sjdkgfhdsf i just Don’t feel like my #success has been totally out of my own effort because its not like im #hustling or whatever i just posted dragons and stuff happened

-----

2. being consistent! just. posting consistently! posting Every Hatchling I Have and Talking About Them On Tumblr!  Once I had a couple nests just sell super fast likely due to aforementioned clout, i was emboldened to just post more of my nests more often and I swear this has more effect than anything else. i just needed the self-esteem boost to Start Doing That posting consistently makes ppl follow u for ur content which gets even more people to look at your dragons which gets more people to buy your dragons.

-

2a. Also just post a lot in general, even if you aren’t necessarily posting about your dragons for sale. it definitely helps! just be friendly and active and people will come

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3. post your shit in the tag. not in “#dragon-sales” or “#fr-dragon-sales” or anything weird like that because I don’t know if anyone actually looks at those, but people definitely browse “#flight rising”. no matter how many followers you have, more people will see your content if you post it in #flight rising than if you just chuck it into the void. 

-

3a. however! do not put links into the post if you want it to actually show up in the tag. tumblr is cool in that it doesn’t actually matter that much when you post something, the same way it really matters on twitter bc twitter has algorithms that decide for you what it thinks you want to be seeing whereas tumblr just shows you everything in chronological order. if you post something into the tag at 1am... it will still be there at 2pm when people log on and start scrolling.

the only thing tumblr seems to consistently hide from a tag (and possibly a dashboard, but idk) are posts with links in them, as a half-assed attempt to limit spam. instead of linking to your sales tab/to the dragons directly in the post, reblog it with the links instead. to reduce latency between a post going up and the links being available, i type out the links in the initial post, cut them, post the thing into the tag, then very quickly reblog, paste the links, and post the reblog jdhfsdf. i don’t know if that benefits anything really? but it can sometimes take me a while to type links, so if i posted, pressed reblog, typed up all the links, then posted, it’d be like ~15 minutes where someone may see the post, think “oh i would like to buy those dragons”, then can’t find the link, think “oh well, i will just find it later”, scroll on, and just... completely forget about it. so uh. go quick?

-

3b. the armchair sociologist in me also thinks self-reblogging has the added benefit of like... you know how people are more likely to tip a barista when a dollar is already in the tip jar? or how people are more likely to take one of those little tabs on a flyer if one of them is already missing? i think that works with notes, too. i don’t know why i think that or why it happens i just swear once a post gets 1 note, suddenly it gets Even More Notes, and if it doesn’t get any notes for a while it will sit at 0 notes until the end of time. so giving yourself 1 obligatory note makes people more likely to interact. i think

-----

4. all of these are hard to quantify but this one is especially so: have cool and unique dragons. make your pairs sexy as hell. don’t put all your eggs (hah) into the one basket of selling dragons that are technically “popular”. we have all seen triple white/triple obsidian/triple orca/triple any other popular colors and cherub/pere/stained or wasp/bee/glim pthahlos or whatever. they’re pretty! we get it! but everyone has had one and everyone has had those pairs and market for dragons like that can be super oversaturated. try to break free from that and sell dragons that people can only get from you. I can’t tell you what to do though bc that rly depends on you. make pairs that you find exciting or interesting and people will feel that. i have a very specific theme and aesthetic that i don’t feel like is especially common on FR and i am genuinely very enthusiastic about it. marine shit is my Thing:tm: both on and off FR and dragons are one of my many ways of expressing that   if you have a Thing:tm:, either some fr-centric aesthetic (like being super into plague or earth or light or something) or something more general (such as any of the -punks or -cores)... just fuckin roll with it honestly. if you’re goth? make got h dragons. like scene stuff that looks straight out of a middle school in 2010? rock that hot-topic lair. outdoorsey type? make dragons that look like you’d meet them on a hike in the woods. it really works with anything!  people can tell when you really love something and i know that seeing someone really love something, even if it’s not necessarily MY thing, makes me really excited too!! 

-

4a. never show fear. people can smell fear. never be like “well this one isn’t that good” because suddenly now you’ve planted the idea that it’s ugly in other people’s heads when they may have really liked it had you not accidentally suggested to them that it’s an ugly dragon. people are EXTREMELY suggestible to even VERY minor cues so be always a little bit bolder than you think you should be you’d be surprised at how many times ive been like “eh, this one’s kind of a dud, i’ll probably have to exalt this one when the auction expires” and then that hatchling is the first to sell. never ever ever ever decide what other people like for them. always act like your dragons are the hottest shit in all the land and Believe It. this is what people mean when they say “fake it till you make it”

- 4b. also, idk if it’s true of everyone but it’s really off-putting to see someone having serious pity-parties for themselves, on sales posts or otherwise. ive had bad experiences with people who are uncomfortably quick to self-depreciate (because they were using their genuine self-hatred to manipulate me or my friends), so i might be a little more trigger-happy about avoiding this behavior than others, but don’t weaponize your sadness to guilt people into doing what you want. it’s really not cool.

