Tumblr
I'm afraid I don't get Tumblr. I know that part of the reason I don't want much to do with it is the missing E in "Tumblr." That makes my brain itch; I want to fix it and I can't. I know how trivial that sounds, but it honestly has a nails-on-the-chalkboard effect; I almost hear the screeching sound when I look at the word.
The second thing I don't like about it is that the company calls you on the telephone when you try to join. Instantly, no matter what time it is when you try to join. Now, I don't talk on telephones for fun. I use them to make appointments for doctors and for Dial-A-Ride, to order medicine and medical supplies, and to talk to people if all other lines of communication have been shut down. Getting a sudden and unexpected phone call from a company instead of just being allowed to sign up quietly online is decidedly unpleasant. My automatic reaction in that situation is to say nothing and hang up FAST.
The third thing I don't like about Tumblr is that it's 90% pictures. I don't even have a camera. (And no, I don't have one in my cellphone, either.) Or a scanner.
Fourth--from what I can tell, you can't even say that you like something on Tumblr if you don't have a Tumblr account.
Fifth, the default font used for comments is PAINFULLY tiny. It causes my to squint and suffer eyestrain. Yes, I can make the font on the page bigger, but I can't do it selectively. Enlarging the entire page means that I enlarge the post itself to the point of unreadability.
Sixth, and most frustrating, the comments are not really a comment section. Most people either click a button that says they like a post or one that says "re-post." Occasionally, you get someone who makes a one-sentence-long comment. But I haven't seen anyone leaving longer and more detailed comments. Nor can you respond to that one-sentence comment and/or have a conversation with the other person.
And for me, conversations are kind of the point. (This is also the reason that I dislike Facebook and Twitter. They're fine for making announcements. They SUCK at stackable conversations that are easy to follow. For "social media," they are decidedly un-social.)
I wouldn't be thinking about this except that LJ and Dreamwidth both seem to have very few commenters or posters these days. There seems to have been a mass migration when I wasn't looking; almost everyone seems to have a Tumblr account. But while there are a couple of Tumblr accounts that even I enjoy (Reasoning with Vampires and Arrested Westeros), I just don't like the way that the platform itself works.
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The second thing I don't like about it is that the company calls you on the telephone when you try to join. Instantly, no matter what time it is when you try to join. Now, I don't talk on telephones for fun. I use them to make appointments for doctors and for Dial-A-Ride, to order medicine and medical supplies, and to talk to people if all other lines of communication have been shut down. Getting a sudden and unexpected phone call from a company instead of just being allowed to sign up quietly online is decidedly unpleasant. My automatic reaction in that situation is to say nothing and hang up FAST.
The third thing I don't like about Tumblr is that it's 90% pictures. I don't even have a camera. (And no, I don't have one in my cellphone, either.) Or a scanner.
Fourth--from what I can tell, you can't even say that you like something on Tumblr if you don't have a Tumblr account.
Fifth, the default font used for comments is PAINFULLY tiny. It causes my to squint and suffer eyestrain. Yes, I can make the font on the page bigger, but I can't do it selectively. Enlarging the entire page means that I enlarge the post itself to the point of unreadability.
Sixth, and most frustrating, the comments are not really a comment section. Most people either click a button that says they like a post or one that says "re-post." Occasionally, you get someone who makes a one-sentence-long comment. But I haven't seen anyone leaving longer and more detailed comments. Nor can you respond to that one-sentence comment and/or have a conversation with the other person.
And for me, conversations are kind of the point. (This is also the reason that I dislike Facebook and Twitter. They're fine for making announcements. They SUCK at stackable conversations that are easy to follow. For "social media," they are decidedly un-social.)
I wouldn't be thinking about this except that LJ and Dreamwidth both seem to have very few commenters or posters these days. There seems to have been a mass migration when I wasn't looking; almost everyone seems to have a Tumblr account. But while there are a couple of Tumblr accounts that even I enjoy (Reasoning with Vampires and Arrested Westeros), I just don't like the way that the platform itself works.
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