#Tumblr sucks but at least it isn't Facebook you know

[secretgamergirl]

It is absolutely ridiculous that I have no way to contact people I care about in 2023.

So I got up today, and saw a big announcement about a certain particularly large company in the games industry did an absolutely massive round of layoffs despite an amazingly good year. You know, as they do. As it so happens, this is a company that, last I checked, employs several people I consider to be pretty good friends, and I feel compelled to toss them a quick message asking if that affected them, ask if poke around on their behalf for freelance work or slap a project of my own real quick they can collaborate on, or whatever.

And it's suddenly sinking in to me that I can't actually do that.

Tabletop game work is writing work, and that means 90% of the networking for most of the past decade or so happened over Twitter. Someone announces they're working on a thing, you message them, e-mails get traded to formally send stuff around. I was on there until I wasn't, so normally, that'd be where I'd be doing my checking in. But that of course is off the table. And like, I don't even have read-access to the site to check if anyone's announcing anything there.

Well, we've traded e-mails, right? We absolutely have. Back when everyone I'm worried about was at this other company, which let this same pile of people I care about and then some go several years ago now. So... those e-mails are no longer valid.

Well, what else is there? Oh right, the one friend has a discord server. It's been super dead for years now since he stopped doing the big weekly social thing it was there for, but it's still - oh, no. It's actually closed out. Same with the one for this freelance artist in that same general orbit... and oh Discord redid usernames and forced everyone to pick new ones. Damn.

Well, there's tumblr here, maybe? Like, there isn't really practically any direct messaging on here but... no, no wait, none of them have posted anything on here since bad policies drove a bunch of people out years back.

There's Facebook? But no, I don't have an account, they're all real legal name focused, and for personal security reasons, I never actually use my legal name anywhere even if I could make one (see, they also insist my name "sounds fake" over at Facebook). Well surely I can just find people's personal websites and send an e-mail but... no, people just don't have personal e-mails anymore, and spam got so bad decades ago now that I can't remember the last time I saw ANYONE post a personal e-mail address anywhere visible. Used to be phonebooks, but I don't think they really adapted to everyone just having a cellphone, and even if they did, they're a local thing.

So yeah. I've got nothing here. Uh... on the off chance anyone's reading this who I'm concerned about, hey, I hope you're OK? I'm still at least periodically checking the e-mails you last used to send things to me? Feel free to reach out and let me know how things are going?

But yeah this just sucks.

[damazcuz]

I've only had this account for about 5 years now. But I've been on tumblr for 13 years, since I was 16 and just starting to learn who I was, what transgender meant, what the world looked like at the time for a group I was swiftly realizing included me.

And for 13 years I have consistently used this site and stayed on, occasionally blog hopping when things felt stale or if things got bad. And things got bad sometimes. You'd get people calling you nasty things in your ask or replies or reblogs or tagging your username to sic their followers on you. And tumblr has always treated targeted harassment as a "Sorry you feel that way. That's not against tos though! Was this answer helpful?" issue whenever it's reported. They've never cared against abuse on their website, IN THE EXCEPTION of cases in which radfems and nazis have maliciously mass reported users for MAYBE hitting their breaking points and MAYBE snapping and saying something stupid that could be used as an excuse. Could be something today or four years ago in your archive but at some point, you had a bad day and posted something that could make tumblr say finally, we can get rid of a pest! or you were just transgender and said as much. A little too loudly in front of the wrong mod.

And this sounds so silly to say. But when you live in a website for 13 years and it's where you have your primary interactions with so many people and where you've met so many of your friends! It starts to feel like your community. Like an apartment building we all live in and visit each other's apartments and talk and decorate and laugh and play. And it's a bit of a dump and we all laugh about the crumbling peeling wallpaper and the slumlord that runs the place. We know the landlord isn't our friend, they just want us to pay rent until we're no good for it anymore. Produce the posts that make this site anything more than a hate forum, make the memes and the art and the posts that end up everywhere from your little sister's pinterest to your mom's Facebook to your uncle's meme subreddit. Keep up the garden and don't pile trash on the curb or you're out. This is "the queerest place on the net" only because queer people live here and hung on with our fingernails to stay here because if you have to leave, what's your fallback? You like your neighbors. They can't all come with you. They won't. Even the kind of crumbly parts feel like home after a while.

Like I want to clarify that Tumblr's reputation as a funny place to chill and scroll and meet people and see new things is not from the transphobes working on staff. Their job is to turn a profit or at least keep it LOOKING profitable, so the site can sell to the next moron to buy it out. The fun and joy of Tumblr is us. WE made this place. When you tear down our decorations and rip out our furnishings and toss us out on the street and look at what's left to show the next prospective tenant, it's a fucking dump. There is nothing left but the shittiest people in our neighborhood who are allowed to stay and make hate posts about us. There's the framework for "someone could make pretty posts here! It's a fixer upper!" But it's shit. It sucks.

I've been spiraling since yesterday over a couple of things I'm not taking well. One is work. "They can't fire us all!" I always joke. And people laugh. Last night my boss and I spent an hour and a half in this miserable fucking meeting, talking about the pressure pushing down on our load bearing team. We fantasized over all 8 of us being able to say "that's enough. I'm better than this. We are all walking out today and we will not come back. Don't text." And we can't. None of us can lose the stability of a full time job that pays kind of okay even though it's killing you. None of us can face that uncerainty. I left with chest pain. It was my first day back after major surgery. I went home and sat in one spot for over six hours almost unmoving, crying and just in disbelief of how unfair it is. We can't leave. But something has to give before my team dissolves and one of us puts a gun in their mouth. And then we all still have to make our shift. Who else will do all that? Who's going to cover, huh? Clock in.

