Reblog to give your followers some cheesy garlic bread

And I just got confirmation from a second ex-colleague that a deal with midjourney has been brewing since months ago. Not any extra details, just that's a real thing.

Shit, I don't see any way for this to happen that doesn't make it an apocalyptic event the size of the porn ban. Fuck.

Shit. This may be pure chance and coincidence, and it's not he is in a position to be able to talk about anything, but seeing prominent staff members announcing they are moving their original photography out of tumblr just two weeks ago seems a pretty significant cue of shit to be about to hit the fan.

adding a screenshot of the staff post bc, the wording of this is undeniable. they even have the same concerns i do about the fact you cant delete your work from this place, actually.

Actually Minecraft deciding that sleep depravation was gonna make flying demons attack you was realistic as fuck

BDSM gets a bad rep as like a violent (male) dom pushing the boundaries of a reluctant (female) sub but in my experience it's a lot of subs with wildly elaborate fantasies screaming shit like "PUT MY ASS IN THE CHILI" while a new dom is like "Okay I think, we are reaching yellow for me,"

Sub: Okay so before we begin how familiar are you with the ancien régime? It's not super important but it does help contextualize this. Essentially I'd like for you to be a ravenous, semi-cannibalistic Antoine Barnave-esque figure

Dom, holding a pen and notebook: Yeah okay

sub: can you drug me and perform fucked up surgeries on my unconscious body without telling what you did

dom:

this sounds like something youd find on an incorrect quotes blog. and yet.

"When I think of Bruce, I don't picture the man... I see a child. My child." --Alfred Pennyworth, Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2023) #9

fyi your dad is a whor—

it's still pride month i'm still on time

Batman in the DCAMU

THE LAUGH I JUST MADE. I LOVE COMICS SO MUCH. WHEN WOULD I HAVE TOLD YOU? IN THE MIDDLE OF A TURF WAR (YOU KNOW, WHERE BRUCE WAS LOSING HIS ABSOLUTE GODDAMNED MIND) OR WHEN YOU WERE TURNED INTO A WOLF (AND I HAD TO KICK YOUR ASS, WHICH I ABSOLUTELY DID, BY THE WAY) AND I WAS BATTLING A GIANT NECROSTAR-INFECTED BEAST BOY? THEIR LIVES ARE SUCH NONSENSE???? Please understand that comics are utterly ridiculous bullshit even in the best of times and it's awesome.

This is not a drill! Circle of the Crimson Mirror trailer! This chapter features Aimee Carrero, Imari Williams, Alexander Ward, and Taliesin Jaffe with Gamemaster Liam O'Brien! You can also check out the official blog post announcement, which says the circle "will teeter on the edge of survival as their present collides with the threats of a forgotten past…"

As previously announced, the chapter premieres February 29, 2024. Episodes two and three are now confirmed to release March 28 and April 25.

Batman #144 - "The Joker: Year One III" (2024)

As a trans person who pays the bills hawking my Patreon on this site, Photomatt's behavior has been disappointing to say the least. I hope staff can come to a more reasonable conclusion.

I think I speak for everyone when I say we would appreciate some insight and transparency into the content moderation systems.

Having a blog you've run for 7+ years nuked out of nowhere, with no communication, reason, or recourse beyond navigating a maze of broken automated systems, is pretty frustrating. I can't really blame users for saying some TOS-breaking shit, because sometimes it feels like the only way to communicate with staff here is publicly.

Matt for the love of God stop fucking posting and talk to your PR team.

matt is supposed to be on fucking sabbatical rn. the last time he refused to log off and caused problems swinging his dick around was on the wordpress.org twitter hawking a fundraiser for his birthday and claiming that as founder he didn't need to get permission fr marketing or otherwise worry about not offending people. this time he promised everyone at automattic he'd actually take a break (and become a chess grandmaster in 3 months, which, whatever, dumb techbro ego bs). instead he logged back in almost immediately, berated one of the apps teams publicly, refused to log off, then did a bunch of blog posts and interviews saying shit ranging from "Capitalism is, as Nicholas Stern says, the best way to take care of people we don’t know." through "essentially [queer or Black groups are] tribes or identities that separate us. And so part of me really identifies with Martin Luther King being, I want my children judged on the content of their character, not the color of their skin."

