What do you want to know about tumblr?

[dicta_contrion]

leviosa2016 has been a blast!! So many thought-provoking panels, and so many amazing, fantastic, phenomenal, creative, excited, exciting fellow fans!!

One theme that's come up, particularly in yesterday's H/D Panel (which...still fangirling a little, ngl) but elsewhere as well is the continuing divide between tumblr and lj. As it happens, and as some of you may already know, I'm a bit of a tumblr enthusiast, and I've volunteered to put together a "tumblr 101" post (perhaps a bit like this but in reverse) for the great many people who are interested in exploring that side of fandom but are put off by the mysteries of how tumblr works.

While I think I got a sense for what people might find helpful, I'd like to put out general questions to anyone who thought of something post-panel or heard tumblr discussed elsewhere and open it to everyone who wasn't at Leviosa.

What would you like to know about how to use tumblr? What sorts of content do you want to find? (Fan art? Fic? Fic recs? Headcanon posts? Aesthetics? Meta? Gifs and gifets? fancasts?) What sorts of interactions would you like to have? Are there particular things you find confusing about the interface, community norms, anything at all?

It'll probably take about a week (thanks, work) to get the post up, and I suspect we may need more than one (which is fine!!! I am so, so, so, so excited about more people finding new fannish content and maaaaaybe hopefully becoming more active!!! Three exclamation points doesn't really cover it!!!) but please, ask away, and I'll see what I can do!


Also, to follow up on a few things mentioned over the course of the weekend, links to: my masterlist of recs (also available, though less organized, on tumblr), daily h/d quotes (which are also recs), my (more recent) salty tumblr rants, tumblr posts about representation, tumblr posts about queerness in the HP canon, the recent discussion about the term "genderbend," and my ask box for anyone who's got questions and wants to ask them on tumblr.

More soon! And please, ask away!

Comments

[piratesmile331.livejournal.com]

I just want to thank you for doing this. Not sure I even know enough about tumblr to know what to ask. I think for now I'll just follow your links up above and see what I can find. It was a pleasure and an honor to meet you this weekend. You are an amazing woman!!!

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness, thank you! It was lovely meeting you, such a delight, and I'm so glad I got to!! You are every bit as kind and wonderful as I would've guessed, and I'll be excited to see you on tumblr should you decide to venture over!

[potteresque_ire]

I would love to hear everything you want to say! (Yes, I was the same person who did an ask on your Tumblr page a couple of weeks ago) Thank you so much for doing this!!!! <3

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

Thank you for being willing to give learning about it a shot!! You're awesome!! <3<3

[oceaxe.livejournal.com]

Yes, thank you for volunteering to do this! This weekend was a come-to-jesus moment for me regarding my reluctance to put effort in to learning the platform, and now I'm actually feeling excited to increase my competency on Tumblr.

My main questions regarding tumblr, which probably seem pretty lazy:
1. How do I find "my people" efficiently?
2. Is it possible to create a back and forth dialogue that other people can join in, as opposed to the dead-end speech bubble comment function or private messaging? I feel like there's this critical mode of interaction that I'm missing.
3. Relatedly, is it possible to create a community on Tumblr?

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

Yay questions!! These are great and important and absolutely answerable. I'm so excited that you're willing to get more into it! And that I got to meet you!!!! <3<3<3

[kerrilee75.livejournal.com]

Yes! I second all these questions. I mostly just like and lurk around, not really sure how to engage with anyone. I'm looking forward to this!

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

That's really helpful to know! ♥♥

[zeitgeistic.livejournal.com]

I want to know how to get the feeling of community and group talk that LJ has, but I'm not sure that's poss.

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

Was talking with grace about this...I think it's a different kind of feeling, but definitely still possible to find community. More soon! ♥

[eidheann_writes]

firethesound and I were *literally* saying on... Friday? Saturday? that we needed a dicta "how to tumblr" because your "how to lj" was so good (and we are so bad at tumblr.

♥_♥

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

You both know how to tumbl!!! I've seen it!!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

[cassie-black12.livejournal.com]

I think the thing we all find hard about Tumblr is that it feels less engaged than LJ was/is! I love it for reblogging the pretty, but I never really 'talk' to anyone. So any tips on how that side of things can work would be great!!

Also just wanted to say how great it was to hear from you and Grace at the H/D panel - I think you both reminded a lot of us how great the fandom still is and what we've been missing!!

[romaine24.livejournal.com]

Ditto to Cassie's last statement!

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!! It was very lovely to meet you, and getting that excitement back was contagious. It's very helpful to hear that community and engagement are what people are looking for on tumblr - that seems really universal, and I think can be explained!

[capitu]

I'm really looking forward to this. I've been around Tumblr for a while but there's so much I don't know still. ^^

I'll message you if that's OK?

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

Of course, lovely. Any time!

Missed you so much this weekend, btw! ♥♥♥

[oakstone730.livejournal.com]

The most vexxing things I find is
- trying to find original poster and original posting date (I use Xkit but that only gives the date of the reblog that is in my dash).
- trying to read all the notes a post has, many time there is interesting info shared but almost impossible to find in a popular post because you have to scroll past all the notices to find ones where people commented
- trying to search tags and content effectively. This is mostly a vain one, but I stumble across recs that people give for my stories but it is by pure happenchance or when someone sends me a link. I'm tracking Oakstone730 tags and get bupkus- never get a notice unless someone uses that @oakstone730 to tag it, if it is in the main body of the post there is no way to find it.

