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Style Chameleon

@asummerrae / asummerrae.tumblr.com

KJ. 29 years old. Illustrator. Cartoonist. Merch artist. etsy.com/shop/dillydalleydoodle  |  patreon.com/dillydalleydoodle

48hr tumblr blackout proposal

tumblr mobile has seadily become near unusable these past few updates. not just from a user experience perspective (which is important enough in itself) but also from an accessibility perspective.

examples include the new way the image viewer works (if you can call it "working"), the tumblr live button replacing the profile button, and that newly created blogs will be forced to have their main dashboard tab be the 'for you' page.

the demands of the protest would be along the lines of:

  • reverse the recent image viewer update
  • scrap the new users 'for you' page default setting
  • let us turn off tumblr live indefinitely
  • increase efforts against spam / porn bots
  • make reporting abuse and hate speech as easy as reporting as reporting spam
  • let us go nuts show nuts again... for real this time
  • commit to improving usability and accessibility, and listening to users!
  • (suggestions welcome!)

to protest against these usability issues, and inspired by the recent reddit blackout, i propose a 48 hour blackout (where you don't use tumblr at all). preferably of both mobile and web (since web has problems too) but mobile is the focus here.

I suggest the 48 hours between the 30th of June to the end of the 1st of July.

this marks the end of pride month (for the "queerest place on the internet") and the start of disability month (since accessibility is a massive issue here).

tumblr office is in San Francisco, USA, so the times and dates will be calculated using their time zone (PDT).

i can't afford to blaze this post so please spread it around as much as possible! protests only work if significant numbers show up!

tumblr rejected the blaze campaigns for this post because they know it would hurt them. let's make this an indefinite blackout - it's the best way to get results.

(so the blackout would be from June 30th onwards)

I'm so sorry for what I said when I was mormon.

So my family has a Gay Pirate Plate.

Stay with me.

We do not know how the hell the Gay Pirate Plate was first acquired. This being a point of contention is actually pretty plot-relevant; the saga of the Gay Pirate Plate began with my grandmother and her sister, who, for some ungodly reason, both BADLY wanted the Gay Pirate Plate and believed it to be rightfully theirs.

I should back up, firstly, to establish: The Gay Pirate Plate is the cheapest, tackiest, ugliest plate in existence.

It is in no way a collector’s item. It is physically impossible for it to complement anyone’s decor, because the colors in it are garish. It’s just a ceramic plate with a gay pirate painted on it, and the painting is, this cannot be emphasized enough, extremely bad.

(How do we know the pirate is gay if he’s just posing on a plate? Listen. Fully 100% to stereotype, but he is. He is gay. There’s an energy. That pirate is a flaming homosexual. That pirate has sex with men and does it frequently. That pirate is fucking gay, all right, he just is.)

Anyway. The point is that this is an extremely cheap and ugly plate with a poorly-executed painting of pirate on it who is like a nine on the Kinsey scale.

My grandmother and her sister fought a blood feud over this plate for their entire lives. It would be on the wall in my grandma’s house, and then her sister would visit, and then it would be gone. She’d visit her sister and the plate would be on the wall and her sister would pretend it had always been there. She would steal it back, hang it up, and, when her sister visited, pretend it had always been there. This continued for DECADES.

When the sister died, the Gay Pirate Plate lived triumphantly in my grandmother’s house. And then my grandmother died. And my aunt, who had lived with her and been her carer throughout her life, rightfully inherited their house.

We visit my aunt after the funeral and stay with her for a week or two.

Me, my sister, and our dad. Her brother.

The three of us look at each other. We don’t say anything. We studiously avoid making eye contact with the Gay Pirate Plate mounted proud and ugly on the wall. We notice one another studiously avoiding looking at it. We notice one another noticing. We say nothing. We come to a silent consensus. We pack up to leave. We get in the van. Our aunt comes out to say goodbye. I loudly announce I need to use the restroom before we leave. She obviously stays outside to continue talking to my dad.

I take down the Gay Pirate Plate, stuff it under my oversized sweatshirt, go outside, and get in the van. She happily waves goodbye as we drive off.

Two days later my dad gets a phone call that opens with hysterical laughter and “You FUCKING ASSHOLE did you seriously STEAL THE PLATE–”

Anyway. The gay pirate plate lives in my dad’s house currently.

But he’s trying to get me and my sister out to visit him. And plate mounts are cheap.

The rules of Gay Pirate Plate are simple by the way.

  1. The plate must be clearly and openly displayed in a place of great prominence whenever it is in your possession. When it is not in your possession, the display piece must remain in place. This is where you would put your gay pirate plate, IF YOU HAD ONE.
  2. No active steps may be taken to prevent the theft of the Gay Pirate Plate. That goes against the spirit of the game, as does attempting to hide it.
  3. The plate MUST be stolen and cannot be gifted or removed with permission. Should you witness attempted theft of the Gay Pirate Plate you are required to intervene and return it to its place.
  4. Every time your sibling successfully absconds with the Gay Pirate Plate, you must respond with indignant fury, as if you have not also repeatedly and blatantly stolen the Gay Pirate Plate.

WOE

PLATE BE UPON YE

You ok? You haven't posted anything in a long while. I hope you're doing ok.(sending an ask because you might see ot easily here, you don't have to reply to this)

Wanna make sure you're alive since you haven't posted since October and there's covid still being a major issue.

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i'm okay-ish

surviving

... not sure i wanna be alive tho