#if you joined post dashcon
Text
It is time. Time to travel back in time. The date? July 11th, 2014. The place? Schaumburg, Illinois. The event? Dashcon. What was this now infamous convention like to experience first hand? We get two former Tumblr employees and Dashcon survivors on to talk about their time at the Renaissance Hotel.
Thank you Amanda Ferri and @minusmanhattan for joining us! Drop comments, questions, etc., in our ask box or email us at [email protected]!
Credits and transcript in our reblog. You can find transcripts for this, and every other episode, here.
Find the posts discussed in this episode in this tag!
945 notes
·
View notes
Text
Weekend links
My posts
1) From earlier this week: “My ~longform posts are going somewhere else. Dreamwidth? Definitely previewed on Patreon and backed up there. Here’s an unlocked post about it. tl;dr: I know tech bros already scraped everything, but if you tell me you’re going to do it, I’m not gonna hand it to you. Maybe it’s a token effort, but there it is.” Of course I’ll still post links to new writing here.
2) Some people have March Madness. I now have the Hot & Vintage Movie Women tournament.
One of the best parts of the tournament (you may remember that Toshiro Mifune won the male matchup) is people reblogging and submitting pictures, further bio information, and personal anecdotes--that sense of the Tumblr collective scrapping for the pure love of their blorbos. I love Edwige Fenech’s eyes and her iconic eyeliner, and I had to step in when she went up against powerhouse Julie Andrews with only one small picture. No, I’m not letting Edwige go out like that. She won’t win, but the people must make their choice knowingly.
I also posted some pictures for Lady Tsen Mei, because I’d actually never heard of her and was curious. Also, because she’s going up against Musidora and that’s not an easy row to hoe, either. If you see matchups like that, where hotvintagepoll didn’t receive much to post about an actress--appealing to the people with a good picspam in the reblogs is where the fun comes in.
Bear in mind that running the tournament is an INCREDIBLE amount of work; this was Friday alone. Like, I don’t know the person who’s running this, but it couldn’t be me. They’re working with what they were sent, and here’s how we can be the propaganda we want to see in the world. I will jump in as necessary when Ava Gardner, Gene Tierney, Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard, and (on my mom’s behalf) Julie Christie show up. But there’s 512 contenders, and it’s going to be a hard fight.
(I am now reblogging the polls at only one an hour, and when I fall behind, that just means that people who missed them can catch up. Each poll lasts a week, after all.)
Reblogs of interest
You are invited to the assassination of Julius Caesar! If you joined Tumblr during the various internet shakeups last year, you may not be aware that the Ides of March is a major Tumblr holiday. You need to be.
People have always been people: an immensely long collection that may make you cry.
Respect for the Welsh language
The “Fool in a Field” theory of life in the universe
A helpful guide to some common birds here in the western US
The Forbidden Colors
“You get to drive away”: A Tale
I was not ready for this development in the Fairy vs Walrus debate
(Did William Butler Yeats believe in fairies? An anecdote from my grad school days)
(”While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a slapping”)
Video
“Recently I’ve been interested in what I’d like to call the historical lesbian wardrobe”
“This is the snake I’ve been looking for my entire life”
Angry kitten scolds water, slaps it for good measure
Cat plays theremin
A speedy boi who doesn’t need a bike to jump
The most relaxed tiger
The sacred texts
Yes, THAT Stinky Bastard Man
Personal tags of the week
I want to be clear that AI has incredible scientific uses and could be used voluntarily by writers and artists for their own experimental projects. That is... not what this AI tag is about.
Speaking of AI: truly, the Willy Wonka Experience debacle has been a DashCon for the 2020s.
23 notes
·
View notes
Note
quick question, what's an era 2 tumblr user? we have eras??
it's sorta something I made up myself. tumblr has gone through various shifts in presentation and tone that dramatically affected how people use the website. honestly idk if anyone besides me actually uses this system, but I'm gonna use it anyway because it's funny
so Era 1 is from the start of tumblr until dashcon. this is where the dashboard had those weird lines on the side of reblogs, was the hight of superwholock, allows editing other people's posts, and was filled the overwhelming prevalence of fandom. back then, tumblr wasn't very mainstream and most people who used it were big nerds (affectionate). so there was a strong sense of community between people who had shared interests.
