On Tumblr

[mark_asphodel]

I'm kind of not seeing the point of it, at least for me.

I have no intention of forwarding SO COOL stuff, however cute, funny, or instructional. That's exactly what I meant when I posted on tumblr comparing social media to chain email forwards. So there's this awesome cat gif or neat recipe or cosplay thing that 17,000 other people have already liked? That's cool, but I'm pretty sure those 17,000 likes and 5,000 reblogs don't need me adding to the noise.

And really, it's mostly just a noise machine.  Tumblr is not designed for dialogue.

So the real point of it, as far as I saw tumblr, was showcasing fan art. Well, the ethics of posting fanart basically leads me to this-- I'm not going to do it myself, and you basically have to "vet" every single piece that someone else posts to determine it's been sources and THEN whether or not the artist approves of reposting before you reblog no matter how much you like something, so I may as well just post a fanart roundup (links and all) of what I like every now and again on my DW like I've been doing these past few years. They'll get about as much traffic either way.

I'm not deleting my account there because there are some interesting things that take place on tumblr, but it's not fulfilling my needs for either fanart adoration or discussion.  I can use it as a dumping ground for ideas too frivolous for this journal, but eh.

ETA: Raphi pointed out that tumblr is at least all public-access so friends-locking and such is not an issue.  As someone who dislikes information being siloed I have to admit that's a huge point in its favor.

Comments

[raphiael]

For me, I think of the reblogging "cool" stuff as more self-reference, I guess. I have tags on my own blog that I go to when I want to look at cute stuff to cheer myself up, or awesome art to inspire myself. That kind of thing. I think the goal of tumblr for me is less sharing, more curating -- with a side of the "too frivolous for my serious journal" stuff. But it's definitely not for everyone, and I think if I didn't have a lot of friends who used tumblr exclusively, I wouldn't still be there.

[lyndis]

Yeah, I think tumblr fandom sucks ass. the setup is not conducive to actual discussion and people started crying the instant tumblr changed-- wahhh back to lj/dw/whatever. really? stfu and stop being so finnicky. these people just pick up the cool new site until it's not cool anymore anyway. fuck that shit.

the whole fanart thing is getting annoying. i just gave up caring. if it's sourced i reblog but i generally only reblog art i really like and then i generally check out the source site also.

[kyusil]

I'm not sure I get the public access thing. One of the turn-offs of Tumblr (as a personal blog) for me was the lack of having that option. And considering how many private or small-scale spats end up going viral there, with everybody on the site needing to throw their two cents in having at least the option of privacy control might not be a bad idea. Granted, given the nature of the platform one could argue that it's the users' fault for posting sensitive info in the first place, but by and large here we're talking about teenagers. Dumb kids who are going to regret all this later in life and are entirely unable to do damage control. At least make privacy control an option.

Re: fanart, this is one reason I'm one of the dinosaurs who didn't jump ship from deviantART to Tumblr. Because I can keep track of my own art and the art I like. People suddenly started posting exclusively to Tumblr, which makes negative sense to me. You already had a perfectly good artists' platform! Ah well. It should only be a matter of time until they come back? '~'

[samuraiter]

the ethics of posting fanart

This is one of my major reservations about the place, as well.

[amielleon]

Personally I like it precisely because it's the new generation of chainmail -- except unlike the old model of chainmail, where shit fell into my inbox and I couldn't do much to keep it from doing so other than sending snide emails back to the people sending it -- I can to some extent select what kind of mass-circulated content I am interested in.

Also it helps me keep in touch with some friends who don't hang on any other mutual sites. When you IM or email someone there's a certain sense of etiquette that you won't do so frivolously if you don't have a standing norm of regular contact. On the other hand, passive contact through a social media site such as tumblr is both non-awkward and effective at keeping up some level of being in each others' lives.

I did certainly have the thought, however, that being ethical about fanart essentially meant barring the use of Tumblr for what its format is best at doing.