it's 5 o'clock somewhere

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277k ratings

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
jellyfishline
attentiondeficitstarscream

me at any given time: can we just buckle down and focus on the task at hand please???

my brain:

my brain: ……….ranibow sprimkle……………

attentiondeficitstarscream

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ranibow sprimkle……..

a-walking-lovesong

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kepchup.

colorguardian18

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SPINCH

ladyallo

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B A N C H

scoobertdoobertlove

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chichen nuggest

yondus-wife

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b R o G L e

borzboy

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strawbebbies..

razzal213

this post almost moved me to tears

jamie-is-spooky

Tag yourself, I’m spinch or rainbow sprimkle

pawton-meowity

I’m kepchup lmao

fysticalmorest

Brogle and rainbow sprimkle

atlinmerrick

This is so charming I feel punched in the solar plexus and I’m here for this sort of gentle, sweet violence.

kristiemewisstan

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some additions from my own collection

weepingwillo

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worldheritagepostorganization

World Heritage Post

dreamofbecoming

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tag yourself im ranibow sprimkles
troglobite
thecoeur

It’s PRIDE MONTH and wanting to start with this little remembrance from queer people in the past.

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welpnotagain

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From the book: Baby, You Are My Religion by Marie Cartier

tragedykery

[IDs, in order:

two tweets reading:

if you ever need to cry on cue, what works for me is thinking about the fact a queer person once would call every gay bar they had a number to just to hear the sound of other queers laughing somewhere, just listen, say nothing. as to not be alone. every week. for fourteen years.
i remember reading that interview like, six years ago, and FEELING this knowledge integrate itself into my cellular makeup. i can never unknow this window to someone’s loneliness and need. and now you have it too. godspeed

text reading:

INFORMANT: Well, I had insomnia. I used to phone up all the gay bars, just to hear them answer the phone … Just to hear the noise, oh yes.
INTERVIEWER: So you would call and just be on the phone?
INFORMANT: No, I would just hear the noise and the laughter in the background. I just wanted to be there.
INTERVIEWER: … it helped you just to know it was out there?
(Pause)
INTERVIEWER: .. that’s a really special story.
INFORMANT: Yeah, oh God.

text from an article, reading:

PREFACE: MYRNA’S STORY
I would stay on the phone … that was my lifeline.
“I came out as gay in 1945-the year that the war ended” Myrna Kurland told me from her home high in the Hollywood Hills of California. “I was dating a softball player that I met at the gay bar. I met her at Mona’s or else it was the Paper Pony. My first night in a gay bar was—freedom. I had a gay male friend and he took me there.”
Myrna was in the gay bars for eight years. She showed me her “treasure from the 40s"—a gold softball on a necklace chain from her first lover—inscribed with the initials from the professional softball league to which women belonged while the men were in the war. “We went to the bar all the time. My entire social life was there—there was no other place.” However, that night she first went to the bar-something else happened. Her father died that night. And she blamed herself, even though she knew that was irrational. She couldn’t get over it. Also she told me that, “I’m Jewish and we lost so many people in the Holocaust. I felt it was my duty to have children.
There was no other way to have children in the 1950s without getting married to a man. I married someone I disliked that’s what I felt I deserved because I was gay and I felt so guilty” She married a psychiatrist—someone to whom she would never be able to tell her secret. Her husband’s practice was very involved in actively trying to change the sexuality/sexual deviancy of his clients as would be almost any psychiatrist’s practice at the time. If her sexual past and preference had been known to him in all likelihood she would have lost her children.
This brief story came as I was packing up my things, and although we had been speaking for about three hours, this was in response to my final question, “Is there any last thing you want to say about what the bars meant to you?” I meant when she actually went to the bars in the 1940s—not knowing there was another story. She told me a story about when she did not actually go to the bars, but when she made sure the bars were still there—when she was married.
INFORMANT: Well, I had insomnia. I used to phone up all the gay bars, just to hear them answer the phone … Just to hear the noise, oh yes.
INTERVIEWER: So you would call and just be on the phone?
INFORMANT: No, I would just hear the noise and the laughter in the background. I just wanted to be there.
INTERVIEWER: … it helped you just to know it was out there?
(Pause)
INTERVIEWER: … that’s a really special story.
INFORMANT: Yeah, oh God.
MYRNA’S STORY … CONTINUED
Myrna was married from 1953 to 1968 when she separated, and then divorced her husband in 1970 when no-fault divorce law passed in California. She had terrible insomnia throughout her marriage. “I would get up at one or two a.m. and I would call every gay bar I had the number to from the 1940s. I wouldn’t say anything. I would just stay on the phone and listen to the sounds in the background. I would stay on until they hung up, and then I would call another one of my numbers, until I had called all the numbers I had. ‘That was my lifeline.”
What did it mean to call those bars and to hear the sounds in the background? “That phone. Those numbers. That was my lifeline.” she whispered, and put both hands by her heart. “It meant there was a place somewhere—even if I couldn’t go there—that place was out there. I could hear it. Freedom.” She called the bars two to three times a week like this—for fourteen years.