i am, thank fucking everything, no longer working for him, and yet. i quit before leadership could force my lead to fire me. a disproportionate amount of queer people have been fired or forced to leave in the last year, bc he has personally been sending messages pressuring all leads to pick a "weak link" and going on about culture fit in ways that are fucking loaded. and then there's the exodus of ex-leads who have been saying clearly that they quit instead of being forced to fire people, and the whole team of quality engineers that was axed late last year (oh but it's not a layoff, they all magically had bad performance despite great individual performance reviews, one of them being on parental leave, and all of them being blindsided), and so on and so on...

honestly it fucking sucks bc for a long time i was able to say, despite matt personally being behind half the bad ideas that have plagued tumblr in the last few years, that i think automattic was still doing a better job than most other companies who could afford to take on a liability like tumblr would do. and i thought that about wordpress.com too, and kept recommending it bc automattic's ethics were at least marginally better than most companies in the same space not built on open source. there were people i knew who were working on the transmisogynist moderation issue, but [gestures] decisionmakers have decided they're selling tumblr data (including private data!) to midjourney instead of doing anything but doubling down i guess. now that matt's weighed in it's not gonna get better. the queer staff remaining have used what leverage they had in every way possible and stopped being listened to a long time ago. support staff are paid far too little for what they deal with. i get messages from my ex-colleagues regularly because they're all trying desperately to jump ship. anyway usually i think people are misguided in putting the blame for corporate decisions directly at the feet of the figurehead ceo but in this case he is genuinely detested and keeps personally making the worst decisions and doubling down on them

For those who don't remember, here's the lawsuit two years ago where Tumblr (or specifically Automattic) settled with the New York City Commission on Human Rights regarding Tumblr's terribly implemented porn ban targeting LGBTQ folk more than it should. Here's an excerpt detailing what the NYCCHR ordered Tumblr to do:

The settlement gives Tumblr 180 days to hire an expert on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) issues and provide related training to moderators. It must also hire someone with experience in this area as well as expertise in image classification, who will review Tumblr’s moderation algorithms to see if they’re more likely to flag LGBTQ content. As part of an overall review, Tumblr will reexamine 3,000 old cases where a user successfully appealed a takedown, looking for patterns that could indicate bias.

Now, on a totally unrelated note, here's the complaint page for reporting discrimination to the NYCCHR. Completely unrelated to what's going on right now or the rest of this post, I swear.

‘MEMENTO MORI’ - carved pearl, New York, 2023 by (IG) @shinji_nakaba .

ok i've seen some posts about the tumblr alternative cohost but none that were actually helpful so!

(disclaimer: i am very new to this website. users who have been there longer can and should chime in with additions and/or corrections)

Cohost Introduction Post

Cohost is a fledgling website that is essentially a tumblr clone, but with its own culture and site-specific features. It is also very much a work in progress. You are encouraged to talk in the cohost forum to suggest changes for devs, report bugs, and upvote other people's suggestions. This website WILL grow and change over time. And as such, I do not know if/when the information I share here will be outdated. Edit: To answer an ask I received, anyone can join cohost without an invite. It used to be invite-only. It is not this way anymore.

Yes. Cohost is not on the app store, meaning that it is not subject to Apple's specifications. You can post illustrations, writing, and photographs (cohost does not support any video formats at this time, just gifs). Cohost has an elaborate filtering and trigger warning system (moreso than tumblr), and you can disable adult content for your entire account or for individual tags. I actually don't engage with the adult content at all on there. Visual CSEM (both real and fictional) is specifically forbidden (although frankly I think the guidelines could be stricter wrt written content. Still, does seem to handle this better than AO3 does, going as far to say that written content about real minors is forbidden.)

The minimum age to join cohost is 16, and requires proof of parental permission to join. Users who are under 18 are automatically age-gated and cannot view adult content.

You can, of course, use cohost on a computer, but it is designed with mobile in mind. Opening the website on any IOS browser, clicking "share", and then "add to home screen" will install an app for you to use. The same can be done on an android. There is a guide here.

First, you create an account. Then you wait for approximately two days (read: weekdays) for the account to be activated. This is done to prevent spam bots. In the meantime, edit your profile. List some interests, your pronouns, your other social media links. Give yourself an icon. Note: icon and banner file sizes are small. You may need to shrink and compress images.