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okay i think that’s my entire manifesto on how i do dragon selling. anon i am so sorry im sure you were expecting like “believe in yourself :)” and here i am dissecting dragon selling like it’s a frog in a science class

edit: AFTER ALL THAT I STILL THOUGHT OF ONE MORE THING. It’s not really a Point, just a Reminder:

i don’t post about all the times i have to exalt dragons that don’t sell. you are seeing me being very selective about what i post. you dont sit and stare at my lair or click through offspring lists or check old sales posts. there are a lot of times where someone just doesn’t sell. even now when i’m selling stuff pretty consistently i will still sometimes have dragons that don’t sell for seemingly no reason. even dragons I think are sure to sell will sometimes just... not. and that’s ok! you gotta just be.. ok with that. it’s par for the course. i typically list dragons for 7 days on the AH, give them a couple more days after their auction expires (partially because i forget, partially to give them a grace period for people to pm/ask me about them), and then exalt them after that point. w/ some dragons that i don’t think got a fair shake for one reason or another (such as the sales post not showing up in the tag or something) i do a little clearance (like the halloween dragons i recently posted) but for the most part if they don’t sell, i just exalt them. 90% of the time i don’t even bother to level them up i just press the exalt button and call it a day. it’s fine

[oroblio]

hi internet

i know there's a very small percentage of likelihood that anyone will see this, but that's kind of the point. today i've been reminded again of the amount of performativism we all, as young users of the internet, partake in. this has prompted me to trust some of my protective instincts and delete most social media, but, at the same time, it has made me want to act on this performativism the most, so here i am, acting on it, ignoring the signals of "omfg dont do this" that the rational part of my brain is sending and just make a giant fucking public journal entry of my thoughts in the moment.

i watched cj the x's most recent video on bo burnham, it was honestly really emotionally draining (2h30 of talking about how social media is infiltrating the minds of young people and modifying their responses and behaviors will do that i guess). i'm generally a pretty internet oriented person, i've been on here since i was a tiny child, and my view of it is not exactly great morally, i think social media might just be the worst medium by which humans have ever expressed emotion. its all for profit. we know this. platforms aren't really made for us they're made for others to profit off of our attention. i've been conscious of that for a bit. that's why earlier this year i changed all my methods of internet usage to exclude google.

people asked me why i did it, and my usual response is smt about privacy or the like, but every single person i've met and talked to about it seemed to think that was kind of weird :"what privacy do you want exactly? do you have something to hide ? is there a reason for us to do this when ads being targeted to us are made to improve our life"(yes that was a real line quite a few people told me) and i had no response to that other than "it creeps me out to think somebody else has that much info on me, info i don't even know myself". i think i have a better answer now though

i don't want my life to be a commodity

i don't want my life to be something to be sold to the highest bidder

i know it doesn't have that much value, but i feel like caving in to all the small things collected about you over the years you've been online is a bit of an affront to your dignity

you are human

your life, relationships, experiences and emotions deserve respect

its not a question of law its a question of making profit on the back of somebody that doesn't even know where that profit might come from

whenever i think about my internet usage i feel soulless

i honestly don't quite know where that comes from

i just want to be able to exist, online and offline without feeling the existential dread that comes with not being performative

i don't post, but i do narrate everything i do in my head like i am

i don't interact online, but i know that any algorithm can figure out what i'd like to see next and i feel almost violated

i don't trust this perpetual sense of danger, i guess, that comes with existing online

i've met so many incredible people through it

i've discovered so many interests, learned so many new things

why does that have to be monetized, used, why do i have to live my life without using social media or interacting with anyone who does to relieve this sword of damoclès hanging above my head

i just want to not

i want this to not happen to people who are starting to use the internet

i want them to be able to live without constantly feeling like they're being watched

why do we all want to go live in the woods without social interaction or any pressure? isn't it because we've had enough ?

