#where 100 followers in 2010 were indefinitely more active and valuable to you than 3k would be today

[prairieprayer]

General Decrease in Social Media Interaction, Not Just Reblog to Like Ratios

I see posts about reblog to like ratio all the time, and I 100% agree that the reblog to like ratio on Tumblr has significantly decreased over the decade...

But I feel like it really isn't just Tumblr- it's social media in general. The same problem is on DeviantART with view to favorite to comment ratios... with comments equating to a reblog (or "interaction")

Take popular DA artist Griffsnuff. Sampling 20 random images from 2023, 2015, and 2010 and noting their averaged comment count:

(rounded up) 2010: 208 2015: 44 (78% decrease from 2010) 2023: 11 (75% decrease from 2015, 94% decrease from 2010)

Taking someone less popular but who recalls an avid community growing up- me:

2010: 3 2015: 0.75 (75% decrease from 2010) 2023: 0.7 (90% decrease from 2015, 76% decrease from 2010)

These are only two examples, but between a super popular DA artist and a nobody, there's a pretty consistent 75%-78% drop in interaction rate between 2010 and 2015, with another sharp decrease 7 years after that.

With Tumblr's reblog to like ratio also sharply dropping, it's possible the same can be said for other social sites, that "passive" interaction (liking/thumbs up/hearting) has overtaken "active" interaction (commenting/sharing/reblogging). An exception is possibly TikTok with its remixing feature which works, in a way, as a transformative response to the original content, and is baked into the app's culture... but I don't know what remix-to-like ratio it has, and TikTok doesn't exactly have videos from 2010 to reference for a then-and-now comparison.

Regardless, this kind of insane decrease in active interaction warrants more serious study from academics as a social phenomenom, to assess how legitimate it is and hypothesize the reasons (the algorithm? culture? attention span? over stimulation? marketing?) Because an artist like griffsnuff who is more popular than ever at 98k watchers and 13M views having a 94% decrease in comment rates after 13 years sounds... fake. Shouldn't interaction be going up...?

If someone at 98k can't even keep consistent interaction how does anyone with a smaller audience expect to get any? (No wonder why even at 870 followers on Tumblr, 65 on DA, and 95 on Twitter I see squat come from it)