long story short... (adios, Tumblr)

[rose_griffes]

Last weekend my church did its semi-annual worldwide broadcast in lieu of the usual Sunday meetings. I watched most of the sessions with a notebook in hand and tried to consider not only what was being said by church leaders to a worldwide audience, but what I feel in my own heart that God wants for me. And--this may seem like a strange conclusion to anyone who isn't me--I decided that it's time to stop using Tumblr. I've had a lot of fun and even learned quite a bit on that particular social media site, but I know that for myself, it can be a colossal waste of time.

As it turned out, this week was one minor catastrophe after another, and I was so busy that not using Tumblr was a tremendous boon to my time management. I accomplished some things that were a help to sick co-workers and to some kids in need, and if I'd been distracted by using Tumblr, I might not have even thought to do some of those things. At least, not in a time frame that allowed me to actually get them done. So there's that.

I need to figure out exactly what "not using Tumblr" looks like for me. I know there are a few things I want to keep for later; for example, I signed up to write a gift exchange fanfic for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) again, and I have some posts about characterization for the leads of the film that I would hate to lose forever. So I'll probably put those over here sometime soon-ish. Maybe a few other posts as well.

After that, I guess the question is: delete my tumblr account and never look back? Delete it and re-create one with the same username (but now empty) so that the porn bots and other scammers can't claim my username? Leave everything there and just sign out for good?

Comments

[shadowkat]

At least you can still get into your tumblr account -- mine is locked to me, because I haven't been in it for about six or seven years and they decided too much time had passed and my account has been discontinued.

[rose_griffes]

Oh no, oops! Although given the time lapse, I'm just going to guess that you weren't really very interested in the site...

[shadowkat]

I could never follow it. It's a very odd set up -- and the writing in the comments is incredibly small. Not a forum that worked for me.

[rose_griffes]

Mmm, yeah. I never understood why fandom chose that particular site for the mass migration; sure, it's easy for graphics, but for interactions and more thoughtful posts? Not easy it all.

[shadowkat]

I think fandom got enamored with graphics and GIF's. There were a lot of people in fandom that didn't like to write -- and just wanted to post things with their phones. And it works well for people posting from smart phones. Instagram is similar -- great smartphone app, horrible computer app. Same with Facebook and Twitter -- works very well for smartphones.

DW and LJ are not good with smartphones. Very hard to post to either from a phone -- which is why I like them. There are days that I really wish the software and hardware engineers did not feel the need to create the smart phone.

[rose_griffes]

Yeah, I'd say your comments about smartphones changing the way we collectively do fandom is very accurate. And why I have a hard time with platforms like twitter and tumblr; I have too much of my life lived without smartphones to be a fast adopter of those sites. (I used - and do use - my laptop for tumblr, not my phone.)

[shadowkat]

I'm somewhat the same. I spent 85% of my life without smart phones, and 75% with cell phones at all. So I'm not really reliant or addicted to the things.

[elperian]

I've been cross-posting from Tumblr to DW for almost a year now, and backed up the stuff I wanted to save from before. It gives some assurance that if the site goes poof, my work won't disappear, and gives me space from the site by being here. I agree on chances to be away from Tumblr actually being better for you; it is a blue hell site (I'm mostly still there because fandom is still mostly there, but I won't mourn it if it goes).

[rose_griffes]

I know a lot of people are using Twitter pretty exclusively, but Tumblr really does still have a substantial core of fandom using it. Which is why I hadn't jumped ship before now, because I agree: it's a blue hell site.

[yourlibrarian]

I don't know if my experience is all that helpful because while I was on Tumblr daily I wasn't making posts or reblogging them much. My account remains open as I dislike the holes that form when accounts get deleted, plus I have moderator reasons for keeping it open.

However I am not on it any longer. Instead I created RSS feeds here for particular accounts I wanted to keep up with for fandoms I'm in. That way I can see them on my subscription list here since DW doesn't offer anything in that vein for them.

[rose_griffes]

Oooh, tell me more about RSS feeds, please! I haven't set one up before, and that's an option I might want to pursue for a limited number of tumblr accounts.

[yourlibrarian]

Sure! So here's an example of one I started here:

https://ao3-lokitony-feed.dreamwidth.org/profile

AO3 offers feeds of any of its tags. So, for example, if you look at a tag page you can see that it has an RSS button on the far right:

https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Jane%20Foster*s*Loki/works

If you want to start a feed here, you just copy the address that pops up in the URL field and go to:

https://www.dreamwidth.org/feeds/

As you can see, there are already a lot of feeds available. Usually if the one you're creating is a duplicate it will tell you so, but I'm not sure that variants haven't gone through, so it wouldn't hurt to do a search for it.

For Tumblr accounts, here's one I created:

https://colin-bradley-feed.dreamwidth.org/profile


All you need to do to start one here is to add /rss to the end of any account address. Such as:

https://colin-bradley.tumblr.com/rss

[rose_griffes]

Yeah, it was way easier than I thought. I had already done it before you replied. :D Thanks to DW having a straightforward and easy answer to the question on how to do it. But thank you! And thanks for mentioning it; there were three or four tumblr blogs that I wasn't wanting to lose in this.

[yourlibrarian]

\o/ And glad to. I find DW's use as a feed reader an underappreciated feature of the site. It's really convenient to be able to read everything in one place.

[siljamus]

This really speaks to me, which might seem a little odd seeing as I have never had a presence on Tumblr. I have made some choices over the years about my RL social media use that were mostly about needing to be mostly invisible for safety reasons, but it has also meant I just haven't spent time on social media platforms. And it has allowed me to do some things because I had both the time and the awareness to discover opportunities in my local community that I wouldn't have otherwise. It is not same and yet I get it (I think *s*)

[rose_griffes]

Yes, you definitely get it. I think a lot of us don't realize just how much time we spend on social media--especially since "just a few minutes" gets multiplied by multiple times a day, and multiple platforms.

And even if it is "just a few minutes", my thoughts might be spiraling around something I saw on one of those sites rather than looking around at my actual environment.