A better, more positive Tumblr

Since its founding in 2007, Tumblr has always been a place for wide open, creative self-expression at the heart of community and culture. To borrow from our founder David Karp, we’re proud to have inspired a generation of artists, writers, creators, curators, and crusaders to redefine our culture and to help empower individuality.

Over the past several months, and inspired by our storied past, we’ve given serious thought to who we want to be to our community moving forward and have been hard at work laying the foundation for a better Tumblr. We’ve realized that in order to continue to fulfill our promise and place in culture, especially as it evolves, we must change. Some of that change began with fostering more constructive dialogue among our community members. Today, we’re taking another step by no longer allowing adult content, including explicit sexual content and nudity (with some exceptions).  

Let’s first be unequivocal about something that should not be confused with today’s policy change: posting anything that is harmful to minors, including child pornography, is abhorrent and has no place in our community. We’ve always had and always will have a zero tolerance policy for this type of content. To this end, we continuously invest in the enforcement of this policy, including industry-standard machine monitoring, a growing team of human moderators, and user tools that make it easy to report abuse. We also closely partner with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Internet Watch Foundation, two invaluable organizations at the forefront of protecting our children from abuse, and through these partnerships we report violations of this policy to law enforcement authorities. We can never prevent all bad actors from attempting to abuse our platform, but we make it our highest priority to keep the community as safe as possible.

So what is changing?

Posts that contain adult content will no longer be allowed on Tumblr, and we’ve updated our Community Guidelines to reflect this policy change. We recognize Tumblr is also a place to speak freely about topics like art, sex positivity, your relationships, your sexuality, and your personal journey. We want to make sure that we continue to foster this type of diversity of expression in the community, so our new policy strives to strike a balance.

Why are we doing this?

It is our continued, humble aspiration that Tumblr be a safe place for creative expression, self-discovery, and a deep sense of community. As Tumblr continues to grow and evolve, and our understanding of our impact on our world becomes clearer, we have a responsibility to consider that impact across different age groups, demographics, cultures, and mindsets. We spent considerable time weighing the pros and cons of expression in the community that includes adult content. In doing so, it became clear that without this content we have the opportunity to create a place where more people feel comfortable expressing themselves.

Bottom line: There are no shortage of sites on the internet that feature adult content. We will leave it to them and focus our efforts on creating the most welcoming environment possible for our community.

So what’s next?

Starting December 17, 2018, we will begin enforcing this new policy. Community members with content that is no longer permitted on Tumblr will get a heads up from us in advance and steps they can take to appeal or preserve their content outside the community if they so choose. All changes won’t happen overnight as something of this complexity takes time.

Another thing, filtering this type of content versus say, a political protest with nudity or the statue of David, is not simple at scale. We’re relying on automated tools to identify adult content and humans to help train and keep our systems in check. We know there will be mistakes, but we’ve done our best to create and enforce a policy that acknowledges the breadth of expression we see in the community.

Most importantly, we’re going to be as transparent as possible with you about the decisions we’re making and resources available to you, including more detailed information, product enhancements, and more content moderators to interface directly with the community and content.

Like you, we love Tumblr and what it’s come to mean for millions of people around the world. Our actions are out of love and hope for our community. We won’t always get this right, especially in the beginning, but we are determined to make your experience a positive one.

Jeff D’Onofrio CEO

You guys are the largest pussies on Earth caving to the man. Great luck moving forward to your demise after caving under an attack of free speech. #TumblrFail #Dumblr

First batch of Shanghai SNM pictures - the place looks massive. Warning: the pictures will show you some of the casting - if you don’t want to know, don’t open it. The rest of the article is Chinese, but if you are interested, the title says “Shanghai SNM is as good as NYC version in quality”. Also, I found out some additions to the show and I am dying to discuss it with some one. PM me if you want to know.

Nice!

Here’s a press release about Sleep No More Shanghai. It mentions some familiar names who will be working on the Shanghai show.

If you’re planning a trip, it also has helpful details about the price and the days of week the show will be running.

(I assume this is ok to post since it is easy to find on google, and the purpose of a press release is to generate publicity.)

Sounds like the same show with a few new twists. Exactly what I was worried about. Do something new.

Hopefully this will make them a bunch of money so that they *can* do something new.

