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

[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.