And I spent the rest of my day, which ran to 4 am before I was able to sleep, wishing I could quit and hating what's happening on tumblr just as much. On a fucking blogging platform. Because this has been my fun sandbox for over a decade and it's always kind of sucked, it's full of cat shit and people throw sand at you and you're getting sunburned but it's fun here. You find your people to play with. And then it's like you remember oh yeah, other people here want me dead. The owner of this place wants me to die. He wants everyone that makes this place cool and fun to die. And he'll turn around and say "yeeeah well you shouldn't have joked about being mean to me." And it's like why am I here! Why am I making posts for YOU?

I can't leave employment. I'm only a couple of weeks, maybe a couple months away from homelessness at any given time, with how tight finances are. "Shoestring budget" would be generous. We're making it through sheer force of will. But I can't quit my job, and neither can anyone else.

But I can leave this place that I've hated and loved for so, so long. The other massive drain on my life that wants to see me shrivel and die. I can get up and go. We could all just go. Mass exodus. And I know it won't happen. Give it a week, ten days. People move along. Yeah, that sucked. Well, here we all still are. Still posting. Still tumbling. Still complaining about the landlord. But most people won't leave. How can you walk on your friends and community, knowing they won't all follow? But how do you continue to stay here watching this happen? I'm already listening to people tell me "so? that doesn't affect me. it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. and of course this happened, duhhhh." It's like, feel stupid for getting comfortable here. You should feel stupid for settling in and making it a home and thinking it would be fun here. If you are transgender you are not safe and you are not wanted. Not in the queerest place on the web, either.

It's not about the funny hammer car explosion """threat.""" It was never about the hammer car explosion. That was a dogwhistle through a megaphone to transphobes. Tumblr's darlings. Don't worry. I'll take care of this one that thinks she can speak up against me. And against you. And now there's a defined "REASON" for the ban. Why, Matt hardly knew he was banning a trans woman. All he knew was fear! He had no choice! And you can ignore the ACLU and the claims of systemic transphobia, that's something else. We fixed that!

I want this place to die because it is already rotting. We are scraping at the bones at this point. Walls are crumbling and there's a hole in the floor to the room below and the windows have long been knocked out and the boiler hasn't worked in years. They aren't going to fix it. It has never been the intention to fix it. They want you to leave or die. Whichever. Don't matter. Just get lost. I will find another tenant. I will find another person who will give me more ad revenue. You are replaceable in that sense. Someone else will join tumblr tomorrow. And tumblr will make a buck off them instead.

But they cannot replace the ways in which you and I have made this site livable and bearable and fun. And I want us to leave so that the husk of this place can collapse and blow away in the wind. I want tumblr to take a major hit and I want the loss of ad revenue to HURT THEM. I want a mad scramble to figure out how to fix it all. They can't. They won't. The fix has always been there and it's always been refused. Terfs will never be turned away from tumblr. Neither will nazis. "Sorry you feel that way, but that's not against our tos. Was this answer helpful?"

You know how they say, "it there are ten people at a table and one is a nazi and no one stands up, you have ten nazis"? This feels like that to me. If 20,000 of us wait a week, shrug, and resume joking and playing and say, well, yeah, it's sad that another dozen trans fems were banned last night. But I like it here...

It feels like that. Why are my trans sisters' archives of 5, 10+ years of life and joy being wiped clean? I can't even tell you how many posts I've seen from an op whose url I recognize from last week, but whose username is grey and icon default, because she posted something less than a day ago to say "yo this sucks. Fuck this place and fuck this guy." They've never ever found the terfs and nazis to ban them because they DON'T CARE. Those are the ones they prefer. That they cater to. Post about the ceo being a dumbfuck and in 12 hours, risk losing your community and the ability to look back at your life online. Clean slate. As if you never lived there. Oh, but tumblr isn't a transphobic place. We fired the one and only naughty transphobe on staff who was taking bribes to send out bans. Pay to win moderation. That person's gone. So it's okay and you don't need to worry. It's okay, I promise. It's the queerest place on the web. Get comfortable.

I love my job and I love this place. One of them is going to push me to the edge. But I can choose to leave one. You can choose to leave with me. They can't fire us all.

#and i know that i am preaching halfway to the choir and halfway to deaf ears. #you either already care or you don't. #this either affects you a lot or not at all. #you'll either walk out or you'll clock back in and get back to it. #fuck though man. something has to give or it's going to snap. you know? #and frankly i just don't want to play here right now. it sucks a lot. #and it sounds like it's going to start sucking a whole lot more very quickly. #i hope the hellsite explodes. i hope the hammers go everywhere. #have a good night and all. #see you tomorrow or whatever.

[versegm]

Like I'm not that attached to tumblr, sucks if it falls and I lose all my archives and all but I'll live. The part that pissed me off the most is there there is fucking Nowhere Else left. In 2018 when porn was banned no one was happy to move to twitter but at least it was there and solid-looking. If you moved to twitter you had a good chance to find your folks over there as well. Right nlw it's like. All ghe major bitches fell. I sure ain't gonna use facebook or linkedin to post blorbo. So what's left? No one knows where to go because the issue isn't so much "what website has the best features" as "what website will still get me a decent amount of eyes on whatever I wanna make." And there's fucking nowhere.

[mangocheesecakes]

like as a general rule Filipinos who live in the Philippines use Facebook a lot. It's the preferred social media site of both young and old people on here, and we use it so much there is a real culture that's developed around our use of it (for example, it's the norm to use a black square or a photo of a candle as profile picture when a family member or close friend dies). It's literally ubiquitous here we use it for business, job seeking, news, delivery services, the works. All of your relatives have an account, all of your friends have an account, all our politicians have accounts, it's basically our twitter. so it's almost impossible to hide/fake major events like deaths and even illnesses on there, because relatives and friends will for sure be tagging and talking about it if it happens.

