porcupine-girl:

mortimermcmirestinks:

pathetic-gamer:

mortimermcmirestinks:

mortimermcmirestinks:

skies-diary:

mortimermcmirestinks:

so-once-i-was-a-chicken:

mortimermcmirestinks:

staff:

This is 100% new and 100% Tumblr with 0% ads.

If you love ads, then this post is not for you. If you love Tumblr but hate ads and want the one to continue without having to endure the other, then this post is literally for you. Hello, you.

As of today, you can set up ad-free browsing on your personal desktop computer, from anywhere in the world, and then enjoy the same effervescent Tumblr you know and love (yes, including mobile) without the interruption of ads. Scroll away.

Some caveats:

  • It’s $4.99 for a month of pure, unadulterated nonsense.
  • If you like a discount, you can get 33% off (that’s four months for free) at $39.99 for a whole year. Imagine.
  • This is opt-in. You don’t have to do this. We won’t make you.

How do you opt in?

Easy! Just go to your Account Settings on desktop and hit “Go Ad-Free.” From there, you can choose to pay monthly or yearly:

image

And that’s it! You’ll be able to enjoy your favorite blogs and posts without any pesky ads getting in the way.

That’s all for now, Tumblr. Back to your blorbos.

Tumblr is dying.

This isn’t funny, this isn’t me doing a meme, this is me putting on a very temporary Serious Hat.

Tumblr is dying.

The recent attempts by staff to make the site profitable are the desperate gasps and grasping arms of a site that is well past the point of no return.

Tumblr was never going to survive very long in our current world. It’s not profitable. It was never going to be very profitable. It’s vitally important to the history and culture of the social internet (and, really, the world in general, to some extent), but it’s been mismanaged, haphazardly-run, and just a general design train wreck for years.

Because here’s the important thing to remember about Tumblr:

Tumblr is a bad social media site. More specifically, Tumblr is bad at being a social media site.

I know what you may be thinking – “but it’s better than [Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/TikTok], so it can’t be that bad!” And that’s incorrect. Tumblr is, by any standard measure, much much worse at being a social media site than any of those four sites. And there’s one crucial reason for that that people keep overlooking:

See, people think of social media as being about connecting with people, or community, or social blah blah blah whatever and I need you to understand that all of that, all of it, is bullshit. That’s not what social media is, and that’s never what social media has been.

Social media is about selling your information, mostly to advertisers – which, on the internet, mostly means to Google. Meta doesn’t want you to find art on Instagram or talk to friends on Facebook. Meta wants you to spend time looking at your feed and putting in information. For all Meta cares, if it kept you on the site, you could kill all of your friends and only follow Instagram accounts that posted blank white frames. None of the “content”, none of the “community”, none of that bullshit is important to them. They just want you on the site so they can get your information – via ads, trackers, cookies, harvesting your posts and comments, whatever – and sell it.

I can’t be any clearer about this next point:

Social media is bad. Anything that you like about Tumblr, TikTok, Instagram, or whatever, all of the stuff you like about those sites are either incidental or counter to the intention of the people running the site.

Instagram DMs are only there to keep you on the site.

Your TikTok FYP is very carefully curated to keep you on the app.

Twitter shows you exactly the trends it needs to in order to keep you browsing.

Ever wonder why social media makes people so angry? It’s because anger keeps you engaged. It’s 100% intentional.

All of the most addictive and engaging emotional states – anger, fear, smugness – are all really bad for your mental (and often physical) health when taken in large doses, and are also the only thing social media wants from you.

Now we come back to Tumblr.

Why is Tumblr better than, say, Twitter? And it really is – we don’t talk about this enough, but Tumblr is absolutely a better experience than Twitter. Or Facebook, or TikTok, or Instagram, or Reddit, or LinkedIn, or Imgur, or any other successful social media site. But why?

The reason Tumblr is so much better of an experience than other social media is because Tumblr is so much worse than other social media at being social media.

