The upsides of Tumblr

[schneefink]

jae asked about the advantages of Tumblr for someone who likes actual interaction and discussions. I've been thinking about this recently: I don't think that's what Tumblr is for, but it does have its upsides and reasons why I'm using it.

I started using Tumblr when I wasn't feeling well. I don't think that's a coincidence: at that moment, there were several things Tumblr did for me better than Lj/Dw. First of all, it's low-pressure: there are no instances where I feel like I should comment on something, or maybe want to say something and don't know what, and then feel guilty about it. Nobody cares if I comment or not. When I'm not feeling up to social interaction, Tumblr lets me watch my dash from a safe distance.

At the same time Tumblr is great at giving me the illusion of interaction and the benefits that come with it. I get notifications when someone likes or reblogs a thing that I (re)posted, and that makes me feel good because I could show them something that they liked. When I'm posting something on Lj/Dw and don't get any comments and I happen to feel insecure I start to worry that I'm not interesting enough; on Tumblr I don't care, because commenting is not part of the culture.

Tumblr is great for procrastination: it's relatively guilt-free because there are thousands of people using it for that exact same thing. I browse Lj/Dw and read about great stuff people have accomplished, travels or stories or crafts etc., and when I feel insecure that makes me feel even more so; but I browse my dash and know that everyone else here is also procrastinating.

It's also good for quick smiles: there is a lot of very funny stuff on Tumblr, also some great art and pictures, that I would not find otherwise.
Sometimes I also find information, although in general I'm rather annoyed by those who treat Tumblr as their news source because it's extremely unreliable and absolutely no substitute for newspapers. But interesting facts about historical figures sometimes appear as well.

Sometimes the reason why I post something on Tumblr instead of Lj/Dw is laziness, because on Tumblr I just post a link and that's it while on Lj/Dw I want to write a comment or post several things at the same time, but that's mostly because sometimes I think entries I write have to be interesting. Tumblr is extremely low-pressure in comparison.

(Sometimes I use it as bookmarks, because I still don't have pinboard, my browser bookmarks are horribly disorganized and my documents full of links are getting long and unwieldy. But that's not really what it's for.)

During vacation I had no internet for a week and I didn't miss Tumblr at all, but I did miss my flist/reading list. I caught up on my flist/reading list afterwards, I didn't care about my dashboard. Tumblr has very few lasting things, and it's not a good place to make friends. I tried messaging people a few times, but it's awkward and not remotely the same as on a journal.

Now that I'm feeling better ( \o/ ) I find myself preferring journals to Tumblr again: I missed the social interaction that seemed too difficult before, I enjoy comments and discussions again and I enjoy that this place feels like I'm surrounded by friends instead of strangers.
But now that I've started, as with many things, it's hard to quit Tumblr ;) I'm trying to cut down on the tumblrs I follow because it makes procrastination almost too easy, but that's hard too because many of them do post interesting/funny stuff. At least I've made some progress.
I don't think I want to quit it entirely: I genuinely enjoy the art and the weird kind of humor. But scale it back a bit, so I have more time for journals. Or, um, actually being productive. Ahem.

What do you use Tumblr for, if you have one?

Comments

[dubhartach]

I like it for random fandom updates - (I don't follow any other sources of fandom information aside from tumblr and journals). So random bit of news/trailer release/new video/new soundbite - these often pass me by unless I happen to follow someone on a journal who passes comment on it. And as I follow the journals of people who make interesting posts then it's not often that they do post the little things (or even the big things as I suspect they are so obvious everyone should know it)

For example most of my recent new follows on journals are of people I came across via Hockey. But if not for tumblr I would not have seen the USA olympic shirts or any of the stuff coming from the training camps. Or in fact a lot of Blackhawks convention stuff. Same goes for Thor posters/trailers.

I agree I want to keep up with my circle/friends list but wouldn't even try for my dash if more than a day had past!

[schneefink]

Also a good point! There's not much hockey fandom happening on Lj/dw from what I've seen, at least not smaller updates. And Tumblr is very convenient for convention updates of all kind.