Also, yes our country sucks, yes our government is corrupt and incompetent but it isn't nearly as broken down as these donation scammers would have you believe. We DO have healthcare assistance and ways to ask the government for help in times of crisis. in fact while trying to track down the pictures itssmelau stole for her scams, i found out there are many Facebook groups for people looking for help/information on how to receive money from different government agencies to pay for their medical expenses. Like I have no doubt it's a difficult grueling process, I myself have experienced/witnessed how it is, but it CAN be done and people who are in need of large amounts of money, for hospital bills or what have you, often try to exhaust those avenues first before looking to strangers on the internet for help. And when they do ask for donations, it's often within Facebook as well, since that is where their friends and family are, and sending money is easier using local money transfer services instead of setting up a whole paypal account. So it is going to be strange that given how much they are supposedly in need of in their posts, none of these donation scammers ever have posts up on Facebook about what they're going through. If it is for everyday expenses like bills, food, transpo, I definitely get why someone would not want to make posts on FB about it and resort to Tumblr for help. like yeah i get that it's hard to have people who know you irl see you asking for help for those kind of things and no i don't think there's anything wrong about it. As I said before, life IS incredibly hard on here sometimes. But for things like medical emergencies and major life crisis, Facebook is always the preferred/first option, because that's where your friends and family are. Even though they may not be able to give they can at least share your posts to a wider audience.

ALSO, Facebook is easier and cheaper to access. If you have no wifi and you're only using your phone's data to access the internet, Tumblr would require that you have promos with Gigabytes of data, which is relatively more expensive, whereas you can buy like i think 300 mb of purely Facebook data for just 10 Pesos (0.18 US Dollars?) and that's enough to scroll the app for hours. And! there's free mode, you can scroll the app you just can't see pics and videos.

#Donation Scam #itssmelau #creepinginyourheartbabe #Alexandria Mangahas #Laura Mae Deramas

[noellevanious]

more bitching and moaning about twitter below the cut. god help me and my tendencies

see like. twitter and the attitude around it drives me nuts. like when you think about it or when you've been on this site for long enough. you see all the issues people on twitter complain about.

"it's really hard to curate a following on tumblr" no it fucking isn't. you just don't do anything besides post your art with 30 tags once, maybe twice, and hope somebody finds it. because on twitter people will just rt whatever the algorithm gives them. there's no community. if there is a community, it's from friends who already know eachother elsewhere. all the "interactions" i see on twitter are people apologizing cause other people are bitching them out, or friends that have been friends forever talking about stuff.

meanwhile almost everybody i've met i've met that i interact with, i met through tumblr in some way. my friends for the past 5 years since i got out of college? all originally from tumblr. all these people that i interact with? met them here. it's a little community of like-minded people who i cherish and appreciate even if, so far, our interactions are just text and images on a screen.

the entire fun of tumblr is the community aspect. we like promoting eachother. we like interacting with eachother. i've had more fun in the past year or so of being on this site than i've had on basically any forum.

like i follow artists that have dipped their toes back into tumblr after seeing them complain and whine and moan about "ohhh god i gotta go back to tumblr boohooo i have no clout there i get so fewer notes/reboggles/whatever" and. they like. post a single piece of their art a day. and then just. nothing. when the site is literally built around reblogs.

there's no algorithm in the "Good" "pure" way to experience the site. You meet friends with common interests, maybe through tags, maybe you already knew them. maybe you joined tumblr because of them. they reblog certain people. you reblog those posts. It's very natural. You find stuff you like, and people you like, and blogs you enjoy seeing. so you keep going. and that's how you start getting traction. you be genuinely funny or charming or talented.

and trust me. i get it. nobody's terminally online like me. you don't need to tell me that.

nobody else literally spends 90% of their time looking at the dashboard*. so it's just more "normal" people who check their twitter or tiktok or insta or whatever every now and then inbetween their work in their field. so like. this is all just small potatoes to them. they just want another outlet or avenue to share their media. more power to them.

but like. these websites suck shit. and current internet sucks shit. don't get on your high horse about waaaaah waaaah the shitty website that literally any moderately thought-out forum or webzone would put to shame, where the only interaction 90% of the time is trying to climb an imaginary internet ladder and be the Talk of the Town for 15 minutes so you can get a bunch of follows, is slowly crumbling around you, so there goes your small internet niche you carved (when in reality, if it had literally any weight or gravitas whatsoever, people would follow you to whatever outlet you move to).

It's a shitty fucking website. Let it burn. Tiktok is worse, Facebook is worse, Instagram is worse, but at least one shitty, advertiser-focused consumer-hating site is crumbling. That's good.

* (and trust me when i say that if i had my choice, i'd be like. in a full-time job. or my adhd would be solved so i could do creative stuff i wanna do, like make video essays, or write more, or draw more, instead of staring at this website so much)

#inanegargling

[harmcityherald]

that live with the ceo thing just hanging there. I unsnoozed which is a word I have never used before, got nothing. but its.....just hanging there. ominously. like oh you didn't like my post, well then. and he says lets talk about it....on live......that everyone also hates. man.....Im getting elon vibes over here.

not gonna unsnooze ever again. so I will never have to use that unwieldy word again.

love tumblr tho. sucks its just another corporate specter but that's all we got isn't it. corporate specters. from the ground up. us little people. we are the product, dear readers. The fuel of the capitalist engines. you and me and our little clicks in our bored moments. We are the fuel. The data mined. sold and researched. So yeah I use yours because its the best in town. why is it the best in town? because I don't feel raped here. The reason no one liked your post is because you showed them it rapes like all the others. you were just better at hiding it. hide it again. We like the fairy tale. its comfortable this way. We see tumblr as a compassionate place. A place we can find truth with each other and play at our fandoms, produce and show art and not some vapid pisshole like twitter or fb where Im free to be myself whereas I can't be in those other theaters. Im comfortable here and I trusted you to at least not act like fb and twitter and to realize thats why young people like your site. *smack* wtf man. I know in my heart you run a conglomerate machine of mayhem and I wouldn't want to trade places with you. To tried to be competitive up there in this social media War that I guess you imagine that you fight everyday and you have to stay relevant and you have to compete but you're going to have to balance that with the humanity of your website because that's what the people are here for, that's what I'm here for. I know you mind me for data I can tell from the sponsored ads I get, and at least you have a sense of humor. But us poor fuel cells of those big corporate engines like yours we like you to keep that curtain closed pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. As a Humanity disappears so will the people. That's exactly what is happening at Twitter and at Facebook and at readdit. So if in some wild alternate universe I had been able to actually access your live stream and actually talk to you then this is exactly what I probably would have said.

now don't be elon and delete me. it would be a utopian world if you didn't mine us all for datadollars but Im a realist. I know you are. just don't stick it in my face. remember. humanitarian.