Era 2 starts after dashcon in summer of 2014. this was a disaster of an event that sorta boosted tumblr's popularity for better or for worse. this is also when I first joined in late 2015 as an undertale blogger originally (my first blog has since been deleted though). this is what I'd call the meme era of tumblr. it's when most of the most popular jokes are from. it's when massive inside jokes and tumblr references started. and it's the time where the most people were active. and it lasted until about late 2018 with the porn ban
Era 3 was kicked off with many users deciding to leave tumblr near the end of 2018 beginning of 2019. tumblr's policy on porn up until then had been "go nuts. show nuts" until it was bought by virison who tried their best to make it "family friendly". the whole thing was handled very poorly ("female presenting nipples") and didn't even get rid of all porn, just porn from sex workers and artists who sold nsfw content to make a living. most of those people left for sites like twitter, and many other sfw artists (and also people who just used tumblr for free porn) left with them. for a while, tumblr was pretty empty. but not entirely. there were still very close knit communities, arguably even closer than Era 1 even. and honestly, this is when tumblr was at its most usable. it was quiet. the only thing that you had to worry about was the occasional porn bot (and staff's growing authoritarianism, but we'll get to that). it's hard to argue when exactly Era 3 ends. I like to say it's when elon musk bought twitter, but I also think it might have started a bit before then. it's more of a slow transition that happened sometime between early and late 2022
Era 4 is the return era. when everyone who went to twitter came crawling back. this was sorta kicked off with staff starting to be more lax with their porn restrictions. but don't think that staff was having a change of heart and suddenly nice. for the longest time, they had been overstepping boundaries and abusing their authority, such as banning mainly Black and leftist users calling them "Russian psyops". it was also around this time that people discovered that there were several terfs on the development team, and that was likely the reason they didn't ban nazis and terfs despite both being in clear violation of the tos. tumblr staff tried to distract from this controversy by adding a bunch of gimmicks. the crabs for April fools, blazing posts, checkmarks, tumblr live. this for some reason actually worked, and a lot of people just forgot or didn't care about staff any more, and it actually brought in a lot of new users. I have no idea how long Era 4 will last. all the Eras have been kicked off with a massive change in how social media operates that becomes more dramic and impactful each time. so short of the us government completely banning tiktok for good, I doubt Era 4 will end any time soon.
sorry this turned mostly into a rant against staff near the end. as you can obviously tell, I'm sorta biased towards Era 2 and 3, as that's when I had the best experiences with tumblr. and a lot of the problems I have with the site today can be traced back to staffs stupid decisions and abuse of power and authority.
but yeah. I hope that makes sense.
91 notes
·
View notes
Text
Tartublr dashcon
It's happening! The first self-organized Tartu Tumblr meetup is being planned. As a non-Tartuan, I will delegate the details of the planning to you, dear Tartu friends.
If I already know you're from Tartu, I'll message you in the next few days to ask if you're interested.
If you're from Tartu and are curious, like this post and I'll message you. Better yet, join the Discord and share your suggestions for place+time.
The details will come later, but the plan is to:
- meet somewhere public, e.g. a cafe
- talk
- make new friends
- that's all it's that simple
#dashcon eestis#tartu#tartublr#mod milan#i'm just an instigator here this is all in your hands otherwise
8 notes
·
View notes
Text
Tag Game
Rules: Share 10 facts about yourself and tag 10 other blogs! I want to get to know my mutuals, and the people I follow a little bit :) The facts can be about anything!
@sillyliterature tagged me daaaays ago! Of course I waited until after midnight on a school night, after a 5-day school break, to finally write/post this... /sigh I had fun scrounging for things about me you should know. I hope anyone seeing this gets a giggle.
1. I'm an American living in China, teaching English. I technically teach "Critical Reading and Writing", and a lot of the curriculum I built myself! (I prefer creating teaching materials to teaching and I'll be changing careers soon cuz I so tired)
2. I love cats. Can you tell? My mom has given me a cat-related nickname since birth, SHE loves cats, and so I feel like it's just in the genes now. My metaphorical daughter niece also loves cats, which shows I'm right. I have two cats right now, Birdie & Canela (Canela is the tabby-baby, she has brownish-ginger spots she inherited from her mother, so yes, she is named "cinnamon" on purpose. Birdie is the tortie and the Mama-cat!)
