I haven't deleted my Tumblr blog. Yet.
I'm thinking about it, though. And here's why.
In my last post, I hinted at having issues with Tumblr that went so far as to closing the tab for my dash (and still not having reopened it) and at dedicating a post to those issues. So since I should be doing a lot more things that are a lot more important, I chose today to write down some of those thinky thoughts.
First of all, I haven't been back to my dash yet because I found that I can very well live without it. I still keep checking my Facebook and Twitter timelines (and yes, I'd feel a bit lost without them, although, to be honest, I could do without those just as well. For all the hours pumped into surfing the Internet, I have always found that I can live without it quite well for a pretty long time. I'd never go as far as purposefully logging off and never coming back but I still haven't bought myself a smart phone and I don't see the need to do so) but I haven't missed my Tumblr dash in the slightest.
That doesn't mean that there is no one on Tumblr I don't like. In fact, there are lots of bright people on there that I find to be funny, intelligent and creative (coincidentally, most of those people are people I knew before joinging Tumblr) and that I do miss. However, I don't miss the entire concept "Tumblr". And there are several reasons for that.
The first and foremost ist, probably, that Tumblr annoys the fucking hell out of me, especially the political side. I'm not necessarily talking the social justice theoretical side (because I have learned a lot from them and I appreciate the work that goes into trying to discuss social justice theory on a medium that makes discussions unwieldy and annoying but we'll come to that later), I really mean politics on Tumblr. I mean all those teenagers and people in their early twenties being so angry at some new issue every other week.
Don't get me wrong, being angry is good and it's necessary. But it's also fucking exhausting, and it's getting really annoying to be called apathetic or mean or a slave to mainstream media just because you don't reblog this post or don't like that post. I have been in politics - real politics, with hours and hours of sessions in committees and summer weekends spent on discussing left-wing environmental policies at camp sites and winter weekends spent on electing new chairpersons in evil smellling stuffy conference halls and months of election campaigns spent on standing in shopping malls, windy streets and plazas being rained on - for over ten years now, and I'm starting to get really, really pissed at being called all that by some teenager or other just because I don't hit the reblog button hard and fast enough. Some of those kids weren't even born when I went to my first big anti-war rally or anti-nazi protest. I refuse to let any of them tell me how to be political "the right way" and what I need to do in order to be considered an activist.
Another thing that really pisses me off about Tumblr activists is the huge US-centrism. I'm not necessarily talking the concentration on US events and issues - because that's only to be expected from a platform so heavily frequented by Americans - although that can be slightly off-putting, too. I do mean the extreme US-centric view on general issues, such as all that "But you won't see the media report this!" stuff. Speak for yourself, but Ferguson and other related protests made headlines in all major German newspapers and the one important news show, Tagesschau, for several weeks. I have yet to see any Americans on Tumblr talk about the disaster that hit Vanuatu earlier this year (that also made headlines in all major German news outlets for several weeks), though... So maybe it's not "the media" that "doesn't report on things", maybe it's the US media?
I also mean that thing with imposing the American interpretation terms and vocabulary on discussions in different cultural environments. Race is the best example. When Americans use the word race, they use it as an acceptable term in social justice discussions. When Germans use the word race - Rasse - in relation to discussing issues related to human beings, they're usually neo-nazis. "Rasse" is a word we do not use in Germany when discussing issues related to skin color. Inner-European discussions in general don't focus so much on skin-color, they focus on ethnicity and nationality. No one in Germany, for example, would call people of Turkish descent (the greatest immigrant-descended minority in Germany) or Italian descent or Greek descent "brown-skinned" or call them "people of color", even though some of them have skin that is darker than the usual pasty-white "bio" German (I resent the use of "Bio-Deutsche_r" for someone whose family has no recent translational migrational background that seems to have become fashionable in German speaking social justice circles but that is a different issue altogether) person's skin. So yeah, Europeans are getting real touchy about Americans barging in on Europe related discussions and making them out to be "racial" conflicts when they're really about ethnicity and/or nationality, and many Americans on Tumblr just don't seem to get it. On that note, I really hope there's a special part of hell reserved for those Tumblrinas who like to claim that the Holocaust wasn't so bad after all, because it was just "white people involved". Not shitting you. This is a genuine opinion shared on Tumblr, over and over and over again.
Another reason I find Tumblr annoying is that it is one of the worst platforms for discussion ever invented. Aside from the difficulties I already named, there's also the technological side. Since adding to reblogged posts in generally frowned on (Why? Why is that a no-no and a "rookie mistake"? Why is it a social convention on Tumblr that comments, especially on graphics, are to be left in the tags???), there's already that weird threshold barring people from adding to a discussions. There's also those monster postings that seems to become longer and longer with every time they cross your dash, and every time it gets harder to get an overlook on who replied to whom and honestly, Tumblr discussions are really unwieldy and difficult to decipher and read because of that weird structure. I tried to read all add-ons until a while ago. Now I just keep scrolling hoping that at some point I will see something else than just a wall of text (on that note: would it really be so fucking hard to use "Read More"s more often? The LJ cut was one of the best inventions of all internet time and I just really, really wish all those kids knew how to use those tools). I'm almost sure I missed some really engaging and well written contributions that way but man, life's too short for walls of text.