/end ID]

queer history long post important pride month
troglobite
prismatic-bell: “proship-carmen: “rabbitindisguise: “relientk: “artificialverse: “lacefuneral: “artificialverse: “Other Companies trying to stay relevant: *post a tweet or tiktok three weeks late* Tumblr: *designs and markets a vanilla extract water...
artificialverse

Other Companies trying to stay relevant: *post a tweet or tiktok three weeks late*

Tumblr: *designs and markets a vanilla extract water bottle*

lacefuneral

ok everyone we had a good run but it’s time to cancel the meme now

artificialverse

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Tumblr has been actively losing money, can’t attract worthwhile advertisers, and can’t support influencers. This is the bare minimum the business can do otherwise. Although I would agree that @relientk needs recognition (although legally speaking tumblr is our publisher).

relientk

Yeah I mean….tumblr DOES kinda need money to function as a site. And they could go about it in the malicious and invasive ways that other social media sites (such as twitter and facebook) are doing, but instead they’re offering fun features like gifting crabs or buying rainbow checkmarks that don’t have a negative impact on your experience if you choose not to purchase, and turning tumblr staples and jokes into merch that people can buy.

I mean, I would like a free bottle because I’m the source of the vanilla extract meme and wasn’t even aware they were selling a water bottle until people began tagging me, but I’m all for them selling cool merchandise that keeps the site up and running.

rabbitindisguise

update: he got one!

proship-carmen

Tumblr users, please. PLEASE.

PLEASE.

Stop reacting to Tumblr and AO3 moneymaking the same way or worse than how you react to other corporations. Tumblr is losing money and is doing it’s damnedest to not be absolutely covered with ads. Nobody is forcing you to buy the goddamned water bottle. This IS a really cool thing they’re doing. They’re showing us they care and are paying attention. I personally think that’s kinda cool.

prismatic-bell

Also like.


OP of the meme went “I don’t need paid, but I would like this token” and Tumblr went “reasonable, we can do that” and did it.

Facebook likely would have banned him for daring to suggest vanilla extract wasn’t something shit out of Mark Zuckerberg’s divine asshole.

THERE IS A DIFFERENCE.

dustlines
snowylynxx

already got a blazed marvel post. the adpocalypse is closer than we think so heres your daily PSA

don't interact with corporate tumblr accounts

yes even to dunk on them. i don't care if you have the sickest burn of the century lined up, don't even give them the time of day

the eventual and inevitable fall of twitter marks a change in the advertising industry, and tumblr is unclaimed territory. if we want tumblr to remain the social media bastion it has become, it needs to remain as unappealing to corporations as possible. do not engage. in a marketing strategist's eyes, any kind of attention is good attention. don't "silence, brand" them. don't kungpowpenis them. don't send them hate anons. don't hate-follow them. corporate tumblrs are not a single entity and they will not be harassed off this site. we only have a shot at repelling them because of tumblr's lack of an algorithm. so turn off recommended posts on your dashboard, put it chronological order, and install an adblocker. if you don't seek out these blazed posts and actively ignore them when they happen upon you, the corporations will starve. in this case, the best kind of protest is a silent one

jv

Just saying: Tumblr loses several million of dollars per month. It has been losing millions of dollars per month for ... years. We are not even close of changing that and make this site profitable yet.

And if that doesn't change, you may not believe it, but tumblr will close. Back in 2019, if Automattic hasn't bought it, I'm pretty convinced Verizon would have closed before the end of the year. This time, once Automattic says "we can't keep losing millions per month on this"... I don't think there will be anyone else willing to buy this hellsite, even for a single dollar.

Personally, I would prefer Tumblr to be paid by its own users and not being reliant on advertising. I work here, I could have almost everything for free, but I pay my own blazed posts and crab gifts because of this. But we are FAR from getting enough income from people subscribing, blazing or buying gifts. FAR.

And we are not talking about Facebook-like greed here, "Tumblr wants to squeeze us to make even more money!!!". We are talking about Automattic keeping Tumblr alive for three years already, losing millions and even if doing it costs a significant percentage of the income of the company. And no company would let something like that happens forever.

So if you like tumblr, if you enjoy this boiling cauldron of feral goblins, boicot advertisement if you want, but then toss a coin to your tumblr each month.

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Originally posted by imagine-all-the-things

And it's ok if you can't, but then please, let people, or companies, blaze their posts in peace. If they bother you so much, just install an ad blocker.

But if you are actively trying to make advertisers to flee Tumblr, or bullying people who blaze posts, you are actively working towards the closing of this site. So why don't you just move your shit to TikTok or wherever and stop trying to ruin this place for the rest of us?

jv

Oh I have looked through the notes and holy fuck, how does some people even function in the outside world?

There are several variations of "we have to keep this site unprofitable!!". And holy shit. Christ on a stake. Forgive my French, but me cago en la puta hostia como se puede ser tan corto.

Repeat with me:

You.

Don't.

Keep.

Any.

Site.

Unprofitable.

Because if it's unprofitable,

you don't get to keep it for long.

Full stop.

Do you know why Tumblr has stayed around for so long while being unprofitable??