[the other thing that gets me is untagged NSFW posts but that is for a vent for another day}

[oakstone730.livejournal.com]

AND...thank you for doing this and it was SO LOVELY MEETING YOU!

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

SO SO SO SO SO LOVELY!!!! I'm already ready to go back and hang out some more! ♥

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

Yessss, that vent. Vents - the NSFW one and the recs one. With you on both. Tagging is one of the things to talk about, try to stop that happening more.

Some of those things are where tumblr is clunkiest, and you know, I don't know if I know how to find the original posting date. That's curious! But the rest I can get on top of!!

[romaine24.livejournal.com]

First of all I want say how impressed I was with the h/d panel and the new info you presented. The main question I had about Tumblr was what it was best for and you answered that at the panel. For the first time it made sense to me. I love the idea that it brings more people to fandom because it opens it up for folks that aren't just writers/artists, but have other talents. And especially for those that have something to add like those bullet lists or a graphic story. Thank you!

I think I'll have more questions once I dip my toes in the water....Um...where's the water? LOL

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

Thank you!! I'm glad you've reminded me of that point, as it had gotten a bit lost in my post-panel thinking but I think is a really central part of what tumblr is uniquely able to offer.

The water!! I haven't re-coded it for LJ yet, but I've got a list up on tumblr here of some HP and H/D blogs to check out, as well as some authors and artists and other fandom blogs. Something to get started with, and please come back with any more questions!!

[itsraa.livejournal.com]

ee! i'm glad you had fun at leviosa! (and it sounds like your panel was amaazingg) yess! (: bring everyone to tumblr!! Hmm it's hard for me to remember what it was like a couple years ago when i started, but here are some things that I think would have helped me:

(1) understanding how side blogs worked and deciding if i really wanted one/two/many (no, i didn't! too much work!)
(2) figuring out how to quickly assess a blog i'd come across to see if i want to follow them (do they tag? what are their tags? do they share my fandoms/interests? what's their about page like?)
(3) understanding that i could unfollow anyone at any point and it was totally fine
(4) implementing a queue so i didn't feel anxiety about reblogging 50 things within an hour and making my followers hate me.
(5) realizing it didn't matter if anyone followed or unfollowed me. it was/is just a blog, and i could/can still do as i like. i don't need pretty graphics! or the most insightful meta over! it's just for fun!
(6) not feeling guilt if i didn't catch up on my dashboard anymore. nowadays, i follow over 300 blogs so i just type in the URLs of my favorite mutuals and make sure i'm caught up to date every once in a while that way.
(7) just knowing that i could walk away anytime if i needed to. i'm not actually a particularly anxious person, but somehow i find tumblr weirdly anxiety inducing in a way basically no other social media (fb, instagram, xanga, lj) affects me. in fact, points (3), (4), (5), (6) have all been about this too! there's a just a lotof information, a lot of weirdly charged discourse which implies you are either a GREAT or AWFUL person, a lot of sjw stuff which i am thankful for because it brings my attention to things that i otherwise would not have seen... but is really stressful to always be connected to, and, on top of everything else, a lot of people talking about their personal life problems which are often times quite upsetting as well.
(8) deep breathing, remembering a lot of ppl on tumblr are very young, and thinking about how glad i am that i didn't have much access to the internet as a teen.
(9) learning to just reach out in someone's ask box when i think they're cool/interesting and beginning to build friendships that way
(10) having fun with tags! reading other people's tags! making up goofy tags for things! laughing at other people's goofy tags!
(11) having fun clicking around BEAUTIFUL fanart pages because those are just the bomb!

and there's a probably ton more stuff which covers how *fun* tumblr is because i definitely am focused on some of the more stressful parts here! it's wonderful you're doing this and i look forward to seeing your guide <3

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

Oooh, this is amazing!! I've been thinking about how to balance the technical with the more abstract "how to find community" (I suspect it will be two posts) and this is really really helpful and concrete and awesome!!! Thank you!! ♥♥♥

[vaysh]

#3 and 5 and 8 and 10 and 11. ♥

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

Yes!! 3, 5, and 10 especially made such a difference in my tumblr experience.

[nia_kantorka]

Good to read you had a blast at Leviosa too. :D

You already helped me at the beginning of my tumblr-ing, but I'm sure there lots of stuff I still don't know. So yay for a guide like that!

Thanks for doing this!

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

It was so fun, but I wish we could have portkeyed everyone there!!

Very happy to do it if it gets more people involved! Hopefully it'll be helpful! ♥♥

[vaysh]

SOOOO looking forward to your How To Tumblr post. :) :) :)
Looking through the comments, i think most of what I find helpful and interesting has already been asked and mentioned. Sideblogs, definitely, and obviously, XKit and the intricacies of tagging.

I listening to a podcast about a year ago that really made me understand better what tumblr is all about: Slashcast #42: tumblr and the new direction of fandom. It's from 2013 and a bit dated but the main content is still valid, I find. :)

[dicta-contrion.livejournal.com]

Yay!! Hoping it'll live up to the hype!

Just opened Slashcast and am listening now, and it sounds promising! Thank you for linking!! ♥♥♥