3. I wrote a book! It's published! I'm supposed to write a sequel. It is... almost half-done? A little more than half-done? It's a YA fantasy called "The Coward's Emblem" 🥰 There are dragons! My bestie drew my dragons for me and they're BEAUTIFUL!!! LOOK BELOW!! SO COOL! (I also have commissioned art of the characters by Sabri on insta and they're BEAUTIFUL, too!! If you wanna know more about my actual for real OCs for my real book, pls lemme know!)
4. I've eaten so many Hot Cheetos, I've coughed stomach acid. Maybe living in China is good for me, no Hot Cheetos here... hmmmm
5. The only video games I've ever played from beginning to end on my own are: Harvest Moon: Animal Parade, KOTOR, KOTOR II, and Dragon Age(s). I can only play on Easy/Casual because I'm a crap gamer (I've never finished a Pokémon game), but I really love the stories/characters. ☺️
6. Atton x f!Exile fanart has been my lockscreen for months, and Viktuuri art from Yuri! on Ice! has been my phone bg wallpaper even longer. Maybe since 2016...
7. Rapid Shot Shame-Fame: I meowed through 7th-8th grade. Yes, you read that correctly. I've been a weeaboo. I was in the Hetalia fandom (hence the tumblr name). I was in the SuperWhoLock fandom, too + Teen Wolf, and, my true claim to fame, I went to Dashcon AND I WAS A PANELIST. At THREE panels. No, I was never paid. 🤣
8. I've almost been in a cult twice... maybe three times, but definitely twice. Only the fact I am lazy and didn't live In The Location of the 'Cult' prevented me from actually joining. (Did spend 40 bucks on that book for one of them, though. Ugh. Gimme my 40 bucks back.)
9. I've been to three Disney parks of six. (The Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Shanghai is amazing! Rode it twice! Tron and Soarin' O'er the Horizon are overrated.)
10. I've played DnD since I was 18, and I ALWAYS find a group. In USA, in South Korea, and now in China; I find the nerds and I friend them no matter where I am (yes, I am a nerd, too). My first finished original novel (unpublished) was based on my first ever DnD character: Karik the Master of Many Forms Druid 😀 My current character is Tepin Pallis Cuautli Lozano, a Wild Shaper Druid, the first time I've played a Druid again in almost ten years (3.5e was better, fite me 💪🤜).
#kitty babbles#woulda look at my weird ass life choices#pls girl go to sleep#@ me#keto tag#sillylit tag#Tumblr Tag Game#long post
8 notes
·
View notes
Note
Ok, i knew about the tumblr code, the color of the sky, children hospital, dashcon, spider georg... I can continue this list, but, can i ask... What is air?
Sharing this link because they explain it better than I ever could, what is air is an ancient meme from way back, I joined in 2011 and it was already a dying meme so yeah
https://memearchives.tumblr.com/post/140931433579/can-you-explain-one-of-tumblrs-earliest-memes
26 notes
·
View notes
Note
☕ The history and evolution of tumblr itself as someone who has been on the website for over ten years? 👀
It sure has been a wild ride huh.
When I started tumblr I was early 20s and at the time I was already older than the average user base so all the stereotypical tumblr things like superwholock, the onceler, the Elsa x Jack Frost ship. etc. I was already too old for and just kind of heard about in passing (when I joined I was following anyone I knew from a Keroro forum and Deviantart so my dash was a pretty mixed bag but generally anime focused) but I think all the famous posts like "tubby custard machine" (my personal favorite), "Endless chocolate", "chocolate fondue fountain parrot", "do you like the color of the sky", the "oppa homeless style" and so forth did cross my path. And don't get me started on dashcon.
I followed a few magical girl confession blogs and I'm honestly glad those fell out of fashion (nothing but drama for even the simplest things), I followed and ran my own ask blog for a time (which imo are pretty fun even if it's just rebranded role playing) and just watching certain fandoms ebb & flow is kind of fascinating in retrospect.
Heck, The different types of spambot techniques over the years by itself is interesting to me tbh, like who keeps thinking this will work? (rn we seem to be back to the "links to nsfw sites using a bunch of random fandom tags" technique, I flag them whenever I see them. Like ma'am this is a chuck e cheese what are you thinking?)
I think tumblr is used as a punching bag too much, a lot of fun internet culture things originate here! Aside from people who take anonymous messaging too far, or just straight-up go on the internet and tell lies for clout (that's everywhere but) we're definitely not a perfect site, but I'm glad tumblr is known for being full of weirdos and gay people, it could be worse, we could be 4chan or reddit.