tumblr may be the least of the offenders, but it's still on the list, its still taking advantage of all of us

worst thing is we cant really get off of social media anymore, all our lives are built around it, built on it. i want to go ahead and delete everything so badly i cant even express it, but i still have school online, i have people trying to reach me online, i cant use a map and i don't have a watch, i don't think i able to get off this shit until i'm at least 26, with enough money to go in a small village with no internet and no cell service and live the rest of my life on the money i have, selling whatever i make there

i want my generation and the following generations to be ok, but maybe that isn't possible right now with the tools we have

we don't know where to start to enact change

its all too much at once

we shouldn't quit just yet but if you feel like its too much as well, learn to take a break, just go be one with the silence of reality

go touch grass or whatever

this is all unimportant, i'm not making this because it has any value, but i do think my thoughts deserve to be written down somewhere accessible, as do yours, as do everyone's, not all the time, but when it feels like the right time

have a nice day

[mollydollyjournals]

Its Thursday 1st July and I hit post limit so all I can do is update this post

I just want to drink til i pass out

9:46pm - oh when did i post this? Doesnt matter i guess. It really annoys me that the daily post limit applies to all blogs you have. I have 2 and i follow a lot of NSF- stuff so i have so much in my queue for my other blog, and i tend to post more immediately for that so i dont end up with a massive backlog, but thaats when i hit the limit. Whatever it is. I basically just wish i could set the queue to post more often when i have more there. Just post every 15mins or whatever and it'd go through quicker without me having to do it myself

Idk it doesnt matter i guess. Im still just venting all my bullshit here that i cant put anywhere else. But now is when i need it. I want interaction and company but i dont want to bother anyone and I dont know what to do with it. I dont have it in me to try to be a person right now. Tumblr is for messy. At least thats how i do.

But once you hit post limit it apparently doesnt even let you delete stuff to post anything else. I havent been here in years really so i totally forgot. Plus it could have been different anyway. Idk. Guess i will just drink until i disintegrate or something

10:20pm - it just makes me feel worse. I know theres a reason for post limit and its not the end of the world. Just it doesnt reset til 5am and I'll be asleep by then which means for the rest of today i cant actually say anything, and that kinda fucks with my derealisation/depersonalisation/whatever it is. I need acknowledgement to feel real. I need people to remind me that i exist. Even just a little. Its stupid and insecure but i do. Everything is worse since covid and being stuck in a house with someone who barely acknowledges my existence. I feel like a ghost. I feel netter at least a little temporarily if someone just sees and acknowledges me. And currently i can't do anything about that. Nobody is going to go to my page(s) and see whats up, its not that kind of thing. Even if it was they still wouldnt. I put on my other social media fucking ages ago that i was really struggling, then i disappeared, and it took days for it to get noticed at all. Then only 3 people acknowledged it. People have their own lives and there are algorithms etc so i cant be angry at them, but the end result is i still feel really alone.

I often feel like i want to just talk to people. Only a select few. Its not that i necessarily need to talk about "deep" stuff, but i need to know that i could if i needed to. Or if we just both happened to be in that mood at the same time. Like how i dont wanna talk about something totally innocent and generic with someone who turns out to be racist or whatever.

I dont know. Maybe i do need to talk some shit through right now. Doesnt matter either way. Ill most likely just be back to this post later to say more about how i dont really feel like being alive.

10:39pm - I hate that im like this. I dont know if its reasonable or not. I used to be someone who wantes so much space. I still dont feel like i want to always be around people. I must have some individuality somewhere. But i cant find it. Since the pandemic hit especially, it just highlighted everything ive been missing and trying to supplement. I need things to change. But i dont have a hope of doing so while i feel like this. Im so lost. Ive spent my life trying to be confident in myself and ive run my reserves dry. I so rarely get any help topping up. I fucking hate the whole Strong Black Woman trope. Im tired. Ive carried my family since I was 13 and romantic partners have expected me to carry them too. I need to be held and comforted. I need support. If nothing else i need to just be acknowledged. I dont feel like a person. Im invisible and inaudible so much of the time and apparently that only changes when someone wants to see or hear me. When do i get to be a person in my own right? When does someone actually see or hear me for who i am and care about my existence regardless of what it does for them

10:54pm - its the worst of my mental health, tbh, that i dont feel like its worth trying anything if its not going to be acknowledged and welcomed by anyone else. Existing included. I feel my worst and most suicidal when i cant have anyone remember that i exist. Because maybe i dont. Maybe people dont miss me or think of me unless theyre reminded for some specific reason. And i say these things because i want to be proved wrong but why would anyone.