All of the stuff we like about Tumblr – the crazy, shittily designed, chaotic reblog system? the fact that your dash is basically only chronological? the fact that the tag system is so fundamentally broken that the ways that it’s broken have been culturally rebuilt as a part of the way we communicate on the site? the way that reblogs distribute content creation? the culture of crazy fandom people? that one werewolf fucker? the memes? the fact that, by and large, you don’t get spoonfed stuff from around the site by an algorithm? mutuals? the lack of censorship, and, in turn, the fact that said lack of censorship drives away advertisers? the weird culture that keeps “normies” from tiktok away? – all of that is absolutely counterintuitive to being a successful social media site.

Let’s compare Tumblr to an actually really well-designed social media: TikTok.

TikTok is a goddamn masterpiece of social media design. If you install TikTok on your phone and give it even the tiniest amount of engagement, it’ll nail your interests and dopamine triggers in under a week. Give it a month and it’ll have its hooks in your brain. The algorithm is so finely tuned, all the systems are so carefully designed, the goddamn interface is hardwired to trick your brain into scrolling.

Stitches? Duets? Likes? Even cultural things, like trends and sounds going viral? Hell, the idea of TikTok sounds at all? All these are built to drive engagement.

Funny video? Duet your reaction. Someone asked a question? Stitch your answer. Someone singing? Duet for a literal duet! Sound going viral? You can do a TikTok of that sound, easy! Interesting conversation in your comment section? Reply to comments with quick videos!

And vitally, did you miss the last trend? No worries! The next one’s coming along! If you joined TikTok today you wouldn’t even know about the sea shanty thing. The culture moves at the speed of light.

The camcorder-like nature of recording on TikTok makes making the actual content a snap. The boost given to new accounts tricks you into thinking it’s easy, and even in the long run, the distribution algorithms make it much easier than, say, YouTube to get the numbers to go up. Content is easy to make and distribute, trends are so quick that they’re easy to follow, and the FYP algorithm gives the illusion of community – and easy-to-make content and well-designed algorithms makes the numbers go up, and to our monkey brains, numbers = approval = success = dopamine.

Tumblr? Tumblr has none of that shit.

Instead of stitches, duets, or sounds, we have reblogs – with a post editor that barely works, a following that’s 80% porn bots, and a frankly baffling 15-year-old online culture that moves at (for the internet) glacial speeds and has hundreds if not thousands of in-jokes, none of which ever die? Have fun building a following with that, fucker! Numbers? You think we do numbers here? We suffer, and we like it!

Oh, and good luck playing into trends. I wasn’t kidding about the glacial speeds and in-jokes. Sure, we have new shit happening – Tumblr’s take on the “your dick cold eeby deeby” meme is new, as is There Are Many Benifits To Being A Marine Biologist, and my Shakespearification posts – but Colour of the Sky is, I’m pretty sure, older than 50% of TikTok users, and we’re still making goddamn Onceler memes, and, for Christ’s sake, even the new stuff is blending with the old stuff – I just did a Shakespeareification of Colour Theory.

There is no algorithm beyond occasional “people you follow liked this”. On TikTok, the only two feeds are “random shit you might like” and “random shit you might like from people you follow”. On Tumblr, the only feed is “everything from everyone you follow at all times”, and the site does not care about whether you want to see it or not.

Because of all this, Tumblr is not, and will never be, profitable.

Which means that, because we live in capitalism, Tumblr will die.

And due to the rise of competent social media sites, the competition is eating away at Tumblr’s audience.

Staff is cringe, obviously. But they’re also desperate. They’re trying to keep this place alive.

And they’re failing.

Tumblr is dying.

These are the last days.

The end is coming.

It’s terrible, it’s beautiful, it’s chaotic, and it’s ephemeral.

And we’re never going to have anything like it ever again.

Enjoy it while you have it.

I love how everyone knows who “that one werewolf fucker” is

& that’s another thing I love about this site, and another reason it’s never gonna turn a profit – the community is so close-knit that if I offhandedly mention “that one werewolf fucker” or “human pet guy” we all IMMEDIATELY know who I’m talking about.

Is pillowfort at all like tumblr? I know there will never be another tumblr but I want some site I can go to that doesn’t drive me into a rage so bad I need to lie down afterwards.

So here’s the issue, right:

The problem isn’t that Tumblr is dying.

