Listen I Have A Lot Of Feelings On This - Tumblr Posts

tl;dr if you don’t want to read a lot but do want to do what’s right, if you are new here, if you are NEW to tumblr, stop clicking the heart, and start clicking this button:

That button keeps creators of those posts happy, helps them thrive, breathes new life in them, and makes them want to continue creating.

If you LOVE a post, reblog it (click those arrows), plain and simple. If you want to remember it and know that you’ve seen it, click the heart.

Now, if you want to learn why/how that is, and the community behind this site, if you want to know what is BEST and most advisable to do, keep reading, there’s a lot more under the cut...

So this like... tumblr/tiktok like/reblog thing is making me really uncomfortable and I’ve finally looked at numbers on things to visualize it myself, and it’s... startling.

I’ve seen a lot of these posts and I’m going to try my best to talk to new people on their level. This is speaking as someone that has been on tumblr since its infancy, I’m talking dawn of time, I’m ancient, I’m a dinosaur, but like any culture has, I do hold something very valuable that you new people will be able to take and utilize: knowledge.

Now I don’t have big posts and I never have even on my sideblogs, not by any stretch of the imagination, I am but a humble creator that floats about and throws things out there mostly for me and sometimes for others.

But I’ve had what I consider to be /healthy/ posts. So, let’s compare. Let’s break down some numbers so I can show you why this is important to learn. I know, I know, it’s a lot, but please, for the sake of this site - if you are staying and you LIKE WHAT YOU SEE, and you want to see MORE of it - you want to know how this works.

I’ll be looking at a couple of posts for these examples.

One post I made recently and I consider to be... horribly received, because it died in the water.

It reached almost 1,700 notes. It should’ve continued to thrive. Once a post hits that high it normally will sail pretty well because it’s in circulation.

1000+ is healthy, but it’s NOTHING when the majority are likes (the heart is likes, and the heart is the devil, it is satan’s kiss, it is the end of DAYS when a set has even like... 50 likes more than reblogs at this number).

Now, to compare this sad, dead in the water set to sets that FLOURISHED before all this nonsense? Y’all wanna see some normal numbers?

A post from 8 years ago, gorgeous gorgeous numbers:

A post from 7 years ago, even MORE gorgeous, thriving:

A post from 6 years ago, see the ratio slipping:

A post from TWO years ago and hmmm, smth feels off:

This last one is a post I consider to be unhealthy. And, at the time, I considered it disGUSTING, appalling. I took offense to it, and any other creator would. Because reblogs are king on tumblr and reblogs mean that someone loved my work enough to share it with others.

We don’t work like tiktok, here.

The heart is not what you think it is, it doesn’t convey or affect in the way you THINK IT DOES because it does NOTHING. All it does, is put it in a little box in your house, a box that literally no one else ever looks at and/or sees, EVER.

It dies.

The like button is death.

Throw out what you think you know. That information is wrong.

Here on tumblr, the most important symbol you want to remember, and the one that shows a person that you LOVE their work, you LOVE what they made and you want to see more, is this button:

^ That button is our god, that button is our savior, and that button keeps creators GOING. It is not stealing, it is not appropriating, the creator still keeps credit (our signature stays with the painting here, darling).

The reblog button helps you curate a blog of things you adore and want to show other people, to collect, to make an exhibit of. It is the equivalent of sharing a link to another person, friend, family, like-minded people.

Your followers will see this thing you loved, and they will love it too, they will love YOU, they will follow you, and more people will enjoy what you love.

Reblogging is SHARING.

And it goes on and on, and on and on, and the creators make more, because they know you want more.

That’s how tumblr works, and if you are going to click that like, and never click the reblog, then you need to leave. No, really, see yourself out, you are a ghost, you are a shell, and no one here wants anything to do with a person that doesn’t LOVE anything.

You chase the good away.

Stop it.