Also, aside from everything I discussed until now, fandom. Fandom was the initial reason I joined Tumblr (so many nice Halo graphics!) and fandom is one of the reasons I'm considering deleting my blog. Aside from the near suffocating presence of shows that don't interest me (yes, Superwholock, I'm looking at you. Tumblr actually made me actively despise all three shows where I merely didn't have any interest in them before joining Tumblr and I don't even know why that is) or downright make me shiver in antipathy (Hannibal, I'm looking at you. I must be the only person on all of Tumblr who actively hates the fucking face of Mads Mikkelsen, and not even getting Tumblr savior would help because no one ever fucking tags their fucking posts OMFG), I'm also getting really annoyed of the whole Tumblr cycle. By which I mean the cycle of a new show or movie or book appearing, people being moderately to extaticly excited about it and then someone appearing and starting to lecture - and I really mean lecture - people on why that aspect of the show is problematic and you are literally scum for liking this character and then different sides digging in their trenches and only coming out to gun each other down (Agents of Shield and the entire Stand With Ward vs. the rest of the fandom debate epitomizes this. Guys, I love all of you, stop fighting, goddammit) and then everything happening on my dash and where are all the wonderful graphics I came for??? Was it ever that bad on LJ?
So yeah. Seriously considering deleting my blog. I still like a lot of you guys who migrated to Tumblr from LJ and who rarely post here anymore (just like me, so no, absolutely no reproach here) and I'd sorely miss you but the entire culture on Tumblr plus the technological inadequacies and unwieldiness are really starting to do me in and and currently, it feels a lot like I'm better off without them. Jury's still out on the final decision but I'll tell you as soon as I reach it, pinky promise. Until then, I'll just keep and try to revive this account, get some of the fic on my hard drive published here, get some more crafting done and maybe even muster up the courage to talk about the mess my academic life has become. You can still talk to me here, on Twitter, on Facebook (anyone wanting to be added on Facebook is welcome to friend me. Just leave me a short message who you are and I'll friend back!), on Skype... (just not MSN or Googletalk because currently, my messenger app seems to have major issues with both Microsoft and Google's servers, so yeah, if you pinged me and I didn't answer on any of those two, it totally wasn't because I don't like you or because I was busy building my Sims yet another new home, it was because Trillian refuses to cooperate), just not, you know, Tumblr.
In my last post, I hinted at having issues with Tumblr that went so far as to closing the tab for my dash (and still not having reopened it) and at dedicating a post to those issues. So since I should be doing a lot more things that are a lot more important, I chose today to write down some of those thinky thoughts.
First of all, I haven't been back to my dash yet because I found that I can very well live without it. I still keep checking my Facebook and Twitter timelines (and yes, I'd feel a bit lost without them, although, to be honest, I could do without those just as well. For all the hours pumped into surfing the Internet, I have always found that I can live without it quite well for a pretty long time. I'd never go as far as purposefully logging off and never coming back but I still haven't bought myself a smart phone and I don't see the need to do so) but I haven't missed my Tumblr dash in the slightest.
That doesn't mean that there is no one on Tumblr I don't like. In fact, there are lots of bright people on there that I find to be funny, intelligent and creative (coincidentally, most of those people are people I knew before joinging Tumblr) and that I do miss. However, I don't miss the entire concept "Tumblr". And there are several reasons for that.
The first and foremost ist, probably, that Tumblr annoys the fucking hell out of me, especially the political side. I'm not necessarily talking the social justice theoretical side (because I have learned a lot from them and I appreciate the work that goes into trying to discuss social justice theory on a medium that makes discussions unwieldy and annoying but we'll come to that later), I really mean politics on Tumblr. I mean all those teenagers and people in their early twenties being so angry at some new issue every other week.
Don't get me wrong, being angry is good and it's necessary. But it's also fucking exhausting, and it's getting really annoying to be called apathetic or mean or a slave to mainstream media just because you don't reblog this post or don't like that post. I have been in politics - real politics, with hours and hours of sessions in committees and summer weekends spent on discussing left-wing environmental policies at camp sites and winter weekends spent on electing new chairpersons in evil smellling stuffy conference halls and months of election campaigns spent on standing in shopping malls, windy streets and plazas being rained on - for over ten years now, and I'm starting to get really, really pissed at being called all that by some teenager or other just because I don't hit the reblog button hard and fast enough. Some of those kids weren't even born when I went to my first big anti-war rally or anti-nazi protest. I refuse to let any of them tell me how to be political "the right way" and what I need to do in order to be considered an activist.