The problem is that the things that make Tumblr bearable are the things that are killing Tumblr.

Basically,

fuck capitalism

image

@pathetic-gamer WHAT?

I WAS WRONG THEY’RE STILL ALIVE

Staff merked the first wereralph account, but dear were-ralph has returned to us, now boasting a spiffy new hyphen!

@were-ralph WE’RE SO HAPPY TO HEAR THAT YOU’RE OK

It… kind of annoys me that there’s all this (totally 100% true!) stuff about tumblr dying and being bad at being social media on a post about this attempt to make tumblr profitable - and the takeaway message isn’t “if you like it and want to keep it please consider paying for it”, it’s “enjoy it while it lasts bc this is inevitable”?!?

The thing is, because tumblr is bad at being social media in all of those ways, it needs a different business model - and subscription services are a tried-and-true business model that is in no way guaranteed to fail! Until it got sold to the Russians, Livejournal did great on paid accounts. All sorts of apps like Duolingo and Discord rely on premium subscriptions to keep themselves free for most people (with ads in DL’s case but not Discord’s so far).

Don’t write tumblr’s obituary right when it’s doing the one thing that might save it - abandoning any pretense of having a traditional social media business model and adopting one that is user-centric instead.

Everything in the post above is true and the way to prevent that from killing Tumblr is to be willing to toss a few dollars in the pot now and then, now that we have a way of doing that. Maybe it won’t work! But there’s absolutely no reason to assume that going in.

(via lady-karasu)

tehtariks:

image

“Who can prevent all this from happening? The people. Public figures, journalists, musicians, actors, athletes, scientists, doctors, bloggers, stand-ups, Tiktokers, and more. Ordinary people. Ordinary, simple people. Men, women, old, young, fathers, and most importantly - mothers. I know that my speech will not be aired on Russian television. But the citizens of Russia have to see it. They need to know the truth.”

(via queen-scottie)

unscharf-an-den-raendern:

Der Bundestag hat in einer Marathonsitzung, die bis 2.30 Uhr nachts ging, einige interessante Dinge beschlossen:

  • Vor den Nazis ins Ausland geflüchtete Personen und deren Nachkommen können nun ohne Auflagen die deutsche Staatsbürgerschaft erwerben. Der Antrag ist kostenlos, andere Staatsbürgerschaften dürfen behalten werden. Es muss nur nachgewiesen werden, dass die Person von den Nazis verfolgt wurde oder zu einer verfolgten Gruppe gehörte.
  • Bei schweren Straftaten, wie Mord, können Beschuldigte jetzt ein zweites Mal vor Gericht gestellt werden, wenn neue Beweise auftauchen.
  • Es ist jetzt einfacher, jemanden wegen Stalking vor Gericht zu bringen. Bisher musste der:die Täter:in einem “beharrlich” nachstellen und das eigene Leben musste “schwerwiegend” beeinträchtigt werden. Jetzt reicht es, wenn der:die Täter:in einen “wiederholt” belästigt und das eigene Leben “nicht unerheblich” beeinträchtigt wird. Außerdem wurde das Strafmaß von maximal drei auf maximal fünf Jahre erhöht. Auch Cyberstalking steht jetzt explizit unter Strafe.
  • Volksverhetzung ist jetzt auch dann strafbar, wenn sie nicht öffentlich in Form von Mails oder Briefen geschieht.
  • Freier machen sich jetzt strafbar, wenn sie offensichtliche Anzeichen für die Zwangslage einer Prostituierten, wie z.B. Verletzungen, ignorieren.
  • Verträge für Mobilfunk, Fitnessstudios oder Streamingdienste dürfen nur noch eine Laufzeit von maximal einem Jahr haben. Kund:innen soll so eine Kündigung erleichtert werden.

(via allthingsgerman)

vet-and-wild:

jenniferrpovey:

marzipanandminutiae:

optometrictzedek:

pinkcheesegreenghost:

malasuerte00:

angrychocolatefiend:

sourcedumal:

dynastylnoire:

shabbosfemme:

freedominwickedness:

hyenaboy:

“Yes, being in a female dominated field, I do know what it means to be marginalized. “

oh

my

god

omg

oh my fucking god

The really ugly part is they’ve actually done multiple sociological studies on this, and guess what the result is? Men in female-dominated fields aren’t marginalized at all; they get special treatment and are fast-tracked to the top, getting more credit for their work, faster promotions, and greater pay and benefits than their female colleagues.