[thisblackwitch]

I got this either because of mention of the Sitong Bridge protest, or because I run a group for LGBT people on the app, Hello Talk. I'm there to learn multiple languages, including Chinese. Because I get so many Chinese language partner requests (and the vast number of people who send them are a) obscenely boring b ) ghost no matter what or c) are just plain obscene), I will send a copypasta message of "I'm not taking new Chinese language partners - except LGBT Chinese language partners and Chinese language partners who talk about mental health". Hey, I get so many, I can afford to be extremely choosy.

Hello Talk, I have been on since about 2010. As you can see, it looks radically different than when I first joined. Now, it has heavy Chinese-styled censorship but prefers to play it off as "we're keeping this a safe community". They're based in China, which, at one point, honestly didn't matter at all but now, it really is a glaring problem. I have butted heads with Hello Talk before about their shadowbanning behavior and how they take down posts that tends to be about Chinese politics (but have kept up harmful posts about pretty much anywhere else or about anything else). Their excuse is "we're abiding by local laws in your area" - I'm American, this nation sure does suck (if you want blind glowing praise of the USA, find a White person, you'll have a way better success rate. I'm Black, be glad that short phrase is all I'm saying on the subject) but at least I know enough to know Hello Talk isn't being honest and when blatant censorship does occur, these companies are sat in front of Congressional hearings they hate and class-action lawsuits they find agitating. Is there issue of digital censorship in America? Yes. Does it look like digital censorship issues in China? Heck no. I pointed that out to Hello Talk and they then dropped the issue and tried to focus on something else. Again, they changed a lot since 2010.

Due to me butting heads with Hello Talk, I certainly have an account at Tandem recently, which is also a language exchange app but is based in Germany. So you genuinely have a bigger freedom of speech there. I can actually have actual conversations with people in China on that app (when they're not a) boring b) ghosting or c) disgusting). Problem is, is that the people I talk to on Hello Talk in China may or may not have access to Tandem. Otherwise, I would just tell them, "Let's talk on Tandem instead". Ditto with the queer group on Hello Talk, they seem really happy, especially the ones in nations where talking openly about queerness is a major no no, to literally just have someone who is like them to talk to. Even if all that is talked about are very regular subjects. It's really nice. I have some gleaming of a contingency plan but the toughest users to onboard elsewhere are in China because of how much surveillance and censorship they're under. Not everyone has a VPN, can afford it or know how to use it. And trust, getting a VPN in China is not a EZ 1-2-3 step. Not to mention, it can be going fine one day and then flop on you eternally the next. It's chicanery, that's certain.

Also, this censorship extends to other online places that are based in China, so it is a very sure thing that they do collect information on their users and what they say. I know because I personally got banned from WeChat in roughly half an hour after making an account - I didn't even say anything yet. And it isn't because I'm American, plenty Chinese-American users are on it to simply keep contact with relatives overseas. I do rip on places like Tumblr and Facebook but at least I get to say it before bs occurs.

I feel like, at this point, even if someone learning Chinese wasn't aware of the issues over there, they would eventually be by this point. All the monitoring, all the banned words, all the bs annoyance. It would definitely let even a simple-minded or ignorant person know that something isn't right and get possibly curious. It reminds me of a joke that I thought wasn't great at the time but really seemed more poignant now when I told a person that Chinese is one of the language I'm learning. They replied, laughing, "Oh, everyone can speak Chinese, it's the easiest language to learn in the world. Just be silent - boom, now you're fluent in Chinese." Hello Talk started going downhill a few years ago with this censorship mess (starting with anything to do with Hong Kong, I believe) but they're really kicking on the Nitro now.

Even when people ask me now about learning Chinese - actually I know several languages: French, Japanese, Korean and Chinese. I can understand Spanish and bits of German (thanks to my mom spending the first 5 years of her life in Germany due to WWII - my granddad was fighting German White supremacists "alongside" American White supremacists (it wasn't alongside, segregation existed :/) because Reasons) - back to me getting asked about learning Chinese, I just go "Ehhhh, it's a nice language buuuuuuuuuut the bullsh*ttery tho. What's the point of learning a language when you can't really say anything in that language?" It's frustrating because I 100% don't have to deal with this in French, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, German or Italian (I learned Latin in high school so Italian is a "I somehow understand it, I'm as surprised as you are" language). These are all languages with separate nations with separate histories. And I still have way less of a headache of talking to people in those languages and learning those languages because I have more, well, freedom of movement. I don't have to sit here and get a new double-consciousness of "Welp, can't say that word anymore, gotta code it up, it just got banned somehow or gets you flagged somehow". And it won't be words that by themselves make sense to get banned - like if someone was making derogatory comments about how certain groups simply shouldn't exist anymore … simply because they exist, no other reason - it's words that look like total nonsense, like "candle" "bridge" "crab" "year".