#in general i think tumblr culture is pretty funny#where else can i get a gallery of someone's art. old gifs of a retro anime. and a joke that will be told for 10 years#amainoyuki
14 notes
·
View notes
Text
I just passed this post about the Tumblr shoelaces that had 42k notes on it, which is how I finally found out that this was and has been a Thing. I did not expect there to be a narrative behind this piece of merch they've been relentlessly pimping, and I was surprised and delighted by the fact I had managed to remain ignorant of it for such a long time. I joined Tumblr in 2010, and I'm frequently baffled by how strangers talk about what it used to be like here. I practically never get anyone else's points of reference, there was absolutely no fandom garbage being reblogged onto my dash, and I didn't even hear about Dashcon until years after the fact. This just means that there was a certain point in time when you could actually curate your experience here, and you didn't have to see a ton of dumb little baby stuff that, as a friend of mine once said, made you want to scoop out your mind's eye with a melon baller.
I just had my circle of mutuals, none of whom existed anywhere on a venn diagram with the Superwholock people who were apparently all around us (I didn't even have to know what that was until recently), and everybody had their own identifiable personality; my dash was reliably just horror movie gifs, glitch art, our own actual drawings and paintings, porn, old and underground comics, cyberpunk schlock, sleazy magazine scans, and a smattering of freaky gore to remind you of the grimy mondo-style websites that were like an internet rite of passage in the 90s and early 00s. That might still sound generic on some level, but it had a very distinct flavor from anything going on today. You kind of knew who everybody was, we each had our own distinct personalities, and it was a lot of fun. I never, ever had to be even remotely aware of what was going on in fandom communities or see their needy homemade pornography for babies.
I'm sure there's a confluence of reasons why fandom crap is now like 30% of what I wind up seeing no matter how careful I am about who I follow, or how actively I block fandom accounts just to reduce the volume of what insinuates itself into my feed. The worst consequence of the fandom supremacy is actually not even the cutesy boring content, but it's this intense homogenizing effect it has on people. Everyone talks the same way and makes the same art about the same shit in the same style, and it's like there's just this overpowering urge to conform. I'm sure it's very comforting to be among people who are almost exactly the same as yourself, but I also think it's a bad dragon to chase. Besides which, what happened to the pleasure of having a special, personal thing that not everybody else "gets"? It's no wonder nothing resembling punk seems to exist here, except as just another cult to join.
Yesterday I was thinking about those old Apple Jacks commercials where the kids would conspiratorially sneer to each other that dorky adults "think Apple Jacks should taste like apples"; my friend and I really enjoyed accusing people of thinking Apple Jacks should taste like apples whenever we encountered an ignorant opinion on some obnoxiously niche thing we liked, but it occurred to me that that kind of snotty pleasure in one's own individuality is a rarer thing these days. Everyone insists on being understood and embraced and included, and you got hives of people complaining self-righteously about "antis" who look down on their dopey cartoon incest fantasies, like it's against the law to vocally dislike anything, even THAT. And like, a grown person should really be able to ignore the dissenting opinions of complete strangers, but also, it's GOOD to have some dissent in your life! It's IMPORTANT to feel the difference between yourself and others, to experience rejection, and have to stand on your own without an amorphous hive of internet strangers telling you "you are valid" for all kinds of inane reasons that really don't beg for anyone's seal of approval. Sometimes Apple Jacks taste better just because there's dorks out there mad that it doesn't taste like apples.
Anyway, I just saw that ancient post going around where everybody was warning each other that 4chan was planning a "raid" on tumblr where they were gonna like attack everybody with grody pictures, so "stay safe out there" and here's a bunch of tips on how to protect yourself from being fatally grossed out or something. I have no idea if such a thing actually happened in real life, but it sounded pretty funny to me, and like maybe we should have one of those "raids" intermittently just for social hygiene purposes. Maybe some people could use that extra push to reduce their screen time and read a fucking real book or something, and then those people can just get offa my lawn.
#im really just posting this for anyone who winds up here because of that sappy thing i posted about high school#i dont want anybody to follow me who might find me extremely annoying!
14 notes
·
View notes
Text
Thoughts on Maintaining Old Characters.