Here’s one study. Here’s another. And another.

^phenomenon known as the glass escalator

have you ever been around male nurses….mannnn

Men in female dominated fields are entitled as hell. Don’t get it twisted

teaching is a female-dominated field but most principals are male

librarianship is a female-dominated field but most directors are male

Cooking is female dominated but most chefs are males

a large percent of hair stylists are women,  but most major hair care brands are owned by men

fashion design

museums

In my archaeology class of 33 students there were three men.

In the class one year after me (this was in the 90s) there were zero men.

It’s nearly thirty years later and the majority of dig supervisors are still men.

Your average graduating veterinary class is about 80+% female. Male graduates still have average higher starting salaries than female graduates. That translates to higher salaries throughout their career.

(via apinchofsanity)

buckybarnesmp3:

kesus:

Young girls really are pressured now more than ever to be seen as beautiful and sexy and perfect like IG models and whatever the fuck…..like that’s why you see “me at 14 vs 14 year old girls today” posts……….we didn’t have this constant stream of content like they do…..content telling us to be perfect and to have perfect clothes and sharp eyeliner wings that look photoshopped and shit like that….I mean it’s always been there but not like this…and while I think girls should be able to dress however they want and do whatever they want…..you have to take into consideration the fact that this all stems from a toxic culture where women have to be perfect and beautiful…now at younger and younger ages….and it’s really gross…and the media continues to sexualize and like…make young girls seem older and more appealing than they actually are idk the whole thing makes me so uncomfortable and it’s only going to get worse :/

And the wildest thing is, people will still try and justify it with the “there’s always been girls that dress older than they are!” argument. Which is true. But it was never the norm. Pre social media, most young girls were allowed be young girls. Here’s Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and Lindsay Lohan at 14/15 in 2001-2007. They were arguably the biggest young stars of the time but this is how they presented

image

They aren’t being styled to look leagues older than they are. They’re allowed to just be their own age and look their own age. Now, here’s Millie Bobbie Brown at 13 in 2018, Veronika Bonell at 15/16 in 2017, Skai Jackson at 13 in 2015, and Caitlin Carmichael at 13 in 2017.

image

There is a deep problem in our society that this is what people are styling children to look like. They don’t look like children, they look like young adults. They could wear these exact same looks in 10 years and they wouldn’t be questioned because they’re dressed and made up to present as adults. This is what is presented as normal for young girls, this is the image they’re told is the “right” one, the one they should aspire to.

There’s nothing wrong with girls - or boys - wanting to be pretty. But there is a problem with young girls being constantly told that pretty for them means looking over 21 at 13.

(via apinchofsanity)

micdotcom:

Potent minimalist art sends a strong message about police and vigilante brutality in America

Journalist and artist Shirin Barghi has created a gripping, thought-provoking series of graphics that not only examines racial prejudice in today’s America, but also captures the sense of humanity that often gets lost in news coverage. Titled “Last Words,” the graphics illustrate the last recorded words by Brown and other young black people — Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant and others — who have been killed by police in recent years.

Let us not forget their voices

(via queen-scottie)

someone explain the jewish holidays to me like i’m 5 years old

augustdementhe:

brioche-of-the-galaxies:

above-d-clouds:

galaxy-of-great-possibilities:

rizaoftheowls:

derinthemadscientist:

rizaoftheowls:

Purim: They tried to kill us, we survived. Let’s tell the story, wear silly costumes, and get wasted. (Optional: have a carnival or a play!)

Passover: They enslaved us, God freed us. Remember this via a big ceremony/feast and then don’t eat bread for a week. This is a big one; you’re going to have to clean your house and host all your relatives.

Tu B'Shevat: It’s Earth Day, let’s eat some fruit.

Simchas Torah: We read the entire Torah every year, and we got to the end! Let’s have a dance party and then start all over again!

