Alright, I think I like tumblr now.
A pun post crossed my dash, and I reblogged it with an equally bad pun in return. A couple of my followers find it funny, it's a good day for everyone.
That was on July 7th.
Virality on Reddit was entirely algorithmic. You could garner a couple crossposts, but the success of a post was entirely dependent on whether or not it hit r/all--the main page of Reddit. If your post does that, it's immediately exposed to 10x the number of people and immediately gets upvoted.
On my pun post, I get a couple reblogs. And those reblogs get a couple reblogs--nobody really adds any content to the post, it just gets a couple reblogs here and there.
There's a specific chain of reblogs that I'd like to focus on. The most popular post on this chain has about 25 reblogs on it. Half the posts have three reblogs or fewer. Five posts in this chain have just one reblog total.
But the reblog chain keeps going. And going. It breaches containment many times over. And finally, after a chain THIRTY SIX posts long, at 9:30 AM, July 22nd this morning, it hits a popular account.
99% percent of the people who have seen the post--virtually unchanged from how it left my dash--have seen it because it was curated by 36 different people. That's insane to me.
None of those 36 people know that they're part of this chain. They saw a post, reblogged it, and moved on. If any one of these people had not reblogged, the post would have a fraction of the impact it has.
And yet, after two weeks, the post has effectively hit the main page of tumblr. It was picked up, only because people liked it enough to show it to their followers. There were no algorithms necessary.
You really, truly, cannot get this on any other website.
No reblogs = an empty dash for your followers. I’ve been here over a decade and this affects meas a user in a form where I don’t get to see others’ stuff. I don’t see fanarts, edits, metas, posts, photos etc. in my dash because people don’t reblog. I use actively search function and I still miss so much things I want to see. Following new blogs doesn’t really help because people keep mainly liking things and likes aren’t visible for anyone. For You page is a good addition to find new stuff but it doesn’t work as effectively as people in Tumblr reblogging stuff. Been there, done that, I can tell the difference.
For example, when Voltron and Steven Universe were airing, my dash was full of reblogs and posts of both of them, even when I follow only few blogs. It was clear that there were super popular series and not some small group’s joy, like for example Trollhunters is. Miraculous Ladybug was also doing lots of round here and that’s how I discovered the series 8 years ago. When Mass Effect 2 was released, my dash was so full of post of the game that I actually ended up getting that game and now I’m still a fan of the series. So, in short, I have found so many good things here, thanks to people I follow actively reblogging and bringing them to my dash :3
Now, The Owl House was a big thing. Like Steven Universe and Voltron. Have I seen reblogs and posts on TOH in my dash? No. Only a few here and there. When checking any TOH post now, the reblog-like ratio is like 2000 reblogs and 22 000 likes. So 2000 people saw the post, 22000 people didn’t.
Mass Effect 2 sold in 2010 with 572,100 units. My dash was full of Mass Effect 2 posts due reblogs! Baldur’s Gate 3 has now sold at least 2,5 million units - and I’ve seen like 4 people reblogging a few posts about it.
There’s always an outcry “But I don’t want to reblog everything!”. No, you don’t have to. People didn’t reblog everything 8 years ago either but they reblogged majority of the things they encountered and liked. Tumblr is broke and doesn’t work, is people archive 80% of the posts they encounter to private likes and reblog 20%. Tumblr is built to people reblogging 80% and archiving 20% to their private likes.
You with your reblogs are the enrichment to the dash of those people who follow you (and if they don’t like your reblogs, they can unfollow, which is not a personal attack on anyone. It’s called curating your own internet experience instead of allowing capitalism with algorithms decide what you see, read and hear).
Everyone’s dashes will dry out without reblogs, it’s not just people creating stuff and posting it up here not getting enough views from multiple sources. It affects Tumblr as a whole, as this was built on reblogs and people keeping everyone’s dashes alive and literally creating their followers’ dashes. If it’s not reblogged, it’s not on anyone else’s dash but the post creator’s dash (and their followers’ dashes, whether there’s 5 or 500). it MIGHT appear in the tag search or in the For You but only MIGHT.
Crazy how people just simply aren't doing that lately. I have specific blogs curated for specific content.
My main blog, the kawaii butterfly girl is for general content and comments on reblogs like this one. But for other fandom content, I post those on two separate blogs. phantasmsinsideme for aesthetics, it includes tons of spoilers and some gifs with flashing lights, so that's why I don't post it for my general blog. And imjustbaby, there's a variety of goofy content, such as cursed things like clowns or some type of bugs, as well as lots of spoilers for things, so that's why it's not on my general blog.
I'd say it's good to have different blogs to post different types of content, but if you'd really like to know what your mutuals are into, I'd ask them if they have any blogs like this, if you don't mind spoilers that is.
Please be sure to have a general side or main blog, it's fun to post things and that's the point. Whether you call it your personal, your reblog blog, your admin blog, fandom blog, general blog, etc. Just post things, it keeps the site alive.