I want to cut. I hate this stupid post limit. I could have at least distracted myself by reblogging stuff for a bit. Im still spiralling. I need a distraction and there isnt one and there wont be one and if i even get through tonight itll just be another reminder that in the end im alone

11:24pm - something feels particularly cruel about not being able to post here, even if i delete stuff. Its just an app sure but its the closest thing i have to therapy. I came back here specifically because i was struggling posting on my regular social media and having people not pay any attention. I thought id make a fresh anonymous account where i could vent and my shitty brain couldnt take it personally if nobody acknowledged it. Now i just have all that shit going round my head and nowhere to put it. Im right back where i started. Nobody will read this. If they do they wont care. If by some chance they did they'll be put off by me being so negative.

"One day someone will hug you so tight all tour broken pieces will fit back together" yeah sure. Whatever.

[yeoldontknow]

I finally made my own tumblr and i feel pretty happy bcuz im finally letting others see my writing but i wanted to know what you did for your stories to like, “get out there?” Btw i LOVE your stories im a new fan of EXO and ur stories r amazing keep it up!!

hi there. welcome to tumblr! thats so exciting! i hope youre enjoying your time here! im going to preface everything i say by advising a few things. 

firstly that i dont consider myself an ‘out there’ blog. im exceptionally proud of the amount of followers i have, even though the number itself is different depending on perspective. to some, this number is remarkably small. to others, this number is enormous. and the amount of readership that occurs on my fics really doesnt match up the to the numbers the way you think it would. so when you say ‘out there’ just keep in mind this is really...dependent on so many factors and depends on your own personal definition of what that means. 

second, the things i list that were part of my experience may not work for you or match up to your experience. theres really no algorithm or formula anyone can give. so again, you can take all of this with a grain of salt. 

putting this under a cut to not clog dashes <3 

- make use of tags and tag appropriately. when youre starting from 0 (as everyone on this website does) the first and primary way you get any of your writing out to the public (beyond...posting it lmao) is tagging. only the first five tags show up in searches when youre tagging on tumblr, so keep that in mind when you consider how many networks (ill discuss those later) you want to join. keep your tags relevant to what youve written, things like ‘member smut’ or ‘member fluff’ usually draws in a crowd. when i first started hero, i was tagging with ‘chanyeol x reader’ and ‘chanyeol scenario’ and those pulled in a bunch of readers too (that was 2 years ago tho, so idk how much a scenario tag pulls in anymore) 

- post in multiple places. i have an AO3 and a tumblr. most writers cross post to ao3 and tumblr, but others also have an asian fan fics account or a wattpad account (this is usually to prevent people plagiarizing on there). but most writers i know (tbh i think all) post in at least two separate places. 

- join a network. networks are so great for getting your work out there when you dont have a lot of followers or are new and dont have a lot of readership. theres so many out there you can join - some are specific to band and others are multi-fandom and only require that you be writing for kpop. my recommendation is to join two or three, because these networks will always require you use their tag in the first five. this is because the only way they will find your work to reblog it is by searching it, so tagging for two main tags and two networks is a surefire way to get your writing to the right people.

- talk to other writers/blogs. send asks, play ask games with them, tag them in things you know they like (example, even if i dont follow you but you tag me in something related to chanyeol i will always respond). leave feedback on their work. reblog their work and tag it well - either with your keysmash reaction, your thoughts, or your feelings. whatever you give into the community will come back to you.

***HOWEVER, i will say that dont be discouraged if writers dont reply right away. sometimes tumblr eats asks, deletes messages, or doesnt let them show up until the person can get to a computer. furthermore, most writers on here have regular jobs or families, so the time theyre on tumblr is very limited. and even more than that, theres a big question of age. for me personally, if i can tell a person is quite young or under the age of 18, i am less likely to fully go back and forth in banter with them because i am considerably older than that and thats inappropriate. im just pointing this out because i dont want you sending messages and getting discouraged if someone doesnt reply. theres a lot of reasons someone might not reply, and it may have nothing to do with you or be relate to something within your control. 

- if youre a new writer, join a beta network. theres networks out there where people willingly volunteer to beta writing, and you can also apply to be a beta. this helps improve your writing, which will help draw more readers, and will also create a community/friendship around you and your beta team.