Look, being an academic who is multilingual, I have researched countless restrictive governments. My focus usually is on, well, people issues. Queerness, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, all of that and all their intersections - it really isn't that hard to learn. I also code and build tech in my spare time, it's harder to learn how to make a computer say "Hello World" (which is just three or so lines of code) than it is to understand "not everyone has the same experience and there are reasons why" - this is what I look into. One thing I have noticed is how much I sometimes wonder "Ok, but what is the end goal of these nations acting this way and oppressing people and making basically everyone miserable?" There's quelling trouble and then there's just making everyone afraid you're going to Blip them.

This is honestly very aggravating, to say the least. And deeply concerning, to say the most.

Oh, and you can't ask them what the "offending content" is. So you never really know what kicked it off.

#Hello Talk #Language #Chinese language #Censorship #long post

[blujayonthewing]

booieann

  so I’ve started posting art to instagram, but I’m...

I like seeing your art on there since I’ve been using Tumblr less recently. Insta has problems with people reposting art tho. I mean it can happen on any site, but it seems kinda prevalent on insta and the people who do it don’t seem to care

ach yea I’ve heard that too, and I mean, mostly I’m still in the ‘who would even WANT to steal/ repost my art?’ zone but it is something I’ve thought about 

I definitely don’t mind posting art there just as a place my friends can actually see it, since I know a lot of people kind of migrating away from tumblr and/or facebook, but I don’t really see it becoming like... The Home for my art, if that makes sense

#booieann #it's also a bummer cause I know tumblr also sucks for a lot of reasons but insta isn't really formatted for comics for example #a lot of the stuff I do is hard enough to make work on facebook let alone instagram :'D #but at least they don't totally lock you into a square composition anymore #about me #my art

[imperatriceauxdiamants]

Could you give be me some teenage advice?

Seek for your own benefit first before anything. ANYTHING. Don't burn yourself to keep others warm.

Set some high standards of behaviour, be up to your own standards, and apply some good standards of behaviour to your friends you choose to surround yourself with. Don't allow flakes, liars, cheaters, criminals around you. Don't allow pickmes & fuckboys around you.

Friends are supposed to uplift and bring your vibe up, and you equally. If you feel you can't bring others vibes up, don't fret over this and focus on making yourself satisfactory to yourself.

Therapist stuff should be shared with the therapist or your journal. Don't give others weapons to hurt you.

Boys aren't worth it. Focus on your own benefit. Grades, your well-being, your health. Boys come LAST. LAST.

Don't be afraid of dumping negative influences in your life. Think YOU first.

Being a high value woman is being your absolute best at anytime, being humble but not a doormat, helping others (without burning yourself) and bringing up the vibe. It all starts with your own mindset. Focus on yourself, then everything will slowly come together.

Focus on the now, and act accordingly. Don't worry every day about what will happen in 5 years, think about your goals, and act on them everyday. If you wanna master the piano (goal), play 15 minutes of piano everyday. If you want to be fit(goal), do something active everyday (walks also count). If you want to learn a new language, practice your goal language everyday. It will be boring but most things good are boring and that's totally fine. Boring is good and feels right.

Ditch image-based social media. You'll see this advice more and more often. Likes, follows, reblogs mean nothing in real life and they DO influence you and your perception of yourself. "Oh no, last pic didn't have as much likes, I must've been ugly". Seeing others having Perfect Moments and feeling mediocre in you actual daily life is gonna affect your mental health. Spare yourself the damage, ditch social media. This includes Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter, even Tumblr if you feel it affecting you. Ditch YouTube if you feel you're sinking away hours and hours. Focus on ways to use intelligently Internet. Install blockers, create some boundaries yourself. Say that you're not going to check out the feed and only use Facebook for messaging friends and making plans.

Focus on creation over consumption (Creating art versus looking at art), focus on rich passive consumption over mindless passive consumption (reading a good complete book over reading a tweet thread).

At high school, your whole universe is the high school. Trust me, I did high school too. There's SO much more than high school, so many possibilities, so many opportunities. If it sucks right now, it doesn't means it's gonna suck later on.

Your body is a temple. You don't allow anyone to touch it, enter it, demean it. You only let in those you know will respect your body-temple. Take care of your body-temple, it is with you forever. Drink water, eat good quality food, do physical activity, don't allow yourself to feel like absolute shit. You deserve the best you can give yourself. Don't allow fuckboys to fuck you. Only allow well-worthy men that proved themselves, and ONLY after a long while of knowing them. This may lead to dry spells, but as always, quality over quantity.

You should wait till you're 21 to get any tattoos or piercings, and if you decide on doing that, go to a TRUSTED professional. "You pay for what you get" is literal for that. Don't be cheap on that stuff, and give a idea at least ONE year before acting on it.

Porn isn't real sex. Period. Don't get your sexual education from porn. Borrow at the library (or read on place if you don't wanna the counter lady seeing your books), read about it as much as you can. You'll only benefit from that.

Being drunk isn't cute. Final. You look ridiculous being drunk. It isn't cool. Sipping and tasting a fine moderate glass of high quality stuff is so so so classier and feels SO RIGHT than drowning 5 pints of cheap beer that will make you feel like shit. Same about drugs.

If you have shitty lowvibe people around you, you'll be seen as lowvibe too, no matter how highvibe you behave and think, and you'll be rejected by highvibe people.

If you feel like shit, take a HARD look at your lifestyle and habits. A good lifestyle leads to a good life.

RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH your educational/professional paths, and start this now. Ask people about their own path. Google it. Borrow books about those topics. Search!! It is so important.

Grades are important, for sure, but they're not important to ruin your mental health over. Don't hesitate to ask for help to teachers for the course material. If you feel it's getting too much, take a breather for 15 min, go do something else and come back to it. Breathe. A bad score isn't the end of the world, it's just a warning, and a signal saying "hey, readjust yourself babe, you can do it! Just giving you a heads-up for what's going on".

Don't neglect your second language classes! They're so useful to learn the basics of the language, which will be so useful for later on, when you'll continue learning!

