On this fine Saturday evening.

[rogueslayer452]

++ Pit Babe season 2 trailer has emerged. I have no idea what's going on or what's going to happen get that man pregnant by the end I swear, but I'm excited nonetheless. Race Car Omegaverse 2: Electric Boogaloo, here we go!

++ Automattic, the company that owns Wordpress and Tumblr, laid off 16% of its employees recently. It explains the lack of any April Fool's shenanigans that often appears. Considering that it was already stated that Tumblr itself was run on a skeleton crew for some time, this has led to many people wondering and fretting (for the umpteenth time) about the fate of the site itself. Although I do think some of the worry is mere fearmongering it's definitely something to be prepared for, considering the state of most online spaces and how corrupt companies can ruin something good. We've seen this happen before, so the concern is very real. At the moment there are posts going around about how to back up accounts and to tell others where they may be migrating to as a precaution, which is a good idea anyway regardless of what happens.

I've been tempted on telling people to just come to DreamWidth, although I don't think anyone aside from Fandom Olds will have an interest in a journaling site, and unfortunately I don't think there is an equivalent to Tumblr anywhere. While the sentiment is "never say never", I am just not interested at all in joining Bluesky or Discord or any kind of social media platform like those.

Comments

[verdande_mi]

I will miss tumblr if it does disappear! I would love more fandom activity here :) I have tried discord twice, but I didn't take to it. I haven't given bluesky a try, I might, but have no plans yet.

[rogueslayer452]

I don't think it'll disappear, if anything does happen it'll either be sold to someone else (yet again) and/or have a lot of site updates that'll make it unusable. It's what happened with LJ, it's still there but practically unrecognizable from what it used to be. This is all just speculation as of now, of course, because of the news surrounding the layoffs (and how unlikable the CEO is) people are taking precautions which is understandable.

[tinny]

The closest to tumblr is pillowfort, imho. But... I don't know how their financial situation is.

[rogueslayer452]

I don't know, either. I heard that they had financial trouble over the years, which grew in 2023, but I haven't seen much about that since.

[profiterole_reads]

I missed that news about the layoffs. Why did they change the graphic interface, then? I thought being on a skeleton crew would save us from this kind of shenanigans...

Well, you don't have to find an alternative yet. I'm on Bluesky and the atmosphere is really nice. Not much action in the Asian drama tags, but a lot of action in the queer book community.

[rogueslayer452]

I honestly don't know, then again I stopped questioning the decisions of whatever changes they make to the site or the reasons behind it.

[rhoda_rants]

I really hope Tumblr doesn't go away. And I think the only way to actually get rid of it would be to make it subscription-based. I don't have an account myself, but I lurk there a lot, and the impression I get of its core userbase is A) they are ninjas at slapping down any updates they don't like and showing everyone else how to turn them off and/or navigate around them, and B) they don't pay for shit. Outside of the odd fun, random, temporary stuff, like flooding the website with crabs.

But I dunno, this feels different. My country (and the planet in general) are being more and more driven by profit margins, and if something is unprofitable, it will eventually die or be replaced with some worse, but more expensive. Tumblr has never been profitable.

[rogueslayer452]

Oh yeah, Tumblr users are notorious for finding workarounds of fixing the various unnecessary site changes, which is good because whenever they push something out rather randomly it gets quite a negative response. On one hand, I understand the websites need money in order to keep running and survive and Tumblr is no exception, however it feels like whatever they do push for something, be it an update or something that could get them more money to go about it the wrong way. I think if they were more transparent and communicated with the users they're trying to appeal to with these ideas or approach it in a different way, people would be a little more lenient and actually support paying if they provided something fun and what the users would enjoy the benefits of as a community. But it'll never happen, unfortunately.

So yeah, I don't know what's going to happen. It's just a waiting game at this point, and for that time I'm just going to ride it out and continue to have my fun.

[rhoda_rants]

I'm impressed by how good they are figuring out those workarounds!

On one hand, I understand the websites need money in order to keep running and survive and Tumblr is no exception, however it feels like whatever they do push for something, be it an update or something that could get them more money to go about it the wrong way.

See, that's the thing. Yes, it needs to make money to survive. But they seem to think the best way to do that is to try and make it more like every other algorithm-driven social media site out there, when the reason people stay on Tumblr is because it's NOT like that.

I think DreamWidth has their business model figured out pretty well. I don't know all the details, but the staff is pretty good at letting people know just how and when they're going to implement changes, and seems open to feedback. I know it's not the same (which again, is why I'm here, instead of elsewhere on the web), but knowing their audience is a big plus.

---

[tabaqui]

Wowkay, I need to watch PitBabe. Interesting how Thailand has no issues with same sex couples in media. It's a nice break from China's histrionics.


Since Tumblr is mostly posting images and memes and then doing that weird and convoluted dance to see if anyone replied to you, I'd say making a 'Tumblr on Dreamwidth' Dreamwidth comm would work, with every post being a Tumblr post and people just commenting all over (or leaving a kudo, since it seems you can do that now). I dunno...could work?

[rogueslayer452]

There are quite a good BL and GL Thai dramas that range from being wholesome and fluffy to outright raunchy, with both featuring emotional storylines and arcs, and it's so great. :D

Hmmmm, that could work. It wouldn't be microblogging in the sense most people know or are used to in regards to Tumblr, or with how social media works in general, but something I've noticed is that people mostly want engagement and people commenting on your post/comments is engaging in what you wrote/created, so that would be something. It could be something especially to ease people who are looking to migrate to journal/forum-like platforms and figure out how things work.

[elizalavelle]

Ugh I hate when corporations ruin a good thing in the pursuit of more and more profits. Not everything needs more growth every quarter.

Very sorry it's hitting a platform you like a lot.

[rogueslayer452]

It's not the first time, unfortunately. I remember when Yahoo bought Tumblr and tried to make it something it wasn't, and once realizing it wasn't working sold it for less than they bought it for. It's just a nonstop cycle, it seems. Whatever happens, it'll either be site changes (that others will provide alternative fixes for, as we've always have, which isn't perfect be workable) or just a natural gradual decline.

I feel like people, myself included, are just going to remain there unless something incredibly drastic happens to the site that changes everything about its entire purpose.

[mfirefly10]

I don't know of any Tumblr alternatives either. I've heard decent things about pillowfort but I also know that site is user-funded so if they don't meet their fundraising goals, idk what would happen.

I kind of hate Discord lol. I use it like once a month, at most. I've never checked out bluesky but I doubt it's for me.

[rogueslayer452]

I also heard that Pillowfort had some financial troubles for some years now, IDK their current situation but having a mass flood of users migrating there wouldn't be good if they are still struggling financially. Otherwise, I feel like most people have tried and failed on replicating what Tumblr is. At least with DW they did a pretty good job with making it as much as LJ as possible, to which I'm incredibly thankful for.

I never was interested with things like Discord, it sounds like a nightmare, and Bluesky is just the alternative to Twitter which I never bothered with before anyway, lol. I'm just not a social media person, really. Journal/forum-esque platforms are what I'm more used to and feel safer using.

[mfirefly10]

I'll do a wait-and-see thing on pillowfort. And yes, DW did an excellent job of replacing LJ. With many improvements, tbh.

I technically had a Twitter account but I can't remember the last time I used it lol. Most social media sites aren't for me. I'm not on Tiktok or Instagram or anything else.