And honestly, this is not nearly enough information to know how different it’ll be.

Totally, but I’m going off of what has been released thus far. All of which feel like an opportunist move for dollar bills. I love Punchdrunk, I love Sleep No More. But aside from using local talent (which I am in full support of) nothing about the Shanghai show sits well with me. It feels easy. When art gets easy is when creativity dies.

You could say literally the exact same thing about Sleep No More NYC.

They had already run Sleep No More twice before they decided to open it in NYC. But, hmmm, opening a huge show, in a whole new city, in a different country from the company, with new content for that location, is an incredibly difficult challenge. Add in the language barrier and cultural differences of Shanghai, and I don’t know how you could possibly call this “easy.”

And how is artists wanting to live off of their art “opportunistic”? These people are creating brilliant, groundbreaking work, and deserve to be successful. Not to mention that their shows are exceptionally expensive, and a new show will probably be much more likely if Shanghai is successful.

It’s a logistics challenge, not a creative one. As for London and Boston, both were closed before NYC opened. New York was on a different scale as well. Different type of artist expansion. Shanghai feels like a rinse and repeat.

Artists do deserve to make money. As someone who has worked in theatre for over a decade, I know how hard that is to do. But sacrificing art for commerce isn’t the way to do it.

Again, I’m only going off of what has been released. All of it feels a bit like a sell out. Using the brand for a quick buck. I hope I’m wrong

As far as I can tell, your argument is that the NYC show is “real art” because it’s the first version of Sleep No More that you saw. Boston and London were before your time so they don’t really count in your mind. But talk to the Boston people, or to the London people, and plenty of them will tell you that the NYC show is a sell out, not as a good as Boston or London, depending on which one they saw first / worked on first.

There will now be tens of thousands of people for whom SNM Shanghai is their first Punchdrunk show.  Many of them will fall in love with it, and it will be “real art” in their minds just as much as SNM NYC is “real art” in our minds. 

It just seems unfair for us to scoff at them, as if their experience doesn’t count as much as ours, when meanwhile we get all defensive at the Boston or London people who tell us the NYC show isn’t as good. 

There’s literally no difference aside from the fact that the NYC show is still running while Shanghai gets set up, but what actual difference does that make?  The NYC show has been running for 5.5 years. There’s a whole team of NYC-based people who are perfectly capable of keeping it running while Shanghai gets going. 

Punchdrunk creates incredible, groundbreaking theater that very few people will ever get to see, because it is expensive and geographically bound. The more Punchdrunk shows that open around the world, the more people who will get to experience this incredible art form. I just can’t fathom what is wrong with extending the opportunity to have this artistic experience to more people around the world. 

Yeah, so why not give those people a totally new/unique experience? Why limit them to something that’s been done in one variation or another three times? You are limiting your creativity and in a way, limiting the experience of the new viewer. Why rinse and repeat?

Because 1) the people with the money are far more likely to fund something with a proven track record of success, and 2) the core creative team is in London and developing a whole new show on a different continent is crazy difficult.

Trust me, nobody wants a new Punchdrunk show more than me. I’m ridiculously sad that it’s taking so long. But if they can use this to fund a new show, and create a worthwhile artistic work in Shanghai in its own right, and expand their reach to a whole new audience, I’m not going to complain about it.

In an ideal world, a new show is absolutely the best option. But in the real world, we’re not going to get any shows if they can’t find a way to make it financially viable.

I wholeheartedly disagree. They could. It’s a hustle, but it is not impossible. We’re probably not going to agree on this topic, but it’s been an interesting and civil debate. And I do respect your viewpoint, even if I disagree.

Again, I honestly hope I’m wrong about the Shanghai show. And if I am, I will be the first to admit it.

Ok, I can agree to disagree. I think the fact that you and I wouldn’t even be here to have this conversation if Punchdrunk hadn’t opened the same show three times pretty much speaks for itself in terms of our position to criticize that decision.

If you ever want to start on the topic of how much it sucks that they’ve abandoned their uniquely-themed parties in favor of generic movie themes, I’ll be right there with you.

I’m too bitter to talk about Mayfair being gone. I don’t understand it.

Also there’s something inherently classist about saying “the only version of the show that is valid is this one over here, so if you can’t fly halfway around the world to experience it, well then fuck you.”