Don't feel like you gotta read this, I know I don't have any long term OC fans who have kept track of what I'm doing with my guys. It's more just stuff that's been rattling in my head and I feel like would be nice to jot down so people who do decide to trawl through my old art tags can see why my characters have changed in the ways they have.
I've been making characters since I was 11, which as of this post, means that some of my earliest characters are 13 years old. I still even have some of them. This blog has stuff dating back to when I was 13 (I joined tumblr a week or so after my birthday on a now deleted blog, before that I was on deviantArt and roleplaying forums almost exclusively)
I was exposed to the idea of self-inserts and mary sues (and that they were bad and nobody liked them) extremely early on, so I almost immediately swung in the opposite direction, people pleaser that I was. This first generation of characters would set up three types that I would end up remaking over and over with different coats of paint.
Prickly girls
Just so many prickly tsundere girls. Often short. Often bullies to the boys they liked. They were girlbosses who could win any fight but they also were bullied by the normies for being so weird and being outsiders. Pretty but still only liked by the one nervous guy they had chosen. The archetypal anti-sue, just a gaggle of Ebonys.
2. Tragic girls
These girls were usually innocent and silly and fun, but also haunted and sad. They were traumatized in very childishly "and then their whole family died in front of them :,,( " ways. They were never allowed to address the trauma, and everyone around them always had to baby them. Yeah, I was making those types LOL. Nooo I refuse to make progress on my healing bc then I won't have any character left!!!
3. Soft boys
I was still pretty married to the idea that I had to like boys, so the boys I made were all ones I thought I would like. This led to just a fleet of androgynous boys who wept and blushed often. I also rolled with a crowd of older tween girls who were deep in the Yaoi haze, and while I found they way they talked about the couples uncomfortable and objectionable even then, I still did my share in pumping out generic ukes to go with their bog standard semes.
I made characters in these three frameworks for like, a few years. Even after the main forum I had camped on died and I started making characters with school friends. I wasn't really pushed to change anything until a while into using tumblr.
I don't know if anyone else remembers this period of time, I had to have been like 14-15, but there was this attitude shift all the sudden that boiled down to how if you didn't have a diverse set of characters, you were a bad person.
Now I'm going to say immediately that I do think its good to have a diverse set of OCs! It's good to learn about people from other cultures and backgrounds and to put yourself in their shoes! It's also good to learn about all the ways humans can look and how charming and beautiful and different we can be!
The issue with the way this was pushed way back in pre-dashcon tumblr was that it wasn't about thoughtful diversity and exploring others lived experiences. It was about making sure you looked like you weren't racist to the other 14 year old white girls who still hadn't unpacked what watching South Park had done to their brains and were actively sending death threats to Lucy Liu for being on a Sherlock Holmes show that wasn't the one with the white men who might kiss any day now guys. When you see people mocking the Ultimate SJW Tumblr Character (you know what I'm talking about, the just caricature level mocking of disabled queer people) it's from this era of posts.
I saw this and I saw people dumping buckets of anon hate and bullying on just anyone who caught the mobs fancy and I very ungracefully slapped new ethnicities on a chunk of my characters. And it took me an embarrassingly long time to look at some of the choices I made and to go "Yikes!" Almost no one was an offensive stereotype or anything, but I definitely had picked characters that lined up with tropes without realizing it. (Important note, I did have some characters that were disrespectful to Roma culture, and an atrocious belly dancer character. I've completely gotten rid of them and I do recognize now how they were disrespectful and played into racist stereotypes.)
And this is still something I'm working on monitoring and fixing in my characters. I'm not gonna lie and say I've become the ultimate anti-racist. I'm white, I've only lived in majority white areas, specifically Oregon which has an extensively anti-black history as well as a lot of issues with orientalism, and I grew up on early 2000s media and all the baggage that came with that.
Speaking of 2000s baggage and weird yaoi culture. I am sorry mlm for the atrocities of boys I have made. It was that classic case of "I'm supposed to like boys so I'm going to make boys who are basically girls and then pair them with each other so I never actually have to deal with the anxiety of them actually being attracted to me." I only had like two characters I would say felt like they could genuinely be gay men. It was only after I was like a year deep into accepting that I was genuinely a lesbian that I looked at my gaggle of boys and went "oh shit, these are all lesbians, these are lesbian dynamics." Which like, yes I don't feel great that I used mlm pairs for my own character development. I know it's not uncommon, especially if a lot of your exposure to the idea of being queer was through tumblr, but it's still not great.