Tisha B'Av: They destroyed our temples. That sucked.

Rosh HaShanah: Happy New Year! It’s time to ask (and grant) forgiveness for the wrongs done in the past year, pledge to do better, and wish for a sweet new year. And go to synagogue for HOURS.

Yom Kippur: Rosh HaShanah’s somber counterpart. God decides on this day your fate for the next year. Repent your sins, hope for forgiveness, and fast. (And go to synagogue for HOURS.)

Yom HaShoah: Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Sukkot: Harvest festival! Sleep in a hut under the stars.

Shemini Atzeret: Man, I don’t even know?

Shavuot: God gave us the Torah! That was pretty nice of him.

Chanukah: They busted up our temple and tried to forcibly convert us. We responded with guerilla warfare. Let’s eat some fried food. Candles!

So basically the entire Jewish holiday calendar is giving the middle finger to death and high-fiving, with or without various combinations of prayer and foods.

Yup. Or as we say, “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat.”

thank you for the desc’s bcs they are beautiful and i am now educated

A handy table for everyone:

image

Y’all have no idea how happy it makes me to see my goyim followers reblogging this. Really. It means the world to me.

Oh SWEET, a table!

(via apinchofsanity)

lovecanbesostrange:

Der Umgang mit dem Thema Rassismus, den Protesten und Black Lives Matter lässt im deutschen TV ein wenig zu wünschen übrig. Und dann kommt ausgerechnet Comedian Carolin Kebekus, gibt das Mikro ab an Shary Reeves und die präsentiert diesen Stimmenfang. 

@official-german-medienlandschaft ich tagge mal für die Reichweite, denn wir müssen auch vor unserer Tür kehren.

(via allthingsgerman)

stardust-rain:

funny how everyone on the internet knows that when a post says “this country” or “national statistics” or “our history”, you immediately assume that it’s about USA, even when you’re not american, because literally no one else are as arrogant or self-centered as to assume everyone else on the internet knows about their own country’s laws, statistics, history, procedures, and institutions or that they can be applicable universally, and also every single non-american i’ve ever met and known start off their posts by listing the location that they’re posting about, and then giving the historical and cultural context

(via apinchofsanity)

allthingsgerman:

allthingsgerman:

grietahatkeinnetz:

spectralarchers:

enchantedbyhiddles:

Cool move. The Berlin government bought 200.000 protective masks from China for Berlin hospitals and the police (like in already paid!) and they were on their way to Germany.

Until the USA confiscated them in Bangkok and redirected them to the USA. Nice.

Apparently the same has happened to the French government.

That are absolutely asshole moves. Especially as that inflates prices and there are countries that stand no chance in a bidding war. Nice one. Really nice.

I saw about it in the French newspapers and I am absolutely livid about it.

Yes, it happened zu the French first and then to us. Sources say that the Americans are known to go on the airfield and to buy the protective gear and the mask for the double or tripple price.

Well, go fuck yourself, America.

Just as a quick personal addition, I would appreciate it if the Americans in the notes would stop talking about Trump for a bit. He might have amplified it, but it’s how the USA have operated for decades, it is very on-brand.

rileyjaydennis:

evillordzog:

thefingerfuckingfemalefury:

jedifinnrey:

snape could’ve been an awesome teacher if he wasn’t a disgusting waste of a human being. he knew from age 16 that the instuctions that the textbooks were giving weren’t as good as they could be. he improved the potions and recorded his methods at age 16. if he weren’t such a shitbag, he could’ve either written the damn textbooks himself, or taught his students his alternate methods. he could’ve revolutionized how potions were being brewed, teaching whole generations a superior method of potion brewing. instead, he spent his time bullying children. 

He could have become rich and famous and been one of the most well regarded wizards of his age with his knowledge of spells and potions

But instead he decided “The girl i hurled racial slurs at put me in the Friend Zone so I’m gonna go become a Magic Nazi and then spend the remainder of my adult years emotionally abusing twelve year olds”

He could have become everything a Slytherin should have been instead of the epitome of what everyone else thinks they are.

i never thought about the potions things but damn u right

(via apinchofsanity)


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