The Reddit refugees are here because several subreddits have gone private in protest of reddit’s new policy of charging third party developers for access to its API.
Hence the term reddit blackout.
196 specifically was a very queer friendly subreddit that had one rule: that you post before you leave. 196 is trending because those Redditors have come here and they’re basically sharing their memery here instead as they protest reddit’s greed.
As for why we’re welcoming them when Twitter refugees were seen with a little more irritation, well.
Think of the culture similarities.
Tumblr and reddit have far more in common than Tumblr and Twitter.
Twitter is about clout and manipulating algorithms and discourse in 280 characters or less. It’s about bad takes that reach the right people and it forces you to see things you don’t want to see and it’s crawling with the worst people imaginable and you’re forced to see them, all the time. They also brought bad tagging and 2016 Tumblr discourse with them, because Twitter culture really involves starting fights for clout and braindead opinions that no one really wants to come back to Tumblr culture.
There was a time when Tumblr did the same thing, but worse, with more words…but nowadays, it’s really calmed down.
The worst people…went to Twitter after the porn ban. Ironically, it made the site less toxic and hostile.
But then they came back.
And it was like…hm. no thanks. Stay back where you came from.
But Tumblr and Reddit have much more in common.
Both have a more streamlined way of customizing your online feed. You can choose what subreddits you see on your home screen, just like Tumblr only shows you the content of your followers, on your dashboard, and in chronological order rather than what’s trending. You can join a very specific weird niche group of freaks with a shared obsession, and not care about the rest of the site at all. You also don’t have a character limit on either site, which lets you ramble more and share weird detailed stories.
Reddit might have karma, but like Tumblr, the majority of people are lurkers and not posters. It also allows you to downvote bad opinions, and moderators who have to adhere to certain guidelines of behavior, which means a lot of banning disruptive people.
Granted, sometimes their mods are power hungry, but. You know.
It does more to control its users than Tumblr do, and that’s a good thing in terms of keeping toxicity and illegal shit off its subs.
Reddit also has a way more leftwing attitude than you would think.
It has a reputation for being full of incels but I honestly think that’s outdated.
It’s cleaned up its act quite a bit since the old days.
I see way more vile shit from Twitter and TikTok. Like seriously.
Twitter is crawling with conservative bots and propaganda machines and just outright inflammatory lies. TikTok literally has the worst comment sections I’ve ever seen, like edgy teenagers cracking racist and misogynistic humor and acting like it makes them different and special. Its algorithm also spoon feeds you garbage and is designed to be as addicting as possible.
At least reddit’s culture, while chauvinistic and regressive in certain subcultures, is mostly on the tech positive, atheist libertarian side.
It can be a little pretentious and caustic about certain subjects, and a little full of itself. Some reddits are also very male leaning and disregard female concerns in favor of moaning about how men have it worse than anyone else on earth.
But for the most part?
…well.
I welcome them here, because if they left reddit in protest, then we always support protests. But 196 specifically is also a queer subreddit, and we support that even more.
We all know about the Twitter immigrants, but there seems to be radio silence on what’s happening now with Reddit users from certain subreddits doing a similar thing.
What’s happening?
Reddit is restricting their API later this month and killing off third-party apps. An AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the CEO Steve Hoffman was held and it was clear that he would continue with the changes.
In protest, thousands of subreddits across the site are planning to go dark for 48 hours on June 12th. Some are planning to continue indefinitely until the changes are reversed.
Okay, so how does this affect Tumblr?
Some subreddits (mainly queer and left-leaning meme ones, don’t worry too much about Reddit Atheists™ overrunning us) are encouraging their users to jump ship to our beloved - and beloathed - hellsite. There will be another influx of new users and many will be unfamiliar with how the site works.
What do us Tumblr users do?
Show them how to use the site; introduce them to the site’s culture, tell them to reblog shit and curate their dashboard. Sorta like how we welcomed Twitter users back when they flocked here. Kungpowpenising optional.
I’m new from Reddit, what do I do here?
CHANGE YOUR PROFILE PICTURE AND BANNER TO SOMETHING OTHER THAN DEFAULT BECAUSE THIS SITE IS FILLED WITH BOTS AND YOU MIGHT BE MISTAKEN FOR ONE. This is the FIRST thing you should do after getting a blog.
Other folks can help you with stuff like curating your dashboard or creating sideblogs (or you can look shit up) but please, PLEASE just give yourself an icon and reblog some stuff so people don’t mistake you for a bot
This is one of the first posts I’ve seen after trying to look at Tumblr again, so I’ve decided to head their advice and reblog this. I don’t even know what a reblog is but I’ll find out in time. It’s a learning process
a reblog is what you just did! it’s similar to a retweet on twitter and it’s the main way things spread on tumblr
A reblog is where you take a post you see and put a copy of it onto your own blog.
Reblog chains are the primary form of how media is shared here. You can produce posts of your own, or just reblog posts you find. Reblogging is adding another node to the conversation, which links back to the original poster via every reblog that got it to where you reblogged it from, and is not considered stealing, but functions to give the original post more spread and visibility.
You can also add your own commentary when you reblog, and this commentary will appear on your reblog and on every reblog somebody reblogs from you, but not on every iteration of the post. It’s common to see the same original post with different conversations added to it.
One of the best things about Tumblr is the disparate conversations that arise, when somebody comments on a post and reblogs it, and somewhere after however many reblogs somebody else adds another comment and reblogs it, and this repeats itself, with the best replies being reblogged more, such that you have a brilliant conversational chain that is basically the result of somebody shouting into the void and somebody eventually shouting back.
Tumblr has a very strong “yes and” culture where people will take a bit and go with it, adding to it, building up delightful improv comedy in the reblog chains. Posts aren’t really upvoted here; the like button does nothing but show a number; the way to support a post is to reblog it.
Everyone has a dashboard, which is a chronological feed of all the posts from everyone that they follow. You follow people based on shared interests or because you like what they post or reblog or comment. You can also go to people’s individual pages and reblog from there.
At the bottom of each post is the notes, which you can click on to reveal comments to the post itself (the closest thing to a Reddit comments section, but which is not usually used as much), reblogs, which can be filtered to show comments added to reblogs (this is where the real meat of the conversation is, and you can reply by reblogging from a specific comment in the notes) and tags that get applied to reblogs (see below).
The other big thing that Tumblr does that Reddit really doesn’t is tagging. There are functionally three categories of tags: the standard ones that indicate the subject matter you’re talking about so people can find it by searching Tumblr for it; personal tags you use to keep your own content categorized for revisiting it; and commentary tags, which are a sort of extra comments section for the reblogger which does not get reblogged, though it does show up in the post notes under the tags filter.
It is not uncommon to see a whole reaction monologue in the tags. You can do the same thing.
F(She/Her or They/Them) 26 - Cancer - Bi
Pro-choice, Vaxxer, LGBTQ+, Don't diddle kids.. shit honestly I'm just pro love and common sense.
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