[marginaliana]

I mainly use it for amusing gifs of various sorts, pictures of pretty things, and pictures of cute animals. I definitely don't like it for discussion, and I find it very frustrating when someone on my follow list gets into a back and forth with someone else. Because of course you're reading backwards, so you get 100% of the conversation, then 80%, then 60%, then 40%, which is just a waste of time.

[schneefink]

Yes, exactly - and you can't just go back a few pages to start from there because it only has endless scrolling backwards. But it does have pictures of cute animals :D

[forestgreen]

I have a tumblr, too, but I must confess I'm still at that stumped stage, where I haven't yet figured out how it works and what you're supposed to do with it.

There are things I would like to reblog, and then I feel weird about it, because it feels as if I'm taking other's people content and making it my own and I don't know if there are rules for it, or not. Like, are you supposed to add some witty comment like some do? Or can I just reblog and period? And while I'm pondering that, I decide to not reblog at all and keep on scrolling down.

It is a magnificent time-thief, though, the kind that charms you and leaves you with a smile, even though it just fleeced you of ever productive time you still had.

I'm trying to use my journal more, these days, as well, but I sometimes have the same pressure to say something important enough and it feels daunting when I have only, small, meaningless things to talk about.

[schneefink]

Time-thief, yes! And yes, exactly, to a journal feeling more daunting. I'm better with that now, but it's still there. Otoh, it's my journal :)

Hm, etiquette, I don't think there's a lot generally agreed upon. Stuff like don't remove an artist's comments (but others are fine), credit wherever you can, reblogging is fine but don't re-upload and make a new post, adding comments to a post is generally fine but some stupid people are annoyed if you disagree with them (if you don't want them to see people often put it in the tags.)

[metanewsmods]

Would you mind if we linked this in metanews?

[schneefink]

No, that's fine.

[amnisias.livejournal.com]

Just to say I'm glad you're feelig better. I'm not a tumblr person because I'm too social and 'not enough time'. I think it would be like youtube and just suck up hours of my life in a blink of an eye.

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

It definitely does that... I finally gave in after I noticed that I already spent too much time checking individual tumblrs, but I underestimated how much easier it is to find new tumblrs to follow once I have my own account. Too late now, but I'm still resisting Twitter - for now ;)

[sholio]

Yeah, the "no social pressure, no strings attached" aspect of Tumblr was really appealing to me for a while last winter. Then I started making more of an effort to engage socially, and started to find that Tumblr was actively hampering me from doing that -- I'd spend a bunch of time on Tumblr and have nothing to show for it except a few reblogs. I'm starting to think I need to cut back on it or maybe even block it for a while, because I feel the need to read my whole Tumblr list (like I read my whole flist) except there is really no point -- the people I follow rarely talk about their real lives, and all I'd be missing out on is some pretty pictures and gifs.

Tumblr is great for the kind of "look at all the shiny things!" interaction it's designed to promote -- I don't think it's awful, and I enjoy the time I spend on the site -- but I don't really get why so many people seem to be trying to use it for social interaction, because it's really inadequate for that! Which isn't a slam on Tumblr; I don't expect my car to be able to make toast, but there's no point using it like a toaster when they already sell perfectly good toasters. Trying to have conversations on Tumblr just leaves me annoyed and frustrated.

On the other hand, it's definitely my go-to now for looking up fanart and celebrity pictures. Overall, my Tumblr isn't fannishly oriented (except for a brief explosion of IM3 last spring *g*) and I don't follow many fannish blogs, but I do really like searching by tag for whatever I'm into at the moment.

[schneefink.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

I think the people who use Tumblr for fannish interaction are probably either coming from journaling platforms and are trying to replicate their experience (for example if their fandom is much more alive on Tumblr than on Lj/Dw) or came to Tumblr first, so they don't know how much more convenient Lj/Dw are. Having both for different purposes seems like the most convenient thing for me. (Except YES, Tumblr is even more dangerous for procrastinating, not only for studying but also for journal posts.)
But I don't want to link from my Tumblr to my journal openly because in an ill-advised moment I gave my Tumblr URL to people who know me IRL, and you can't lock posts there.