Buy QUALITY over QUANTITY. 30 pairs of cheap shitty earrings will never beat a more expensive but absolutely timeless pearls earrings, per example. Several cheap 10$ shoes will never beat a good 60$ basic classic pair of shoes. Yes the wallet hit may hurt, but over time, you get more bang for your buck.

Teenagehood is definitively a strange time, but give it time, trust the process and do what you think is best and things will get better as you go on. You body or mind might be off&odd but it evens out. Don't worry over it and do your best 💎

#levelup #glowup #get your shit straight #get your shit together

[lewdo]

I've been thinking a lot about your last "Lando sucks 😡" anon and I need to talk about something. I'm a member of a huge McLaren group on facebook, it has over 40,000 members. It can be categorised into three groups: McLaren fans, Lando fans and Daniel fans. I'm part of the first two, and as a McLaren fan I want Daniel to do well. I don't go out of my way to look for gifs of him or spend hours watching anything DR related on youtube, like I do with Lando 😅 The past couple of years were a lot of fun in this group. There were a lot of Carlos fans that migrated back in 2018 but everything was civil and the atmosphere was great. Fast forward to 2020 when DR fans migrated over and the group is a war zone. People make posts legitimately criticising DR and they're slammed as disgusting fake fans (some of the posts are def too much but those are called out by everyone). No one can post anything about Lando without being told they're plastic fan girls who don't support the whole team. 50% of the comments on Lando posts are: "Danny will wipe the floor with him when he gets used to the car" (Is this the only phrase they know?), "The car is designed for Lando, ofc Danny is having a hard time", "Danny has won SEVEN races, talk to me when Lando has won anything" (Just for comparison it took DR 4 seasons to get his first podium which also happened in a Red Bull which was a top 2 car through his stint there. With this I'm def not saying he wasn't real good back then because he was. Red Bull Danny was top tier imo), And the new favorite of the group, with 5 articles being shared every hour is ---> "Lando is a pay driver. His dad pays him so McLaren doesn't have to. That's why he's at McLaren, because it's cheap for them. He wouldn't even be in F1 if it wasn't for daddy dearest. He couldn't even win in F2, Russell is much better than him" (and they always manage to bring Russell into it like??? ok? and has he not grown since then?? is he not a better driver now than he was in 2018?? Russell won F2 and Lando is currently doing better in F1, can two things not be true at the same time? George had the better car in F2, Lando has the better car in F1 🤷‍♀️) "McLaren are giving Danny a much worse car than Lando, they're sabotaging him!!!!" Like sir or madam, you think a team is paying DR £15,000,000 just to put him in a worse car so a 21 year old gremlin (who is allegedly being paid £2,000,000!!?) can one up him? Isn't it possible, even just slightly possible that yes Lando has been in the car longer, and yes he's helped design it but that also he's gotten better? That he has the drive and desire to become the best he can? That the thought, and reality, of having DR as a teammate actually made him push himself more? Or maybe, god forbid, he's actually better than DR? Let me tell you, I've learned to spot an Australian a mile away in any comment section, and they're not as laidback as they'd like you to believe, at least not F1 fans. Oh, and the newest thing (and it's on twitter and tumblr also) is that DR is being emotionally abused and exploited by the engineers and the social media team. I'd be more concerned about Checo and the way he's being treated at RB than DR any day of the week.

This really turned into an essay, I should've bought a diary instead 😭

yeh ive always found that dan fans seem to be the most argumentative and rude if you even say one negative thing about him. or even if you just compliment lando without even mentioning dan they get offended, i constantly have anons come to my inbox telling me how much better dan is than lando but unfortunately for them they can waste their breath as much as they want the talking is done on track as all the drivers like to say. and while lando is barrelling down the road screaming dan is listening to classic fm driving like my nan.

i always find it a stupid argument to be like oh well dan scored 7 wins over 10 years so he’s clearly better than lando who has never won but only been in the sport 3 years even though dan has had 2 podiums the past 3 years and lando has had 4, 3 of which have been while dan was his teammate. like they pick and choose when they want the argument to be valid.

the whole mclaren sabotage thing i just find hilarious because as you say the team spend so much money on him and for what just do they can sabotage and lose more money and get lower in constructors cause yeh that makes a lot of sense. i reckon part of the reason lando has improved so much on last year is because of the fact dan came to mclaren and not in a “the teams favouring him” way but because EVERYONE thought dan would beat him so he got his head down over the break and during game the season and worked hard so that he could be the best he’s ever been.

also last year carlos was beating lando in the same car that dan can’t and i know drivers have different things they like on the car but the mclaren isn’t only drivable by lando which is what lots of people try to make it out to be. and it’s always “when dan gets used to the car” as if it’s not been 11 races already and then “oh he’s back on form” when he scores a p6 or higher which is mad to me cause like that’s not the “on form” dan that his fans seem to constantly go on about since he’s future wdc but then they think p6 is his “on form” which makes zero sense. and then he’ll go back to being “off form” and it’s “oh mclarens sabotaging him” “he could have won if xyz didn’t happen” they’re all just delusional with they’re arguments most of the time too

also i wanna clear up i’ve never once sat here and said dan’s a shit driver cause that wouldn’t be true but dan fans are stuck still believing dan’s in his prime when it’s just not true anymore. they need to realise that other drivers are coming into the sport and with that dan needs to grow as to not just be a midfield driver who’s past his prime.

#geez this was too long for my brain to comprehend at 8 am #sorry if my response doesn’t make too much sense lol #ask #anon

[customkits]

Having a small business is hard. I can't count the times I've been envious of other pages, channels, groups, and artists. I've wanted to just give up and stop my hobby altogether a few times. But I stop myself and think. Perseverance. That is something we usually forget about, isn't it? We are so quick to give up what we have because the grass looks greener on the other side and we think our grass can never be that green. Sure that page may have 10K followers and their work may be much better than yours, but they began in your shoes once, too: unsure of themselves and contemplating giving it all up because of lack of activity or engagement.