That’s not what I’m saying.

Intentional or not.

I’d have to agree with drinkthehalo. While I’m not 100% happy they picked an SNM reboot for their new show, I realize why they did. I’ve, personally, seen tour buses full of mainland Chinese people being dropped off to wait in queue in Chelsea on 27th with me more than once. Has that made the experience inside any different. Yeah, it actually has. Their culture of kill or be killed made for awful nights of them trampling over people and, literally, turning on their freakin’ phablets thus blinding crowds in in a dark as shit duo dance scene. Not my cup of tea. However, they have, obviously, been doing some advertising for the show for Mainlanders buying into tour groups for NYC. Many mainlanders cannot get a tourist visa to leave the mainland without going with a tour group. Again, I’ve seen these buses of mainlanders not speaking a lick of English show up in Chelsea more than 4-5 times. Soooo, it’s a proven attraction for them over there at this point as is modern interpretive dance. Every single year a Chinese dance act with Sheun Yun is brought to Houston (where I’m based). They LOVE dance on the mainland. If you get on a cruise of the Yangtze River in China, the main nightlife attraction on deck is not karaoke. It’s doing The Waltz. I wasn’t surprised one bit that they had identified a massive market for SNM in Shanghai. It’s a very modern and forward thinking city as far as business and infrastructure goes. A fascinating city with a dynamic nightlife full of people with a lot of money. It makes Manhattan look like child’s play. I believe the cultural differences and language barrier will make for a very very different experience all around. Top entertainment companies have had to severely alter their carbon copied offerings to match that of the Chinese culture and I’ve witnessed this first hand by visiting the Disney Parks in Hong Kong. Punchdrunk doesn’t have a habit of NOT innovating. They’ve completed many R&D projects since The Drowned Man and are eager to bring new tech and experiences to their crowds with each new project they create. I’ll put my money and a 16-20 hr plane ride on them having the next best damn thing in Shanghai with The McKinnon for sure. Shit, Disney laid more money down on the new SDL by a factor of almost 2 to any of their other projects in history at almost $6B. China has over 1.3B tourists to cater to versus our puny 350-400 million and entertainment companies know it’s smart business opening ventures there and putting good money into them. Last, if you think the cost of such a venture in Shanghai is any cheaper than NYC, I've got news for you in the realm of real estate. It's no surprise that they brought in big backers such as InBev (Budweiser) and SMC Live. These sponsors dwarf Emmursive. I'm looking forward to quit the show out there even though I'd also prefer something totally new.

Where are Caroline and the Reverend??

I loved the addition of two new characters to Sleep No More when they appeared last year. It was so fun to explore new ideas and be completely surprised. At one point, I was with the Reverend and realized I had no idea what loop I was in or what was happening in other parts of the building.  It’s been a long time since that has happened! 

But it seems that they have vanished…at least for most of the shows.  It’s been ages since someone mentioned seeing the Reverend.  And while Caroline seems to be a bit more frequent…a glimpse of her is still rare these days.  

There is a 1:1 connected to one of these characters that is in my top five things to have ever happened to me in this show.  It’s truly mind-blowing. If it disappears…there will be a gaping hole in the narrative in my opinion. 

My hope that this weirdness is only because of a temporary scheduling issue and that Caroline and the Reverend will return as soon as possible.  

My fear is that the powers-that-be have decided to be cheap and not pay two additional performers per show. If that’s the case…it’s truly a shame. 

I couldn't agree more. I've been saddened to not see them and I did think they were brilliantly written into the show. Here's hoping they both return.

I like your take here among some others that followed up on this. There does feel to be a bit of fragmentation going on with "the new stuff." The dialogue driven aspect of it being the most shocking. When it happened to me during its first 2 weeks, it only hit me after I exited why something was so "different." When they changed their rough draft and another character was involved and the 2 way convo with dialogue started happening it struck a deeper chord. I felt as if it was a sideshow of sorts having been accustomed to the tried and true formula for SNM. When the Porter handed me the telephone for the first time, that whole thing made my head spin and I didn't know what to do with it.

I do wonder what it would be like on a first or second trip in and stumbling upon that at some point compared to seeing all of these things after 30+ times.

