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I am, very shortly, going to be venturing into the world of Tumblr again. The thing is my internet up here sucks so hard that I finally gave up on it. Loading a single page on my dashboard takes forever, and while I am somewhat willing to be patient with the insane buffering times I must endure for watching something on Netflix or whatever, the frustration to payoff ratio with something like Tumblr mostly just leaves me wanting to punch my modem in the neck. But I will have decent internet for at least a few months in the near future, so I'm interested to see how it will read differently when I can just casually load my dash or browse tags, or actually make and post things to it.
I think I am also kind of terrified of it. My limited experience with it so far has made me feel old, I still can't figure out how to follow conversations, it moves ridiculously fast which provokes my anxiety (I am not at all good with having to think on the spot in real time, see also: the reason I never go to Twitter), and the sheer numbers in terms of what dictates a popular post or user (seriously, *thousands*....THOUSANDS?!?!?) is...like, I already know how that's going to go in my head. Either no one or a small number of people will interact with me and I will compare that to the rest of tumblr and feel like an unloved loser. Or, in the highly unlikely event I make some kind of post that gets attention, I'll crawl under my bed and burst into tears at the idea of that many people seeing me at all.
On the other hand? I like making things, and my making things desires tends towards visual types of art, which is exactly what Tumblr does best. I make vids! I'm learning to draw! I'm actually fascinated by gifs and kinda want to learn how to do them. And I like looking at these things as well. My brief exposure to Tumblr is one in which, when I could get it to load, I was going 'oooooh', 'aaaaaaah', 'heeeeeeeee' a lot. My preferred style of fannish platform is still either the DW/LJ or the message board type, but so much of fannish content has skipped off merrily to Tumblrland, and I hate not having access to it. I mean, you will pry my lj/dw from my cold dead hands, but fandom goes where fandom goes.
I think right now what I am seeking is reassurance and Tumblr success stories and tips from those of y'all who have made the jump successfully.
I think I am also kind of terrified of it. My limited experience with it so far has made me feel old, I still can't figure out how to follow conversations, it moves ridiculously fast which provokes my anxiety (I am not at all good with having to think on the spot in real time, see also: the reason I never go to Twitter), and the sheer numbers in terms of what dictates a popular post or user (seriously, *thousands*....THOUSANDS?!?!?) is...like, I already know how that's going to go in my head. Either no one or a small number of people will interact with me and I will compare that to the rest of tumblr and feel like an unloved loser. Or, in the highly unlikely event I make some kind of post that gets attention, I'll crawl under my bed and burst into tears at the idea of that many people seeing me at all.
On the other hand? I like making things, and my making things desires tends towards visual types of art, which is exactly what Tumblr does best. I make vids! I'm learning to draw! I'm actually fascinated by gifs and kinda want to learn how to do them. And I like looking at these things as well. My brief exposure to Tumblr is one in which, when I could get it to load, I was going 'oooooh', 'aaaaaaah', 'heeeeeeeee' a lot. My preferred style of fannish platform is still either the DW/LJ or the message board type, but so much of fannish content has skipped off merrily to Tumblrland, and I hate not having access to it. I mean, you will pry my lj/dw from my cold dead hands, but fandom goes where fandom goes.
I think right now what I am seeking is reassurance and Tumblr success stories and tips from those of y'all who have made the jump successfully.
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I do also (attempt) to friend all my LJ/DW friends on tumblr (many names don't match, which is hard). That gets overwhelming to me if I think that I have to keep up with it. I use tumblr savior to weed out certain tags, to reduce the amount of Definitely Not My Fandom that shows up.
I check it occasionally as a reading list until I get tired (almost never "until I've seen everything since last time I checked"), and may check individual people's tumblr directly is they're posting stuff that I'm into or if I want to feel like I'm keeping up with them, because tumblr is where they are hanging out. I also use some kind of animated gif blocker because otherwise it's too slow (and too many animated gifs make me anxious). Also, no infinite scroll, too hard on my computer.
For me it is mostly looking. I used to like finding things on deviantart etc. and using the "post to tumblr" button to share it, but that is apparently controversial and makes artists angry ... even tho it is crediting them, and linking to them, and there is that little share button right there ... so I don't really do that anymore.