I used to have a Patreon and advertised it with every post I made. And what happened? My Patreon got deactivated due to my account being a creator page with no followers. It was depressing. I see so many people with Patreon and they have many followers. Has it stopped me from making my work? No. Did it hurt? Yes.

Every time I go live on Instagram, I watch and wait to see who comes on. I've had close to 1 hour streams with 0 people. Every now and then only 2 people come in. They pop in and pop out without a wave or a hello. Has it stopped me from doing this? No. Does it hurt? Yes.

Having a commission-based page (Facebook, tumblr, and Instagram) is difficult. It's easy to get sucked into the envy of how many other pages have soo many other followers and make so much more profit than you do annually. To top it off, every sale (i.e., pre-made items I want to sell) bring up yields no fruition. Yet, other pages make so many sales without issue. It really makes one think that their work is just not good enough.

I haven't forgotten the followers who reblog and like my stuff. I cannot thank you enough. Every bit of exposure helps and I love interacting with you!

This isn't a guilt trip post or a post to get attention. I just have been fighting with this for a while. I've come so close to just closing up shop because no one seems to care what I'm doing, what I have to offer, or have any interest in commissions. I know that at least a few people care about my page, and I am very happy for that. But not everyone knows the pain and envy that comes with commission-based work.

If you read the whole thing, thank you. It really means a lot. You may not understand what I am going through, but the fact that you care enough about my page to read it speaks volumes.

Here is my progress of the day, if you're interested.

As always,

Interested in commissions? Message me!

#star wars #fun #stormtrooper #hobby #customkits #bandai model kit #the black series #darth vader #empire #starwars #small business #tough times #this is hard #does anyone else have this problem #does anyone care

[calzone-zl1]

Coming back to Tumblr is something I'd thought about for a while, but this post is hopefully going to be the thought I had today that I just HAD to get out there. It's not juicy or anything, it's just something I didn't particularly want a bunch of "thoughts and prayers" replies to and I know that's exactly what I'd get on Facebook.

So I'm thinking heavily on the "martyr mentality" I feel gets pushed. The "tough it out," crowd, the people who celebrate going in to work unless they're practically vomiting blood and have at least three broken bones. The crowd who play "pain Olympics" with, "I don't know why Suzie can't handle a simple job when she only has [blankety blank]"

And honestly, well, this is a personal decision. Because no, am I going to come to work with an IV pole and chemo hanging? Nah I'm good. But I do enjoy my job mostly. And I have a lot in life I enjoy that requires me to have a good, steady income. I also know that when I was furloughed during covid, it was one of the lowest points on my life. I like the momentum.

I've veered a little off point, but where I'm leading, is that this has lead to me somewhat tolerating a lot of "issues" with my body.

My neck hurts? It's tension. Isn't everyone stressed?!

Headaches every day? Isn't that also pretty much everyone? And while they aren't localized to the front of my face... That doctor did say he still thinks it's my sinuses. HaVe SoMe fLoNaSe. Dizzy? Yeah, must be those damned sinuses. Or maybe I should eat.

How did I actually find out something is actually wrong? I was walking through a parking lot and a parking gate fell on my damn head. And I got a CT. Even then, I was told the CT was normal. The next day I got the email, "Hey, you have some new results on your patient portal." I looked out of boredom. Long story short, I'm having a Chiari decompression next month which is an operation which involves my skull, the covering of my brain, and my c1 vertebrae.

So my point is no, I don't want to let these headaches and aches and pains run my life. But damn, that "suck it up" mentality did nothing to help me.

If anyone has actually made it this far and actually reading this, don't ignore your red flags. If you think a "sinus headache" in the back of your head sounds like a crock of shit, go somewhere else.

#chiari #chiari malformation #chiari warrior #health #vent #venting

[abqryan]

@gefuckt tumblr isn't showing me whatever actual post this mention is from, maybe you've already deleted it or maybe tumblr sucks. In my experience the second is more common.

Anyway, I'm going to guess this is a response to one of the times I have advised against using twitter because of their blatantly politically motivated censorship.

I know that facebook certainly does similar things and I would not be surprised if you are entirely correct about instagram.

There are however a few better options, while tumblr is far from issue free they do seem to be better about at least not silencing those they disagree with politically, so long as some automated program doesn't guess you are presenting a nipple.

But I only mention that first because we're there currently. If you are truly interested in a censor free twitter replacement I highly suggest Parler. It is very similar to twitter without the liberal overlords.

I really think the best response Trump could have to twitter is if he created a Parler account and then once a month or so just tweeted a link to it and that's all he used twitter for. Everything else he feels like tweeting he could put on Parler instead.

[bbq-hawks-wings]

Art reposting etiquette

I see art theft happen a lot, and whether or not it's true or has just been happening more frequently in the circles I follow I can't help but at least feel like it's becoming more and more of a problem.

To be clear, "reposting" is downloading art from a website that you did not make or own, and uploading it as a separate post, regardless of where and how it's presented - with notable exception of header and profile pictures assuming they are not trying to imitate the artist. Not all art theft is reposting, but all improper reposting is art theft.

As cut and dry as "stop art theft it's bad, don't repost art" posts make it sound, there are several benevolent reasons people may want to repost such as:

Believing they are spreading the artist's influence around the internet

Adding intrigue or a visual aid to a fanfiction

Sharing some neat art they thought was really cool

Just to name a few

Assuming the best in people, these are not necessarily bad reasons and DON'T MAKE PEOPLE BAD, but many often don't understand there's a dark side to the reposting issue.

People who may want more art may be unable to find the original creator

People may not realize that the artist makes rent with the very artwork you're enjoying and they may be looking at stolen premium content meant to put food on the table

People take art and further edit it so that it becomes even harder to trace back to the original

Malicious websites and bots find popular fanart and illegally use it to produce bootleg merch. This has a double-whammy effect when someone sees the merch IRL when out and about and wants it because it's cool art of their favorite character but don't realize the artist is actively being robbed.

