I used Tumblr for a pretty short period between about 2012-2014, it was pretty good. I didnt understand how hashtags worked or anything lol. I thought I made amazing photo edits (I did not lol) though and posted a lot of that. Kind of wish I appreciated the fandom and community aspect more because I just can’t see myself on social media like that anymore. Im kind of strictly forums now, I guess, even Discord annoys me lol. One website I do miss a lot is Quizilla, it was terrible but is so nostalgic to me.
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Quizilla! Sporcle! I remember spending a whole day doing Hogwarts House quizzes trying to find an average.
Fanlore has an extensive page about Quizilla.
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I used it a lot between September last year and January, then crashed out so hard I haven’t been on the site since.
omggg sporcle!! didnt go on it as often but it was awesome too. also GoToQuiz and QuoteV (much later in 2014ish for me). I think my fave quizzes were dumb stuff like what hairstyle suits you, what band are you etc lol. thanks for that link, Ill be reading it today <3
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Quizilla was a big part of my childhood before Tumblr. I remember a lot of really bad fanfictions disguised as “quizzes” lol. I may have tried to make my own at some point…
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yes!! I also really loved the WWFFY/WWYFF (thats Who Would Fall For You/Who Would You Fall For ahem ahem lol) quizzes with just the most generic emo boys in the results LOL. Do you remember what your quiz was on/about? I think I tried too also but cannot remember what it was about at all…
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I think it was a “Kidnapped by a vampire” story lmao I was a very cringe baby goth.
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I still use tumblr on a daily basis lmao? Mostly just politics discourse but a lot of fandom stuff finds its way to my dash too. The extreme SJW wars are mostly past and it’s actually a pretty chill place if you follow the right people.
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Seconding @basus, what I miss most about Tumblr is this:
7 post types to click on, the purpose of each one obvious. You click the icon and make the post. Your site knows how to display each post type properly; it appears unbroken on other people’s dashboards.
Tumblr made it so effortless and easy to run a tumblelog of cool links you found, neat pictures, and text posts (both short and longform). I miss that, I feel like doing that on your own website is harder (or I would have done it by now. Or maybe I’m not being creative enough…)
In recent years, I believe they consolidated or removed some of the post types. For example, Photo posts made from the mobile app are now considered the same as text posts, and so they don’t always display properly on the blog. Can anyone confirm?
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Same, I started using Tumblr in 2015-ish and still use it to this day. Missed all the controversy, I just find cool artists to follow and boost to my minuscule following.
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I primarily used Tumblr for the fandom and roleplay communities about a decade ago, and as I’ve gotten older, I still use it: though more so for aesthetic blogging (enjoying pretty pictures) and reading poetry, which has remained a consistent interest of mine over the years- it’s a nice way to get some passive exposure to poets and poems I may not have otherwise run across. I had stints with various niche communities: writing, bullet journalling, studying, and so on as well- the studyblr images and some of the bujo spreads are still nice to reference occasionally. I remember it generally as a fairly dramatic, high strung, but passionate space. It also was an important place for me to begin learning about more left leaning politics, and fandom especially was a wonderful place for me to cut my creative teeth as a young teen.
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I never posted much on Tumblr, and frankly my wife and I mainly used it to find porn together. We both like looking at b&w photography, and there was a lot of that on Tumblr back in the day.
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Yes, as I was looking into moving my posts off Tumblr, I saw some documentation that said they’d changed the post format to not have categories like that at some point.
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Since I discovered Tumblr in 2011, it was the social media and blogging platform I was most active on until 2024. I used Tumblr mainly for fandom stuff, and I not only reblog but create fan works myself, such as meta pieces and graphics. In fact, most of the fandom-related essays on my website, including my Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic stuff, were originally posted on Tumblr. I also used to run multiple blogs dedicated to certain fandoms.
More importantly, Tumblr helped me realise I’m queer, thanks to the large presence of LGBTQ+ people there, despite me initially following people there for fandom stuff. Like @RosariaDelacroix, Tumblr was also an important place for me to start learning about leftist and left-learning politics more.
The huge presence of autistic people on Tumblr made me fully realise I’m autistic as well.