After the two days are up, make your first post! Write a basic introduction (with what you feel comfortable you feel sharing) and list some interests you like, maybe some hobbies, media, etc. And then tag this post with "#welcome to cohost". This will let existing members know that someone new has joined, and they may initiate conversation and/or follow you.

Next, go to the search and type in "The Cohost Global Feed" and click on the tag. Bookmark this tag. This is essentially one giant community space where you can find random users. (There is currently some discourse on the website as to whether this tag existing is a "bad thing" or not because "cohost isn't supposed to have a global tag". Just ignore that lol). Next, go back to search and type in things you like. TV shows, maybe. Video games. Music. Anything. See if people have posted in the tags. Follow them. Comment on their stuff. Click "like" to bookmark the post if you want to.

Most crucially, make sure that you bookmark the actual tag so you can look in that tag again later without having to manually type it each and every time. Also, you get a feed called "bookmarked tags" which allows you to scroll through all of them at once, which replaces the "for you" feature other websites have.

You can "share" a post (called "rebug" in user slang) which serves the same purpose as a reblog on tumblr. In a rebug, you can add your own tags or comment in the body of the post. Cohost users do not talk in tags as much as tumblr users - they tend to prefer to speak in the body of a rebug, or in the comment section (replies). At this time, you cannot view all reblogs. But you can view all comments in the comment section. Any post that is rebugged will preserve the tags of the OP, with any additional tags added being attributed to you. Rebugs are named after the website mascot Eggbug, a purple bee-like insect.

Posts are called "chosts" - and shitposting is called "shitchosting." Two examples of global shitposting tags are "#css crimes" - which is when a person does goofy things with the HTML/CSS editor to make colorful text, fake chat windows, and such - and "#shitchosting" which is a general shitposting tag. I've also seen people use tags like "#random".

If a post makes you laugh, check out the OP's profile. See if they post frequently, and if you have any common interests. If you realize you want to block or mute someone instead, you can.

You can send asks just like on tumblr, but your inbox must be manually opened first. So remember to do that.

This is one of my gripes about the UI. You would think, intuitively, you would click here (at the top of the screen). But you would be wrong!

It is ACTUALLY under the sidebar menu, called "Profile." And I'm not the only one to to complain about this. (To get back to your dashboard, by the way, you click on the cohost logo.)

Yes! Each sidepage (sideblog) has its OWN set of likes AND followed pages (blogs). This allows you to easily switch between multiple sets of dashboards. A lot of users use this to have a SFW dashboard and an adult content dashboard. But it works like tumblr, too. You can have a side page/dashboard for whatever you'd like. Maybe one of your pages is for programming. Maybe another is for photography. You switch between your pages by clicking the arrow next to your icon/username at the top of the screen. ("Ohhhhh.... THAT'S what that's for.")

Mostly programmers. Trans people. Furry artists. Plural systems. Furry trans plural programmers. Certainly a lot of shitposters. The website is trans-run and, as such, has zero tolerance for TERFs. Everyone seems pretty friendly from what I can tell. And there's very much a culture of "follow someone randomly based on their vibes" that doesn't happen as much on tumblr. Tumblr is more like "I really like this TV show, I'm going to follow 40 blogs about just this interest." Because the cohost community is so much smaller, there is a lot less content overall, especially fandom content. You can't follow 40 fandom pages because your fandom tag has a total of 3 posts, all made by one person approximately a year ago (well. for me anyway).

Cohost, then, actually has much more in common with real-life socialization. You seek out people with interests that may be very different from your own, and to find a common interest is very exciting! Unlike tumblr, you are encouraged to tag as much as possible. This allows your posts to be seen, to find common interests. And, of course, don't forget to look in "#Welcome To Cohost" too! You may find some new friends there.

Currently, I am aware of basic image formats working (like jpeg, png) animated gifs, and mp3s. You currently cannot upload videos to cohost. I believe the reason is not related to server costs, but rather as a way to curb the uploading of copyrighted content.

There are no ads, and yet, as far as I am aware, cohost is operating comfortably. There is, however, an entirely optional "cohost plus" that is $5 USD a month. Currently, there are a few perks, but not enough to convince me.

Cohost has a forum where users can submit ideas for features and other users can discuss/upvote those ideas.

Here is a list of posts made for newcomers to read: