You Know, An Interesting Tumblr Transformation That's Happened Gradually, And Which I've Seen No One

You know, an interesting tumblr transformation that's happened gradually, and which I've seen no one talk about: ask-culture has essentially dropped off to nothing.

By which I mean, asks used to be WAY more of the tumblr economy. They used to be more common to send, and receive, and see. They were integral to the collaborative, forum-like behavior of old tumblr communities, not even to speak on the HUGE number of ask-blogs that used to exist to only be interacted with in ask-form.

I'm not saying this in a vying-for-attention way but instead in an observational way: I used to get way way more asks in like 2015, even with a fraction of my follower count. I wonder if it's due to the homogenization of social media sites? There's a lot more of this divide between "content creator" and "consumer" instead of just a bunch of peer blogs who would talk to each other. "Asks" aren't really a thing on twitter, are they? And as I understand it, the closest thing to an "ask" on instagram or tiktok would be a creator screenshotting some comment and responding to it in a new reel or video or whatever those content mediums are. Are asks just too tumblr-specific? Is that aspect of the site culture dying out as more and more people converge to using all their social media sites in the same way?

In regards to Tumblr's proposed changes: what you can do

Understandably, the vast majority of users are unhappy at best and furious at worst with all the changes that have been made and will be made to this platform. Tumblr has always been a very unique place, especially when compared to other social media platforms; we, as users, have (or at least, we used to have) an immense amount of control over our experience. We get to decide who we follow, what content we see, what tags we blacklist--we even get to customize our blogs with themes, essentially being able to create our own personal mini-websites.

I believe I speak for just about everyone when I say that we, as Tumblr users, love having this kind of control and curation.

However, it seems that Tumblr wants to take things in a direction that reduces the degree of control, curation, and customization that users have historically had. So what can we do?

As many other users have suggested, rate- and review-bomb the Tumblr app. Make it known that these changes are unwelcome and that it will impact Tumblr's performance and popularity.

Send feedback using the "contact support" function. Select the "feedback" category, and explain why you don't want these changes to be made. Emphasize that you don't want Tumblr to become like every other social media, especially in the wake of Twitter's and Reddit's respective downfalls. Emphasize that you want to keep blog themes. Emphasize that you like reblog chains, and that you don't want reblogs to look like Twitter threads. Emphasize that you like Tumblr because of what it currently and has historically offered. Emphasize that you like Tumblr for its unique features. Emphasize that if these changes are implemented, you will be leaving the platform. Also keep in mind that your feedback should be polite and professional. Hostility and insults will not help our cause. Make yourself firm and clear, but do not turn to profanity.

Make an impact on their profits. Stop blazing posts, stop buying digital trinkets such as checkmarks, stop buying merch, and unsubscribe from ad-free browsing. As all companies and corporations are, Tumblr is profit-driven. If their profits plummet as a direct result of these proposed changes, they're much more likely to reconsider and backpedal. (Remember how Discord backed down from crypto/NFT implementation after millions of users cancelled their Nitro subscriptions in retaliation?) Vote with your dollar.

I have hope that we can get them to listen. I think we have a fighting chance. The userbase is what keeps the platform alive, and if they realize that changes they make will seriously cause users to abandon ship en masse, taking their money and generated ad revenue with them, the people in charge may change their minds.

Reblog this. The more people who see this, the more people who do the things listed above, the better chance we have of making an impact. Fight for your online experience.

head up if you don’t want tumblrs partnered ai companies automatically scraping your blog for image datasets, you need to manually opt out.

You can’t do this in the app rn, only the desktop version or web browser on your phone. It will also need to be done for every sideblog you have.

You find it by opening up your blog settings > scroll down to visibility > prevent third party sharing

As an aside, I’d thoroughly recommend opting out of having your blog scraped, even if you’re not an artist. Afaik Tumblr hasn’t explicitly stated which companies they’ll be partnering with, but the vagueness of that wording is really alarming.

These datasets use a lot of selfies for photorealistic results, moderation of who has access to these datasets is notoriously ass, and a lot of AI engines are being used to generate pornography and racist imagery (you can see this rn with the rise of ai generated propaganda). While ‘your likeness is used in an awful generated image without your consent’ IS a worst case scenario, it’s a really upsetting one. Protect yourselves.

Its viscerally upsetting that our preferences are apparently respected but we’re all automatically opted in for tumblr’s AI 3rd party “partners” to supposedly scrape our posts and content? L O L

BLOG SETTINGS -> VISIBILITY -> ENABLE “PREVENT 3RD PARTY SHARING”

If you’re on mobile *you must first update the tumblr app*

THIS MUST BE DONE FOR EVERY INDIVIDUAL PUBLIC BLOG YOU HAVE

Iris agate slice PNGs.

remember to switch this on

^^^

I didn't have the option through mobile but if you go through your desktop settings, under visibility there is a toggle to switch so your work is not used in training AI, it's off by default (go figure lol)