Reposting art makes it harder for the artist to track down the thief and take legal action as well as actively funnels traffic away from their business. By and large it should always be assumed that reposting for any reason is damaging to the artist's wellbeing; and frankly, if you don't care you're actively hurting someone, it makes you the asshole, not me for calling you out.

But, that isn't to say reposting is NEVER allowed, but ONLY UNDER EXTREMELY SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCES. That's the point of this post.

Before you can decide if you should even attempt to repost art, check these things first:

If it says directly on the art "do not repost" don't waste your time. They are not going to make an exception for you.

Check to see if the art is already on the platform you're planning to upload to (especially here on Tumblr). Often, artists make it a point to put their work in very specific locations for their own reasons. They may not want their work on your website at all and you need to respect that.

Gain the artist's explicit permission after explaining where you want to repost their work, which work you want to repost, and why with how you plan to credit them. If you gain permission, keep a copy of the conversation for your own protection. If you do not gain permission, don't repost at all.

If you gain permission to repost art, these things are an absolute necessity:

Mention of the artist's name

THEIR main platform of choice

link to the original piece used

It would likely look something like this:

Artwork uploaded with express permission by @[artist] on [website], found here - (hyperlinked to original piece)

Bonus information to include:

Additional social media handles of the artist

Link to the artist's Patreon and/or Ko-Fi if available

Link to artist's store if available

Hyperlinking the image itself so other users can just click it to find the work/artist

Remember reposting should be about the artist, NOT YOU. You didn't create the work, and even if you supported them via Patreon it still doesn't belong to you, nor are you entitled to it. A commission you personally paid for is the only piece of work of that artist's creation you are ever entitled to unless otherwise stated in a contract when you bought it.

To continue to cover my bases I'm going to address some stances that may pop up about the issue:

"I didn't know reposting was that bad!"

It's okay. That's why I made this post. In general, as a supportive fan and consumer you should try to learn how artists are rewarded for their work on different platforms. YouTube is different from Instagram is different from Facebook is different from Tumblr. Learn which best ways to support your favorite artists in the ways that are most beneficial to them, even if all they ask for is respect and a little appreciation. And do take down any art you may have reposted. It can continue to do damage by remaining up, but removing it almost always mitigates any future harm and genuinely helps. Now you know better and can be better moving forward!

"I can't get ahold of the artist for permission."

Don't repost it then. Remember, at the end of the day reposting is only good for the reposter in fake internet points or actual money/intellectual property stolen but always tangibly hurts the artist. It sucks, but they have a right to determine where and how their hard work is displayed.

"Whatever, I'll do what I want. Lol"

Enjoy your takedown. Hey, artists, did you know you can find each website's terms of service and figure out how to submit a report with the offending post and user, and they're usually good about getting it down within days?! Look for "misappropriation" that's your ticket! 😊

But seriously, repeat offenders can get permanently banned from sites and even sued for actual real-world money and damages over your precious fake internet points. It actually pays to not be an ass!

"But I just want to support the artist and reposting is so easy!"

You know what's even easier?

It's literally only one or two clicks to support the artist or tell them how much you love their work! Most other platforms make supporting content creators just as easy, and some platforms even PAY the creators based on them or enable them to grasp opportunities to be paid!

"But I don't want to bog down my followers with a huge reblog dump of one person's stuff."

Put it in queue to space it out, then.

"I don't have money to support the artist so I repost instead to give them exposure."

Time and time again it's been proven that reposting actively funnels money AWAY from them. You don't have to monetarily support them with much. Buy one thing from their store or give them $1 on Ko-Fi. If you can't even do that, tell them you love their stuff and shout to the rooftops where someone else can pay them; but don't make it harder for them to get paid. Too many artists "die of exposure."

"Why do you even care?"

I AM an artist. I currently support artists with real money monthly because I love their work. I only ever make money off my own art on commissions, and that relies on people being able to find me. I'm not even the one supporting my two children, husband, pet, and medical expenses with only this option to pay for it, and you bet your butt I still would be pissed if I ever found out my art had been misappropriated. Some people do this to SURVIVE and I want to see that those who do have as little unnecessary struggle with it as possible.

"It's fanart/fan content put on the internet for free I can do whatever I want with it!"

At least in North America the law says you can't. Did you know that the way laws are currently written, if someone takes a picture of you and finds a way to make money off that photo they don't owe you a dime? They hold the copyright to it. When art is displayed publicly, that copyright is not surrendered and is automatically afforded to the artist by virtue of it being their specific expression and work. By being their work, they can actually sue you for stealing their property.

Ask Disney, they're really good at it.

And to close this out I want to say one more thing: the internet has changed a LOT in the time I started browsing from the early 2000's. Rules are different, cultures are different, and for younger people especially you may not understand how some have had to (and still do) fight tooth and nail over this internet space and still make it.

If you didn't know all this, THAT'S OKAY! You're learning, and the internet is more or less a wild west right now. That means it's equal opportunity to be a killing field or a place we can lift up and support each other. Reposting is just one corner of the bad things that can come of it, but now you know how to help and even start reversing the damage.

Learn about how people who upload free content make money. When you find misappropriated work, report them to the site and try to inform the artist - don't even acknowledge the thief, just slap a ticket on them and move on. Teach others how and why reposting is bad and what they can do to help.

If you love free content, show respect and protect it. Otherwise, artists will have to put it behind a paywall and that content you loved will disappear over time. Respect will get you a much greater return than entitlement.

#she speaks #this is meant to be educational not a callout post #do not harrass anyone you find reposting art #never do it - you here me!!! #i see it all the time #stop it #and if you reposted it's ok #i'm not after you #i just want you to know and learn