Another thing that really pisses me off about Tumblr activists is the huge US-centrism. I'm not necessarily talking the concentration on US events and issues - because that's only to be expected from a platform so heavily frequented by Americans - although that can be slightly off-putting, too. I do mean the extreme US-centric view on general issues, such as all that "But you won't see the media report this!" stuff. Speak for yourself, but Ferguson and other related protests made headlines in all major German newspapers and the one important news show, Tagesschau, for several weeks. I have yet to see any Americans on Tumblr talk about the disaster that hit Vanuatu earlier this year (that also made headlines in all major German news outlets for several weeks), though... So maybe it's not "the media" that "doesn't report on things", maybe it's the US media?
I also mean that thing with imposing the American interpretation terms and vocabulary on discussions in different cultural environments. Race is the best example. When Americans use the word race, they use it as an acceptable term in social justice discussions. When Germans use the word race - Rasse - in relation to discussing issues related to human beings, they're usually neo-nazis. "Rasse" is a word we do not use in Germany when discussing issues related to skin color. Inner-European discussions in general don't focus so much on skin-color, they focus on ethnicity and nationality. No one in Germany, for example, would call people of Turkish descent (the greatest immigrant-descended minority in Germany) or Italian descent or Greek descent "brown-skinned" or call them "people of color", even though some of them have skin that is darker than the usual pasty-white "bio" German (I resent the use of "Bio-Deutsche_r" for someone whose family has no recent translational migrational background that seems to have become fashionable in German speaking social justice circles but that is a different issue altogether) person's skin. So yeah, Europeans are getting real touchy about Americans barging in on Europe related discussions and making them out to be "racial" conflicts when they're really about ethnicity and/or nationality, and many Americans on Tumblr just don't seem to get it. On that note, I really hope there's a special part of hell reserved for those Tumblrinas who like to claim that the Holocaust wasn't so bad after all, because it was just "white people involved". Not shitting you. This is a genuine opinion shared on Tumblr, over and over and over again.
Another reason I find Tumblr annoying is that it is one of the worst platforms for discussion ever invented. Aside from the difficulties I already named, there's also the technological side. Since adding to reblogged posts in generally frowned on (Why? Why is that a no-no and a "rookie mistake"? Why is it a social convention on Tumblr that comments, especially on graphics, are to be left in the tags???), there's already that weird threshold barring people from adding to a discussions. There's also those monster postings that seems to become longer and longer with every time they cross your dash, and every time it gets harder to get an overlook on who replied to whom and honestly, Tumblr discussions are really unwieldy and difficult to decipher and read because of that weird structure. I tried to read all add-ons until a while ago. Now I just keep scrolling hoping that at some point I will see something else than just a wall of text (on that note: would it really be so fucking hard to use "Read More"s more often? The LJ cut was one of the best inventions of all internet time and I just really, really wish all those kids knew how to use those tools). I'm almost sure I missed some really engaging and well written contributions that way but man, life's too short for walls of text.
Also, aside from everything I discussed until now, fandom. Fandom was the initial reason I joined Tumblr (so many nice Halo graphics!) and fandom is one of the reasons I'm considering deleting my blog. Aside from the near suffocating presence of shows that don't interest me (yes, Superwholock, I'm looking at you. Tumblr actually made me actively despise all three shows where I merely didn't have any interest in them before joining Tumblr and I don't even know why that is) or downright make me shiver in antipathy (Hannibal, I'm looking at you. I must be the only person on all of Tumblr who actively hates the fucking face of Mads Mikkelsen, and not even getting Tumblr savior would help because no one ever fucking tags their fucking posts OMFG), I'm also getting really annoyed of the whole Tumblr cycle. By which I mean the cycle of a new show or movie or book appearing, people being moderately to extaticly excited about it and then someone appearing and starting to lecture - and I really mean lecture - people on why that aspect of the show is problematic and you are literally scum for liking this character and then different sides digging in their trenches and only coming out to gun each other down (Agents of Shield and the entire Stand With Ward vs. the rest of the fandom debate epitomizes this. Guys, I love all of you, stop fighting, goddammit) and then everything happening on my dash and where are all the wonderful graphics I came for??? Was it ever that bad on LJ?
So yeah. Seriously considering deleting my blog. I still like a lot of you guys who migrated to Tumblr from LJ and who rarely post here anymore (just like me, so no, absolutely no reproach here) and I'd sorely miss you but the entire culture on Tumblr plus the technological inadequacies and unwieldiness are really starting to do me in and and currently, it feels a lot like I'm better off without them. Jury's still out on the final decision but I'll tell you as soon as I reach it, pinky promise. Until then, I'll just keep and try to revive this account, get some of the fic on my hard drive published here, get some more crafting done and maybe even muster up the courage to talk about the mess my academic life has become. You can still talk to me here, on Twitter, on Facebook (anyone wanting to be added on Facebook is welcome to friend me. Just leave me a short message who you are and I'll friend back!), on Skype... (just not MSN or Googletalk because currently, my messenger app seems to have major issues with both Microsoft and Google's servers, so yeah, if you pinged me and I didn't answer on any of those two, it totally wasn't because I don't like you or because I was busy building my Sims yet another new home, it was because Trillian refuses to cooperate), just not, you know, Tumblr.