- make a masterlist, even if you only have 1 written item. masterlists help people new to your blog see what you have written, find it, and read it OR see what you want to write. example: if youre writing for exo and you have a list for the entire band, ill assume that at some point youll write for chanyeol even if you only have a link for jongdae. make a masterlist and link it in your bio for easy access.

ok so thats...bare minimum how you get your writing out and circulating and possibly generating a community for you to engage with. but its really important for me to say the following:

if you are walking into this with an expectation that you will soon receive recognition or feedback or a large amount of notes, please please restructure this. in my years on this site, i have seen so many writers come and go because they start writing solely for the notes or the feedback. thats not a sustainable goal and it will suck the pleasure out of writing really really quickly. its so easy to get discouraged if you dont think youre achieving some arbitrary number that tumblr itself messes with just by changing rules or guidelines or the way posts show up on a dash. 

instead, challenge yourself to write things that interest you or to write different things within your stories. things like ‘i want to write a fantasy’ ‘i want to write a 5 part mini series’ ‘i want to write an angsty drabble.’ when you approach writing from this perspective, it keeps you consistent and motivated with your goals. and it also, believe it or not, make your writing come from a genuine place of love rather than a place of wanting interaction. readers can tell when someone genuinely loves what they write and when someone is just checking boxes they think will bring in feedback. 

also - please know that getting your writing out there is very much a ‘rome wasnt built in a day’ kind of vibe. ive been on this website for 2 years and there have been months where my notes and follower count is barely moving, and others where i feel like i get 200 followers in a week or hundreds of notes on something id posted a year ago. you cannot predict how long it will take for people to see your work, the only thing you can predict is that it will take time. honestly, again ive been here for two years and im still a pretty small blog. theres no magic formula to this. 

i hope all this helps!

[strawberryspeachy]

I had to stop watching the social dilemma when the fucking ai put someone in a relationship.... ummm no. She got into a relationship.

To me the film just feels like more ‘oooh technology scary! Old ways better - black mirror’ shit

Also rude to say my generation wasnt on social media in middle school - i had plenty of old ass social media in middle school like myspace

Growing up is hard. You used to only find out what was happening in school and if you or someone you knew didnt know another group in school personally - then you didnt know about their lives

The conversations were limited to breaks during school. If you were close enough you could talk on the phone after school. The weekends were the only time you could engage with others

When you dont interact with others often - theres less time to get to know them and realize you dont mesh. Less time for intense relationships either good or bad.

Before the internet people didnt share their deepest thoughts - or regret post at 3am. You didnt know what they were eating or watching. You didnt see the other people they interact with when theyre not talking to you. People couldnt show off photoshopped pictures of themselves and you only saw them in their best oufits friday and saturday

Maybe im entirely wrong but the internet felt free when i was in middle school. Corporations didnt know how to monitize it so the people who created content and platforms to talk with people - did it purely for fun.

Then capitalist got their grubby fingers on it and ripped all the fun away.

I barely ever see videos about silly made up characters there just to make me laugh. Im sure they exist but the algorithm doesnt let them on the front page

Then again. Maybe people dont wanna see it anymore? Idk

But i just cant get behind this ‘blame the technology- scary robot’ fear mongering.

People suck ok. Thats all there is to it. People. Just. Suck.

We are not in some new world where everything is more chaotic. I spent the entirity of high school telling my mom that. Bad things always happened. Horrible people always existed - you just didnt know about it.

Now everyone can post a story picture or video from anywhere in the world at any time. And they can show the world in real time.

Thats the only difference.

Imagine if people had the internet during the witch burnings or any other insane moment in history.

My mom always said “people werent like this when i was a kid” but yes. They were. But you only knew the small group of people in your town, like minded people, sensored by catholism. No one spoke their mind because they didnt want to be outcasted

But now not matter what you think you can find a community online. Doesnt matter if you just want to find other people who like anime or if youre a nazi - theres people.

And when people arent theatened with being outcasted - they speak their minds. Just like all the people who thought you should burn witches. If there was just one dude who threw out there one day ‘hm. Women who are um. Like witchy and stuff.... should be... punished! Right?’ And everyone was like uh wtf no - let them do what they want. That guy wouldnt have told people that witches float so if you throw them in a lake and they drown, they were innocent and if they float - burn them! People would have locked him away if he were the only one. So unless he decided to be a lone serial killer - he woulda just kept his ideas to himself

So just personally. I cant get behind this idea that its purely social medias fault. I blame the corporations that monetized everything. The people paying the “influencers” the eurocentric beauty standards that have been perpetuated forever.

And. Sorry. But also parents like the one in the first half of that video. If your kid breaks into something to get their phone that you told them not to use YOU TAKE IT AWAY FROM THEM

Also i turned off notifications from all my social media years ago. It is better that way. But i dont honestly think its a problem that the first thing i do when i wake up is look at my phone to see if anyone texted me.

I dont however appreciate that my work day never ends because employers can email and call me at any time of the day and expect a reply. That shits fucked.