All this to say: I love my characters and I want to be more thoughtful with them. Most of my characters are 5+ years old and they all just need an overhaul. I'm taking most of them back to their prompts and rebuilding from there, I'm also turning a majority of them into lesbians. I want to explore all the fun wlw dynamics I never got to play with growing up. And girls are just more fun to design for me! Sorry!
As I put out new refs you may notice some characters look varying levels of different, some have been replaced with new characters taking over their roles, and some are gone completely. You are always welcome to reach out to ask me about any choices I've made and any concerns you have about the things I've made, past or present. And if you take anything from this it's that you should always be vigilant about how unconscious biases can slip into your creative works.
Thanks for getting to the end of this long ass post, it's one I've been thinking about for a while but had to take some time to put to paper. It's important to me to keep up my old art posts to see my growth as an artist and a person, but I also don't want to act like I still agree with every character choice I've made in the last 13 years.
I hope you can support me as I continue to grow as a person!
#livs words#long long post#if you need a tldr this is a reflection of the weird baggage i carried into my characters for a long time that im working to correct#discussions of racism and mlm fetishism#also important note#im not posting this to get good boy points and congrats#continuing to check yourself for unconscious biases is like#the barest minimum thing you can do
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
I'm sending my sister "fun tumblr facts" on a semi-daily basis. Please feel free to send suggestions so far we've covered
- goncharov
- dashcon
- no it's Becky
- infecting each other with messaging
- how you could read group chats without joining
- history of editing other's posts
- hating every update and bonus subtle shade of blue changes
0 notes
Note
Hello~ I hope you're having a nice evening!! I wanted to ask you about tumblr eras because I've seen you mention them a couple times now. I've been on tumblr for a while now actually but haven't seen anyone else refer to tumblr eras, and I was wondering if you could explain them? No worries if not!!
of course!
so, I'm probably one of a handful of people who actually uses tumblr eras. I use it as a shorthand to describe when certain events happened and the people who joined before or after those events
Era 1 is from the beginning of tumblr until dashcon. this was from 2007 to 2014 and is the longest era so far. it's notable for the creation of superwholock, the mishapocolypse, oncelercest, and more. it's the first thing people thing of when they think of classic tumblr
Era 2 is from after dashcon until the community guidelines change in late 2018 (aka the "porn ban"). this is actually when I joined (I was originally an undertale blogger). this is notable for the more popular fandoms of tumblr, and some incredibly famous posts like the bone stealing shit or John Green's cock post. it ended when the community guidelines changed to ban "female presenting nipples" and a lot of people left for twitter
Era 3 is honestly when tumblr was at its best. it's when most of the inside jokes were created (eebby deeby, horse plinko, Goncharov, etc). even though tumblr wasn't insanely popular at this time, it had a real sense of community and togetherness that can't really be said about any other websites.
Era 4 is the newest era and the one we're currently in. this was started when elon musk bought twitter and tons of people left and either rejoined tumblr or joined for the first time. this was also the same time tumblr started trying out a lot more new features like tipping, blazing, tumblr blue, and livestreams. I have no idea where tumblr will go from here. I hope that the new users can embrace tumblr's weirdness and that the staff won't introduce a bunch of useless features that kill the site. we'll just have to see.
me and some of my friends are currently making a timeline that will showcase all these eras and most important tumblr events from the start of tumblr to the modern day.
but again, the concept of tumblr eras is something I made up and isn't that widespread.
thank you for asking. I hope that makes sense.
35 notes
·
View notes
Text
I wonder something
Something that probably doesn't matter but you know might as well post the thought
Ppl often split tumblr culture/eras/ whatever as before and after 2015 or pre/post dashcon (as that was 2014) bc of how that really shook up tumblr
But something i realized is that.... any of us who joined in that early era... that is like my age or around it... by 2015 we were entering our 20s
And yea being older doesn't always mean changing but....i wonder if us beginning to get older we also began to mature/change
Could just be a funny coincidence and of course there are people who were/are younger and older than that on there at the time but i don't have stats to tell you the average age of those years or now
1 note
·
View note
Text
One of the things that really defines my involvement in this site is that I've been here forever, but in the "vampire on the wrong continent" kind of way. I see people on here constantly talking about how they're Tumblr Old because they joined in 2011-2013 and I look at my archive dating to 2009 and shrug. But like, they do that to prove they remember something, and it is invariably something I don't remember. John Green? Never followed him, I didn't read his genre, so I neither knew nor cared what he was doing here until one day I heard he'd been harassed off the site. I was here for the Cole Sprouse social experiment thing and still to this day don't know who Cole Sprouse is or what the nature of the experiment could possibly have been. Dashcon? I heard rumors there was a convention coming up and thought "ain't no way I'm going there" and then six months later saw a post explaining why the ball pit was so iconic. I followed one (1) blog that participated in Mishapocalypse so it got a tasteful chuckle out of me and I didn't know until years later that it had been a full website experience.
