Tumblr: Yay or Nay?

[TheBlackCatCrossing]

So last night, I was looking for something else and then I ran into this little doozie. Some of the older members might remember social network playforms that allowed for LONG meta posts. This was huge during livejournal's heyday and you still see it today on blogspot and wordpress but now with the advent of tumblr and facebook limits, do you think the period of meta posts is coming to an end and all we have to communicate with is GIFs and reaction posts?

Personally, I have a tumblr which I mainly use to follow and reblog. I don't really use it for long posts. I use blogspot and fora for that. I really like reading people's well thought out responses and tumblr....doesn't really allow that. I don't mind the occassional GIF post, especially when it is appropriate to the topic but when that has become the only way for people to communicate, well.

A pet peeve I have now with tumblr is that I have 'Scar' as a tag that I track. Obviously, we all know who that is referring to but when I look, I get the character from Full Metal Alchemist which I don't mind, but I also get pictures of posters who 'self harm' on my dashboard and think its glamorous. Pisses me off. But that's another topic for another day.

Here is what I found:

Source

For months, arguments about Tumblr have been circulating fandom like a looping GIF. Fandom is using Tumblr more than ever, but many fans hate what Tumblr is doing to fandom.

The argument boils down to two issues: communication and kinds of fanworks. Tumblr is an image-friendly site whose design doesn’t lend itself to text-based blogging and interaction. The emergence of a fan culture that accordingly pays less attention to textual engagement and one-on-one communication has many fans worried.

To help make sense of the debate, here’s a handy pros and cons list the Daily Dot compiled from fans and Tumblr users.

PRO:

1) Supernatural, Doctor Who, there are so many fandoms, and then there’s role-playing and fanfiction and reading. My life has just Tumbled downhill into fandom from there. It’s been fabulous

2) More participants means more voices, more meta, more fanwork. There's more equal visibility for all types of fanwork (art, vids, graphics) than there's been in the past, when fandom's been more heavily fic-dominated, because the common hub sites used were more text-friendly than anything-else friendly. THIS THRILLS ME.

3) On Tumblr, everybody cares

4) For lurkers who may have previously felt intimidated because they weren't able to write reams of fanfic or participate in long meta-discussions, the ability to just be able to ‘like’ or reblog something on Tumblr is freeing

CON:

1) Tumblr has taken the interpretive act out of fandom. GIF sets and photosets only allow the audience to look but not touch, turning them into a passive recipient of the source material.”

2) Because there's the option to just ‘like’ it, for all intents and purposes, Tumblr has done away with the need to actually communicate. What's more, there seems to be no particular way to respond to the few people who do buck up and manage to actually write a thought back

3) For me, fandom is not about the end-product fanworks, but the conversations that get us there. I find conversations on Tumblr to be awkward, clunky, and almost impossible to follow if they involve more than two people. It’s like everyone is talking, but no one is talking to each other.”

Tumblr’s growth comes from a generation raised on YouTube. They speak through reaction GIFs, instant Instagram filters, remixes, and vidding—the act of making fan videos from multiple visual sources—whereas the fans from the previous decade communicate long meta-threads, fanfiction, and painstakingly Photoshopped icons of exactly 100 x 100 pixels each.

The lack of etiquette regarding attribution and remixes on Tumblr has led to problems for artists who’ve seen their work passed around Tumblr without correct attribution, sometimes with identifying watermarks removed. The “added source” tag is one way of combating this, but there’s also the issue of Tumblr fans modifying and editing art without permission from the original creators. For Japanese artists, these issues were so large that they created a website, Online Fanarts Protection, to publicly declare their side of the issue: “Many think that they are not ‘stealing’ because of the credit, but the authors, we prohibit reusing without permission, so that will be same as stealing to us.”

Yet despite the conflicting mediums, language barriers, remix etiquette issues, and generational clashes, the fact remains that no matter how much anxiety exists over Tumblr, fans will continue to use it for remixing art, discussion, role-playing, writing and reading fanfic, GIF sets, music, and more.

“Tumblr's the first place I've ever encountered this kind of community,” noted fanartist Reapersun. “It's so overwhelmingly positive, for the most part, and everyone's so accessible; it's fantastic. An artist or writer can showcase their work and become well known while also getting right down in there with the fandom and being part of it.”

It’s hard to argue with those points, given that Tumblr, with its 400 million posts weekly, makes fandom productivity so incredibly visible. Still, dissatisfaction with Tumblr as a one-stop fandom platform has been seeping through.

“I’ve actually been thinking of moving from Tumblr to LiveJournal,” one fan at the Tumblr meetup told me after listening to fans discuss the pros and cons among themselves. “I’ve just been thinking of getting a more bloggy blog.”

Ultimately, fandom’s best hope for overcoming the Tumblr divide may be in pressuring Tumblr itself to become a more “bloggy blog.” (Or at least to implement a decent comment system.) But such a move would doubtless change the spontaneous, image-loving atmosphere that Tumblr currently fosters.

And as the Tumblr debate proves, fear of change within fandom is something that unites us all.