Last, thank you for acknowledging the existence of James Geddes after getting hammered within your reblogs with "that never was a thing at the Mckittrick." It was and didn't work as well as what is happening now but I'm still glad I saw the first new, but short-lived, act retro-fitted into the space after years of no significant additions.

I'm also happy to see that people are listing the cast members after I took some serious ass heat for suggesting that we start including the new characters in cast lists.

Anywho, here's to a happy new year in the space and, more importantly, the year that PD may actually roll something out aside from special event material which raises the bar and causes us old timer repeat guests to be wide-eyed and shaken once again.

Two things:

1. Going in February with some friends to Then She Fell.  Thoughts?  Tips?

2. Just saw a Banquo very much outside of the hotel.  In my neighborhood. Having brunch where I have brunch.  I just wish he’d been drinking his drink faster.  I would have sent him another as a gesture of appreciation. 

It's a gorgeous show that brought tears to my eyes during a sequence or two but far removed from the Punchdrunk formula. You are more aware of yourself as the absence of a mask removes the limited peripheral vision that cause everything you look at within a PD show feel like it's being viewed through a camera lens. Your responsibility is to open your mind and let go. Comparing it to SNM will only take away from the experience. It's a "promenade" immersive show meaning your aren't let totally free. You are guided from spot to spot so there is much more control. Overall, it's a great mix of playfulness and dramatic depth. It's also much more intimate in nature than SNM. You will not be let down. Enjoy!

The Opening Performances...Many More to Come!

Kat Cunning (@katrinacunningham) provided the gorgeous and haunting vocals. The Paisley Players did a mini-revue of their past performances. The Grandmother’s Story told in Woyzeck mashed up with a Metropolis/Maria theme was carried throughout the night.  I have a ton of other videos to come over the next few days, but here’s the first! As per usual, the lighting is not always the best and I lost some of the details in the dark at points. Also, apologies in advance for a little glitch in the first video where my phone cut out for a couple seconds. Hope ya’ll enjoy! - Waffle

Yay thank you!

Foreshadowing / road testing for a new 2016 LA Show. That's my prediction.

With Haste!

On our most recent trip to New York, we frequented the hotel several days in a row. At one of these shows, I was approached by Hecate and taken into her lair. She turned to me and said “I need you to deliver a letter for me.” I of course was all, Hell Yes! She handed me a letter and directed me to take it to Mr. McKittrick “with haste”. I did attempt to locate Mr. McKittrick but it turns out he is a very hard man to find! I am frankly a bit scared of the woman in red and so I am turning to you tumblr. If anyone knows Mr. McKittrick, please deliver this letter for me. I fear what may happen to me later this week when I return to the hotel if the task hasn’t been completed. 

Thanks tumblrverse!

Waffle

Yes!

At first I thought this was a real thing and was like…wait I want the new 1-1.

This is great.

Hahaha. Love it

What a day!

Had a day filled with theatre and then Sleep No More got canceled right in the middle of Hecate’s first cabaret! Some sort of pipe bursting or what not. What a weird experience!

Wow! Refunds? How was it handled?!? No one hurt I hope?!?

Warning: for those who haven’t seen the “new stuff” in Sleep No More yet (for example, the influx of Drowned Man fans that is just arriving from London for the holidays): You should stay off Tumblr. Several people are posting spoilers openly. :(

Guys - for those who have seen the “new stuff” - it takes very little effort to add a “read more” tag, or to put something like ****SPOILERS**** in the text.

By not doing this, you are excluding awesome people from being able to participate in our community.

(Reposting this so that it shows in the tag.)

I only use the mobile app which lacks the read more tag unless it’s found in html code form. I spend little time with Dumblr so just not my thing. I did add ****SPOILERS**** to my posts. Much of what I reveal is no more as everyone jumped down my throat saying “it was never there.” Just trying to document what was and how things have evolved and I did cut much details just to keep it to the point.

Well that happened. They had to evacuate the McKittrick about an hour in due to a burst pipe or something of that ilk. Hopefully everyone is ok!

Woah

A feature article on Third Rail Projects and The Grand Paradise is in today’s New York Times Arts section, featuring a few pics of yours truly. The show opens January 30!

!!!!!! Can't wait to see this.