#some day i'll go on a meta rant about these idiots

[theinvisiblequestion]

Gen, Fluff, Kaz/Tolya. Tolya returns to Ketterdam with a gift for Kaz.

[cookinguptales]

TIL that you can block anonymous users via your inbox! And if you do that, it also gets rid of any of their old messages! Which has the side effect of letting you know which anon wrote which messages!

Which I guess is nice because

It gave me confirmation that the one anon I suspected was the same one who keeps sending me stuff I just... do not wish to read (because it's so long-winded, passive-aggressive, and full of absolutely rancid takes) actually was that person, despite the fact that I have asked them repeatedly to just unfollow me. And now I'll never have to get one of their diatribes again.

Kind of a relief to know that actually, my inbox was not full of people who hate me! It was just full of like two people who were really dedicated to hating me! Which is very fucking weird of them!

I will never understand why people get so fucking mad because someone wrote some fandom takes they didn't agree with on their own blog. Just... block me and move on and read stuff from other users who agree with you. It's fandom, not WWII. It doesn't always have to be combative. I'm open to discussion, but if you're just here to curse at me or tell me I'm an idiot or go on a rant about "certain people in fandom" or just be a condescending douchebag... save your breath, maybe? I'm not going to change my mind; all you're doing is irritating us both.

I see takes I don't agree with all the time, but I am normal and well-adjusted (lmao) and I just... scroll. Or block them, if it happens repeatedly. Or if I really feel strongly about it, I make my own meta post about my own opinions without referencing theirs. If I feel irritated, I vent privately to friends. It is just never worth a fight on tumblr dot com. Everyone just comes out feeling bad.

Also like... very genuinely, I do not understand why people send me long anonymous rants via ask when they clearly don't actually want my input. I get that it's scary to make posts of your own with your own name attached (like... obviously, I am proving the risks of that rn) but like?? Stop trying to use me as a platform or something. Gather your courage and make your own fucking post. Surely that must be easier than sending me like 400 words in multiple asks whining about the ~state of fandom these days~ when I clearly disagree with you, then getting angry with me when I disagree with you.

I've pretty much decided to stop publishing those. I feel like it's probably just going to give people what they want? A platform for their vents without actually having to put their names on their ideas. I fully welcome anon asks (even very long ones!) that really want to discuss elements of canon or bring up ideas or ask me for my opinion. Even ones that don't necessarily agree with me, as long as they're respectful! But damn, some of you treat me like I'm not even a real person and I'm tired of it. You don't have to like my ideas, you don't even have to like me, but if you want me to engage with you, you gotta treat me with some semblance of respect.

Like... maybe I've been too nice? I try to answer all messages, even ones that are kind of shitty, as patiently as I can with as much good faith as I can muster, but like. maybe I do need to just tell some people to fuck off and/or delete their shitty bad-faith asks without reading them. Maybe I've emboldened people by engaging with these asks at all, idek. I really like ask culture on tumblr, but like. to be brutally frank, some of you are real shitheads with bad reading comprehension and terrible takes. You're not nice, and your ideas aren't interesting.

(I do just delete the ones that are just cursing or insults, typically, but I usually try to engage if there's any real content beyond that, and maybe that was a mistake...? Maybe you can't react to bad-faith actors with good faith...)

Anyway. This was a long and mystified post, but I really do feel much lighter knowing that the problem was less widespread than I thought (if... more concentrated than I'd anticipated) and that I will never have to hear from certain people again.

I'm probably going to leave anon off for a few more days just because I really do think I just need a mental break from wwdits for a few days, but I feel a lot safer turning it back on now. :')

[c-h-stevens]

I don't think Elon Musk is very competent but you've got to admit it's impressive how he managed to drive Twitter into the ground. I used to hope someone would buy it for pocket change and make it thrive again, if only to make him seethe, but I don't even know if it's possible to salvage anything at this point.

Unfortunately, breaking things is easier than creating them, and there's no real alternative. The Meta algorithm hates my guts so I can't go anywhere in Threads, and I hate Bluesky's guts so I resent the very idea of posting there.

Actually, I want to rant more about Bluesky. It's nothing more than a limp clone of pre-X Twitter, which would be enough for me to dislike it, because I always disliked Twitter even when it was halfway usable. Bluesky may not have an algorithm that prioritizes angry engagement, but the character limit means I'm forced to always be extremely blunt like I'm talking to dumb babies, because what if someone takes one of my posts* out of context?

What Bluesky reminds me of is this article about branding. It has some good advice, such as this:

Many spaces with two major players fall into a “better” trap. Box’s brand is a better version of Dropbox, but that does nothing to differentiate them. Better is actually worse. Different is what matters.

Bluesky isn't even trying to be anything other than Twitter but better, and that only really succeeds because Twitter is so abysmal right now. I really hate that you can't even thread posts and you're supposed to comment with a pin emoji if you want to pin one.

On the other hand, the reason why Tumblr is still around is because it isn't better than anything, but also nothing does quite the same thing Tumblr does. For example: the other day I saw a post about invasive species I liked and decided to reblog it, but then I scrolled down the tags and saw someone wondering about the actual chances of eradicating invasive species. That's something I know a little bit about, so I wrote a reply with links to the research that's been done recently on that subject.

That's a typical Tumblr exchange, but it's something that would've been incredibly hard to replicate on another platform. As long as this continues to be true, Tumblr won't die off for good.

I've stuck around for so long because I prefer that kind of posting to pretty much any other social media platform, but I honestly don't have any energy left to continue shouting at the void month after month, so I don't know how long I'll stay here.

*Feels weird to call something so short a post, but I'm not calling them "skeets". That's one idiotic name.