[Carl]

Honestly, I haven't used Tumblr much. I have an account, but I couldn't figure out how to do anything once I created it. Also, every time I see that website I get confused. Everything is too random, and while I do enjoy some of the .gifs and images, I don't understand how a website like that could be useful in integrating into or participating in a fandom. Obviously, some people find a way to do it, but to me, it is too jumbled and clunky. I like LiveJournal better, although I have not had any success there, whether posting something about a fandom or not.

And as far as the comments go, I have never really seen a comment feature on Tumblr, so I would say the LiveJournal one is better, because I can find it. I haven't been to either site in quite some time, though, and I don't even remember my login information for Tumblr.

I probably sound dumb, I bet Tumblr's a lot easier to use than I think it is, but oh well. I'm on the internet too much with the few sites I'm active on as it is, so I probably wouldn't use Tumbr even if I did understand it.

[FlipMode]

I have no interest in what other people are doing, and I do not want them to know what I am doing either. The rest of it is all random re-blogs and generic image spam. I don't know - I am not really to big a fan of social networking, I have a Facebook and that is it....And really, even then I do not really post much on there.
Sometimes I may re post something funny / interesting but its rare. I sometimes "Like" the page of something I actually DO like IRL to help spread the word a little but the truth is that nobody cares, all anybody cares about these days is their selves. Even when somebody makes a depressing status its like "Hope you feel better soon" and then off I go back to my own "life" and its gone.

So yeah if I can not even see the point in Facebook which is the most popular one then you better believe I do not see the point in Tumblr. It is not even a new thing, either - LiveJournal is very similar and that has been around for over a decade, I remember when it first started taking off and people actually bothered to make one.... I did not like it then and I still do not now.
The sooner people realise that nobody cares about them or the crap they post on these kinds of sites, the sooner we can all forget about them and look forward to the next big thing.

[Buffy]

I'm only on Tumblr for my basic fangirly needs, really. I am a part of so many fandoms and Tumblr seems the only place where I can fit every single one in. Also, thanks to the amount of fans on Tumblr, it's my #1 place to get news about my fandoms because everyone starts freaking out about whatever may be happening.
I mainly like & reblog things on my Tumblr, but occasionally I make personal posts which I have reserved a tag for (I use 'meee'). Honestly, I don't think Tumblr is a bad thing. Sure, there can be bad things on Tumblr (I especially dislike it when explicit material appears on my dashboard, and that usually results in me unfollowing the person posting it), but there are also a lot of good things. I like Tumblr. It's a fun place to be and I am happy to be on that site.

[Lauren]

[quote="Buffy"]I'm only on Tumblr for my basic fangirly needs, really. I am a part of so many fandoms and Tumblr seems the only place where I can fit every single one in. Also, thanks to the amount of fans on Tumblr, it's my #1 place to get news about my fandoms because everyone starts freaking out about whatever may be happening.
I mainly like & reblog things on my Tumblr, but occasionally I make personal posts which I have reserved a tag for (I use 'meee'). Honestly, I don't think Tumblr is a bad thing. Sure, there can be bad things on Tumblr (I especially dislike it when explicit material appears on my dashboard, and that usually results in me unfollowing the person posting it), but there are also a lot of good things. I like Tumblr. It's a fun place to be and I am happy to be on that site. [/quote]
I am exactely the same way. I do love my Tumblr as well.

[FlipMode]

So its basically for people who do not understand how Twitter works? I can see why it would be popular then!
Haha jokes about the internet!

[Buffy]

Except I use twitter as well as Tumblr. LOL!

[Sammi]

I love my Tumblr blogs. I reblog pictures that I love, as opposed to using Tumblr as a journal.

[ScarsLove]

I don't care. I'm not really into Tumblr.

[Gaze]

I love Tumblr. LiveJournal has its perks but is overall a little outdated now.

I'd disagree that Tumblr is a poor platform for long text-based discussions. I, for one, find most GIF-reaction posts horribly annoying. There's a lot of discussion on Tumblr. There's a lot of long, multi-paragraph articles written by users. Conversation takes place through both reblogs and asks, but I suppose Tumblr does lack a good private message system. That's what instant messengers are for, though.

Fandom aside, Tumblr is a great way to spread important ideas. I can tell even from my real-life interactions with people that Tumblr has absolutely excelled at informing the public (especially youth) about often misunderstood topics such as feminism, gender identity, sexual orientation, etc. It's really nice to see the people around me educating themselves on things like that, and taking a stand when they see injustice.

But on that note, there's this one huge problem with Tumblr that never seemed to happen on sites like LiveJournal, and that is the bloodthirsty battle between misinformed, easily offended "social justice warriors" and those who oppose them entirely. There's often not enough representation of the middle ground. I wrote a sad deviantART journal (warning: some language) about the topic. Basically, it seems like every Tumblr user thinks they're superior to everyone else, everyone is attacking those with different opinions, and then certain groups get a bad rap because the loudest members of that group are the ones who represent it the worst.

Overall, I love Tumblr as a place to keep images and words that inspire me artistically on file. I love the good Tumblr activism, and the prominence of fandom. But Tumblr's community has some huge downsides, and I hope the community can work past those.