Because it had been run by FOUR DIFFERENT COMPANIES IN THE LAST TEN YEARS.

So each one of those companies tried to make it profitable for two, three years and failed. And at that point, they just sold it to someone else to try.

The last time, Verizon sold it to Automattic for the business equivalent of a jar of peanut butter and a half-full cola bottle. Because they were going to close it anyway, so better to get that than nothing. And you know why Automattic could get it for cheap? Because. No. One. Else. Offered. Anything. Verizon announced very publicly they were trying to sell it and they got one (1) offer. Because purchasing Tumblr means you are purchasing a thing that puts you several million in debt PER MONTH.

So can you picture, can you imagine, what it will happen if the current owners decide that they can't keep having this thing that costs them so much money per month to maintain?? It has been owned by Automattic for three years already, longer than what it was owned by Yahoo or Verizon. Can you imagine what it would happen if they decide to stop losing money on this thing??

No, there won't be any new owner.

And no, there won't be any fucking tumblr anymore.

akorah

I see your point. The problem is we've seen every single social media site turn into an algorithmic hellscape once they started having major advertisers like this. How can we be confident Tumblr won't do the same? How can we be confident that Tumblr won't get dollar signs in their eyes with these brands escaping Twitter, and start changing the site to accommodate them? We've heard promises before from other social media platforms that things will get 'better' once the money comes in, and we've been betrayed by algorithms and absolutely heinous business practices.

jv

Because the presence of big brands or not is not the symptom of being an algorithmic hellscape or not. Data collection is.

Big brands were advertising on the internet way before the hyper focused ads and data mining became The Way of paying for internet services.

If tumblr starts asking you to fill a profile with your personal info, ask you to connect your contacts, etc, that's the symptom of a turn towards an algorithmic advertising business model. But Tumblr could have done that at any point in the last 10 years and become a money-making machine like the other major social networks. And it didn't happen, for a reason: neither the current management nor the past one wanted to do that and they always have been trying to make Tumblr the platform that manages to succeed while respecting its user's privacy.

You know, I personally don't care about Marvel, but I have gotten blazed posts by Tor books and I was delighted. And if you think about it, marvel blazing its posts is EXACTLY what we want to happen all over the internet. Being realistic, we are not going to make this site to be 100% user funded for a long while, so ads are inevitable. That being the case, what's a better option than the brands sending their ads to everyone, without any segmentation, paying for N impressions and that's it. That was how internet ads were before Google and Facebook became the big brother and started selling our info to advertisers so they could convince your uncle to embrace fascism.

And if Tumblr manages to get to profitability with a mix of "old school ads" and users paying for stuff, we will be demonstrating that there is another way to make a social platform sustainable without it being a facade for a user-data mining gig. But if we boycott every single other way to make money here, not only we would kill Tumblr, but we will also make it the case study proving that privacy invasion and data selling is the one and only way to make money with any social network.

jv

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This is another important bit to understand: I would love tumblr to be funded by user donations, like ao3. The problem is... tumblr is not ao3. Let's left aside the "Tumblr is owned by a for-profit corporation" bit (Actually, it wouldn't be the first time that Automattic just open-source a project and donate it to its community to be maintained collectively), the problem is the type of platform both things are. Ao3 stores only text (I'm not an ao3 user, so please someone correct me if I'm wrong), but Tumblr ... well, doesn't.

To give you an example of what I mean: Based on its text limits, a single Tumblr post could contain the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy (well, you would probably need to edit it to be strategic with the paragraph breaks, but character-count-wise it could fit). And yet, that humongous post (suck that, colors of the sky!) would take about 1/20th of the space and bandwidth that any regular gifset post takes already. And it doesn't need transcoding of the images (so more powerful servers can do the job) nor worldwide data centers (you don't notice much if you are downloading 4mb of text from the opposite side of the planet... but you will if you are downloading 50mb of gifs).

Long story short, the numbers the AO3 team publishes are super impressive. Also, their yearly donations wouldn't pay for a single month of Tumblr server costs (without even thinking about paying staff). So yeah, it would be lovely to have an ao3 situation, I agree. But it's not even close to being a realistic hope :S

racethewind10

I encourage folks to read the reblog chain. Because it raises some very real points that im going to TLDR since that is a lot of text (i still recommend reading the whole thing)

  1. tumblr is a for-profit site. at some point, if it doesn't make money, it WILL get shut down
  2. since a lot of you cannot or will not pay for subscription (not saying that is not valid! just that it's not happening) the money has to come from somewhere else therefore,
  3. (but really 2.a) unless you don't want tumblr turned into an algorithmic hellscape, leaving brands alone* is the price you pay.

Please note im saying leave them ALONE that means you do not need to engage with them! which is actually consistent with OP's post! You can just ignore them (seriously installing firefox with ublock origin and maybe xKit if you're feeling fancy I have never seen an ad on this site unless a mutual posted a screenshot. Never. Not one)

imo there is a big difference between a site "being profitable" and a site "turning its users into the product" and the latter is MUCH WORSE.

tumblr needs to remain ungovernable, but it (unfortunately) cannot remain unprofitable, because then it will die.