What I've learned is that we have no idea what will be remembered. Will people still talk about Goncherov in two years? I don't know, there was a whole competing fandom that from what I could see once stood as tall as the SuperWhoLock fandom and it has been so long since they've been invoked I forgot what media they were into. We've forgotten how many time tumblr was doomed and everyone said their goodbyes and then continued blogging together. There was a couple years of open religious strife between the Tumblr Christian Community and the Glitteresia and those names and most blogs associated have been long lost to the dust. In a matter of months the great memes of today may be gone and everyone talking about remembering an unhinged post that has, to date, sat at 6 notes for the last week. Everything on this site is transient. There is no universal experience. Do with that as you will.
1 note
·
View note
Text
It’s so funny to me that post-pandemic we’ve started returning to pre-dashcon eras of tumblr but like… irrevocably changed.
Like the whole “this site is for hipster blogs and fandom blogs only, normies stay out ❤️” energy has returned, but now it’s “this site is for insane people, queer people, and incomprehensible memes only, Twitter users stay out ❤️” like we’ve went around the ironic bend so hard that we’ve ended up being unironically attached again, to the point where no one leaves no matter what, regardless of whatever awful update comes Tumblr’s way. We all refuse to budge.
I think that a lot of it comes from the users here being left over from the various December floods of tumblr, and now that a lot of the godawful discourse has run aground into Twitter the only thing left around here is people clinging to their art and fan blogs, and people that are just sort of adrift on the general vibe of the website. It’s become its own contained ecosystem, and while people may bring in outside content it’s like exposing it to radiation. Stuff never leaves similarly to the way it came in. It’s either dead or warped.
As a result, people here became… well I wouldn’t say happy again, but content is a word. Particularly against the other various social media options like Reddit or Instagram. I think that tumblr has lasted as long as it has because despite staff’s awful decisions there’s a weird beauty here that simultaneously can’t be replicated and can’t be destroyed, particularly in our modern sanitized internet where everything is centered around ad revenue.
And because of that I think a lot of people (including myself, honestly) dread the idea of tumblr becoming ‘popular’ again, because it could mean everything from increased monetization of the website, which at this point has still failed but who knows in the future, to a return of the constant bashing that went on on this website that it’s famous for. Don’t get me wrong, discourse still happens all the time ‘round these parts, but it’s far more tranquil than the teeth-rattling arguments that would break out on your dash in 2014 with no end in sight that made tumblr literally miserable to use. Now, things are more peaceful, and weird, and overgrown. Like living in an abandoned shack filled with thousands of hermits that like keeping to themselves and shuffling around their stones. It should be crowded and overbearing but instead it’s more or less peaceful.
So we’ve gone around the bend, but come out the other side a lot different.