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1. Don't follow too many people. It's really tempting to click that follow button every time you stumble across someone who looks cool, but once you get to a certain number of tumblrs it just becomes impossible and overwhelming trying to keep up.
2. Definitely get the tumblr savior and xkit addons. They will make your life much easier.
3. Don't try to see every single post. Even if you're selective about who you follow you're still going to end up missing things. This is OK. In fact, I'd say most tumblr users assume their followers know this. If they have something they really need you to see they'll send you a message about it.
Also, my username is darthfangirl over there instead of darthcorrie. Just so you know who the heck is following you. ;-)
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I basically follow friends, reblog stuff I see that I like and/or am fannish about, and post stuff I want friends to see. I've followed a few people I don't know, too, because they post pretty stuff or cute animals, or whatever. And some people I don't know have followed me (I'm often not sure why, because I don't think I'm that interesting), and you have to be careful, because sometimes they're just creepy spammers, but you can ignore them (which basically blocks them from your account).
I just try to focus on the pretty (or the relevant to me), and celebrate (or avoid) the stuff my friends are into.
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I do like that following/unfollowing is less fraught than it is with lj/dw.
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When I discovered tumblr ~3 years ago I felt really overwhelmed at times too. It took me a while to understand how different it was from other platforms I was familiar with, and that I'm not *supposed* to keep up with EVERYTHING on my dashboard. At some point I stopped feeling like I'm constantly missing out on things.
Now I occasionally check my dashboard when I'm bored and want to see random shiny things, but mainly I just have about 5 favourite tumblrs that I check almost every day, which are people I personally know, creators who make stuff I like, or just people I find interesting. I keep trying to reduce the amount of blogs I follow, but it's haaaaaaaaard!
And then I recently started posting my vids to tumblr, which has been a much more positive experience than I expected. The only issue I still have with it is that it's so hard to keep up with feedback in reblogs. I love comments and it's so interesting to see how they tend to be different on every platform, but tumblr people have this
annoyingfunny habit of putting everything IN THEIR TAGS. So while it's easy to see right away if someone added commentary to something they reblogged, I still have to click on every single reblog if I want to be sure so I can read what's in the tags. :DXKit seems to have a thing that gives you an overview of all the tags that were added to your original posts though. Haven't tried it out yet, but it sounds useful for people like me. ;)
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Not being able to load Tumblr hardly at all with my internet has been a real blocking point to learning how to use it. I think adapting to just letting stuff flow by without panicking that I'm not keeping up, or am missing something will be the hardest.
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- Tumblr Savior and xkit have been really helpful;
- I'm much happier now that I've let go of the fear that I will miss something important OMG -- instead I just check in a few times a day and scan through a screen or two and then go away again;
- I limit the Tumblrs I follow to a few people I know and love and a few other people who post lots of good stuff in my fandom du jour and who are good about tagging;
- I think of Tumblr very much as a shiny visual supplement to DW/LJ, not a substitute for them;
- I don't try to have or track conversations;
- I almost never do tag searches -- I end up seeing too many things that frustrate and annoy me rather than delight me;
- I don't post new material, just reblog interesting/pretty things that float by on my dash.
Obviously different people use it differently; for me the key was thinking about how *I* wanted to use it, what made sense for ME, and then finding ways to stick to that regardless of what's going on around me.
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Indeed, and I think that's where my crappy internet has really quashed my potential Tumblr use. So much of that process is being able to explore what's out there and what people do and how they do it and get an idea of what appeals...but it takes so long for a single page to load for me that it's nearly impossible to just play. I suspect once I have it all set up the way I like it and am doing the things I like, it will be easier to do up on the mountain even because I won't be attempting to wade through ALL of tumblr to figure it out, heh.
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http://lum-tumblr-feed.dreamwidth.org/
I also have a few for spn and Night Vale art. And lim's vid.
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Everyone's advice about not trying to keep up is good. Tumblr is stacked with young users who don't have the kind of jobs, children or other responsibilities/interests that prevent them interacting with their mobile devices 24/7. They create a lot of content.
That said it is full of the pretty. So much pretty.