Even though I’m not active on Tumblr any more because I had made the conscious decision to focus on my own websites and blogs and spend less time on social media, but I genuinely appreciate Tumblr for being a major part of my life and not even just online for helping me discover my queerness and autism, and shape my leftist politics.
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My opinions about Tumblr has shifted quite a bit since I last posted here. I used to use it for fandom, because it still has one of the largest platforms for it. Now I am not that active in the platform anymore, I mostly use it for website graphics/web resources, art inspiration and checking out the website communities I joined. That’s pretty much it.
Something about Tumblr exhausts me to the point that I don’t even want to bother scrolling down to look at the endless feed anymore. My energy is better put engaging in my hobbies, rather than being stuck in an endless Skinner Box. Not to mention the terrible moderation, there isn’t at least a general tag that wasn’t invaded with porn bots and scams galore. I could keep blocking forever and the feed would still be full of them, so it’s a lost cause trying to curate your search/feeds.
Tumblr was more of a fun distraction for me, rather than anything that would help me gather references to get some work done. I basically make it a habit now to only spend 5-10 mins there to post updates for my other works outside of the platform, but that’s it.
Like @Leilukin said, it helped me dipped my toes into leftist ideologies when I was still young and didn’t know much about the world, but the longer I use it, the more drained and paranoid about I felt on the state of the world. It was very easy to become radicalized on platforms like Tumblr, and it still is.
I’m aware this isn’t an isolated phenomenon on Tumblr, but it’s a little bit unique because the posts have a larger character limit, so it has a chance for nuanced conversations. Yet the site’s comprehension among users is kinda piss-poor that it’s still common to have more discourse in the notes of a “popular” post.
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older thread but i err, still use it immensely frequently since it’s my only social media i’m truly active on (and i’ve been in that hole myself since 2013 and very active in the RPing community for 10+ years at this point, barring a hiatus here and there)
but to be fair it’s the only social media i can unearth stuff from 5-10 years ago that doesn’t get lost, but there’s also a big yume community there which always makes me happy seeing others ships with their fave fictional blorbos. i suppose i just use it like a diary of my favourite posts and funny things i find and as a thought dump, plus the block/content curation there feels more thorough vs other places where ppl don’t even tag their stuff (cough twitter)
i am very saddened by the decline of themed blogs though since that was what actually taught me CSS/HTML and got me comfortable enough to be able to make my own website. like i will say it’s definitely made some gorgeous graphics to make your mobile pinned posts pretty but like … themes tho … (i will say i definitely do not miss 10px contained themes where there’s barely 300px width of content to consume)
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thats kinda what dragged me into using tumbr in the first place, since i stumbled into a webring tied to the tumbr rp community
my site was taken off recently for “not being in character enough” which sucks but like
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really??? dang, i never even heard of that, but i never got into more … groupy things, i just made a blog that’s for my OC and just went ham with following/interacting with other roleplay blogs over the years
that’s such a goofy thing to take someone off for but that’s just Me
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Tumblr has a lot of bad aspects, many which were far worse in the 2010s, but with the filtering options I think it’s fine to use (introduced post 2016… 2017 or 2018 or something). I feel this way about most social media- any site with filtering is fine. I still use tumblr as one of my primary forms of social media and have multiple blogs I’m active on.
I’ve met very insane people on Tumblr, but I’ve met insane people in every kind of community. I just actively avoid discoursey tumblr blogs and I unfollow people quickly. I have no loyalty to mutuals on Tumblr due to it not having a mute user feature and all of my friends know that I hate when my feed is full of garbage so they understand generally.
I really like themes and hate that Tumblr makes them hard for new users to know about. I still use for my main blog and art blog and well some other blogs too. It feels like the last social media that allows for that kind of creativity.
Also, I like Tumblr’s smaller communities that have been around for a long time (th eold school egl community, rpg maker old heads, etc).
I won’t be surprised if Tumblr shuts down though. The people who manage it are a mess haha.
The Tumblr userbase loves Tumblr quite a bit so there’s a lot of random user scripts and stylus stuff which I adore on any platform. I hate any change Automatic makes to Tumblr, but then a Tumblr user undoes it and I don’t have to deal with it lol.
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