#as an example of the kind of discourse you would see on this site#for the kiddies who don’t know#(it’s me I’m kiddies I joined this site way too young)#I once watched my favorite artist get into an all out brawl with someone else#about whether or not the new powderpuff girls show had trans representation#not whether or not it was GOOD representation#he thought it was BAD#but whether or not it EXISTED#there’s better documented stuff out there#like the Hamilton fan fiction fiasco#that whole Sherlock conspiracy theory mess#dashcon itself#the stuff that’s really wild that you can find on channels like Sarah Z#and internet historian#but that’s the stuff that was so far out of left field that it became famous on and off site#a lot of the more minor discourse has gotten lost to time#chances are we’ll never see a time again where ship wars would flood your dash to the point where you just had to keep scrolling#to find anything new that wasn’t just a reblogged thread of a reblogged thread of a reblogged thread#where fancams flooded post replies to the point where it would make your computer fan start whirring#like it was trying to run a very early copy of cyberpunk#it’s stuff that’s small#but I need people that weren’t there to understand that it was everywhere#seeing minor discourse every once in awhile is one thing#but when it’s the only thing on your dash day after day the site begins to feel a little unusable#more so than now#oh btw my favorite artist from before was in the mlp fandom#so imagine this sprawling discourse mess but with pony profile pics#queer used in the reclaimed sense#tumblr history
25 notes
·
View notes
Text
Ok so, posts like these aren’t usually my style, but lately I saw a lot of posts about a lot of new people apparently coming to tumblr mostly from Twitter and TikTok
And the amount of people I‘ve seen who genuinely feel superior because they’ve been on this website for a long time and think all newcomers should just instantly know about all the tumblr-specific micro-rules or gtfo, LITERALLY GATEKEEPING THIS WEBSITE, a bit concerning.
Because guess what? This website is dying, and you‘re one of the reasons.
And all these posts keep talking about how they don’t want any of the twitter drama or cringy 14y olds doing cringy dances, but…
You’re using Tumblr.
I’m sorry, but are these people aware what website they’re on? Where do these people think the Twitter drama originally came from? What reputation this website has on the rest of the internet? All of the things complained about are things that happened on tumblr as well, and are even what this site is mostly known for. This is the website that produced multiple Kickstarter scams, Superwholock, Dashcon, and might even be the sole reason many fandoms are considered to be as cringy and toxic as they are/where at their height. The people complaining about cringy people now were the original cringy people. And still are. This website is the epitome of cringe.
And even ignoring all of that…you were once a newcomer too! Everyone was! No one just knows how to navigate this space unless being told, and even then, it still takes time, time you’re not allowing them to have.
And wouldn’t be seeing a bit of advice on how to do blogs be more appreciated than a horde of screeching strangers just insulting others for daring to be new? A bit of kindness isn’t hurting anyone, and would make this hellsite (affectionate) just a tiny bit nicer and less of a toxic sludge.
Because at the end, if new people don’t come, and this entire site will only be populated by the few toxic people left who instantly shut down any attempt of new folks seeing the actual good things this website has to offer, then I’m sorry to tell you this, but it will unavoidably shut down for good.
Sincerely, someone who‘s been lurking for 8 years, joined one ago, and is surprised to be mostly enjoying it so far. Take a guess why it took so long.
#rant#tumblr#new people#on one hand going#cringe culture is dead#but on the other hand doing the exact same thing#the hypocrisy of it all#JUST LET PEOPLE HAVE FUN#IF DASHCON DIDNT END EVERYTHING THEN A BUNCH OF DANCES WONT EITHER#y’all sounding like the toxic players in every hardcore MMO RPG#they do the exact same thing currently observed here#and guess what- almost all hardcore mmorpgs shut don’t make it far#(there’s actually a quite good video on that topic on YouTube)#man I don’t like being negative on this blog but this was just getting too annoying not to let out somehow#and I know no one’s gonna see this which makes it kinda unnecessary but idc#SHOUTOUTS TO ALL THE NEW PEOPLE#(who I technically also count as I guess BUT STILL)#SHOUTOUTS TO YOU FOR TRYING#SHOUTOUTS TO THE POEPLE GIVING HELPFUL TIPS#SHOUTOUTS TO ALL OF YOU#as stupid as the concept is I actually kinda like tumblr‘s weird hellsite high thing they’ve got going on#it’s on brand AND helpful!#so a good combo
30 notes
·
View notes
Note
With shows like Steven Universe (and others, but that's the main one coming to mind), do you think it's fair to say, "Something must be wrong with it if this is what the fans are like"?
I mean, not really. The show itself is fine. It's just unfortunate that it happened to start getting popular right as we entered the post-Dashcon era of tumblr, where the site's culture shifted from goofy fun to performative activism.
The turning point for the SU fandom was probably when the Season 1 finale aired. That was when a certain subset of fans decided that the show was for them and only for them, and tried to gatekeep others from joining the fandom. Things only got more toxic from there.
34 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
f4keone
i donno what the FACK i want
kitabkuning99
Distributor Kitab Kuning
chantalsman
Untitled
r0shkadevar
𝐑𝐨𝐬𝐡𝐤𝐚
santa-prisca-rpg
Santa Prisca, CA