mistressofmuses | (no subject)

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So, the Tumblr CEO having a very public and extended meltdown at a trans woman sure is a thing. I know people were real mad about the site being silent about what seemed to be a pretty clear case of a user being targeted and then erroneously banned (for those not plugged into tumblr drama: a trans woman had her account deleted over alleged "adult content", but the post in question was a pair of completely SFW, fully clothed selfies. Since there was nothing even close to rule-violating in the images, it was suspected the post had been targeted by TERFs or other transphobes reporting it. That was tumblr's initial excuse, that it had probably been an algorithmic error due to a wave of reports, and so the human moderators would have to take a look... then they didn't do anything about it and she remained banned.)

... but bro, this was NOT the way to break the silence. Fucking yikes. (Going from "but think about how sad it makes me when people are mad about bad decisions, because we're not transphobes, we have trans friends and employees" to "after months of frustration, the user makes an hyperbolic silly 'fuck you, hope you die' comment that you're suddenly interested in contacting the FBI over as a credible threat of violence even though many, many users [ESPECIALLY trans users!] have reported much more serious and genuine threats and harassment and are met with crickets" to "DMing users who have expressed support for the user in question to argue" to "FUCKING STALKING THE USER TO HARASS HER ON OTHER PLATFORMS WHERE YOU SHARE ALL OF HER OTHER USERNAMES?" jesus.)

[Plus now there are credible rumors from staff that there is an unspecified deal being discussed about partnering with Midjourney, which is making a lot of artists go "ah fuck no."]

So. While THE DEATH OF TUMBLR is a bianual tradition at this point, there ARE a lot of people who are either definitely bailing or considering bailing from the platform because... well. The CEO is making his thin skin into everyone else's problem like a value-brand Elon Musk, particularly as he continues to harass this woman. (And maybe it would be kind of ha ha funny to watch him lose his shit if he weren't targeting and attacking a specific person.) A lot of the people who ARE bailing from tumblr are the weirdo queers that I'm on the platform to see posts from, so.

Taylor is considering bouncing to somewhere else, because hey, Site Actively Unsafe To Trans People. They're I guess considering trying out cohost, which I have zero experience with. It was one that SEEMED initially promising when various platforms were vying for Twitter refugees, and then I remember there being some pretty serious TOS issues that were pointed out here. I don't know if those issues were addressed. It seemed to sort of fade away, but it sounds like the place I'm seeing mentioned the most when it comes to people looking to leave tumblr (or to have a backup.)

As is always the issue when platforms crash and burn (or whimper and limp into oblivion), it feels like the biggest hurdle to finding somewhere new is the critical mass. (/mass of the people one wants to stay in contact with.) People talk about longing for the days of LJ, but refuse to come to DW. Tumblr was my other social media of choice because it is where the highest number of people I knew on LJ were going when LJ collapsed. I ultimately came to really enjoy tumblr as its own thing, even if it didn't ever feel like LJ did.

Bluesky seems to have a fairly good cross-section of the types of creatives (authors, artists, etc.) that I *wanted* to use Twitter to follow, and I'm glad it gave me somewhere else to go for that... but I haven't been using it enough to really feel comfortable with it, and it doesn't seem to be something that would fill the tumblr niche for me.

The critical mass stuff now as far as social media goes seems to be to instagram, tiktok, and discord, and while I lurk in a couple discord servers, I just don't LIKE any of the above.

So... Cohost? Anyone have an account there that I could follow, if I do end up trying it out? If it's where Taylor goes, I'll probably at least try to give it a go.

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"People talk about longing for the days of LJ, but refuse to come to DW." Yuuuuup. Or, well, *gestures at my post about the thing*

I just name camped OliverMoss over at cohost. IDK what I will do with it right now.

The Midjourney thing could actually lead to a real tumblr implosion, which is why I registered at Cohost.

I know I've seen it pointed out that a lot of the nostalgia for LJ comes from people who are more nostalgic for *who they were at the time*, and even when offered the exact same infrastructure, they won't utilize it, because they just aren't the same people they were then. I'm sure that the free time I had as a student contributed to how much I felt able to participate in the online spaces I miss, and now working a "real" job leaves me feeling a lot more burned out and limited on time and energy...
BUT EVEN SO: I feel like a broken record, but if even half of the people who say they miss LJ and want it back would actually post and interact on DW, then we'd basically have LJ back! And if we're mostly older and questionably wiser, we would have the chance to improve on the parts that sucked even then.

While I do get it - I'm reluctant to jump into new spaces, though I'm going to give both Bluesky and Cohost a shot - it's frustrating how so many people really want a pre-loaded sense of community and interactivity... but don't want to put forward any effort to get it or build it.

I just created a cohost account (so can't post or anything yet) but it's under mistressofmuses, and I gave you a follow. Unsure yet how much I'll use it or how or whatnot, but it seems worth at least poking around to see if I care for it!

The Midjourney thing is... *troubling* to say the least. If that comes right on the heels of the CEO's meltdown, this could get REALLY bad for the site.

it's frustrating how so many people really want a pre-loaded sense of community and interactivity... but don't want to put forward any effort to get it or build it.

Wow, that is such a concise way to put it, and brutally to the point. Nice!

Thanks!

That to me feels like the core issue.

And I DO get it: there's a real cost in time and energy when you're trying to learn the culture of a new space, and if that site never takes off, or worse, shuts down within a couple years, you can be left feeling like that time and energy was wasted. (And for some people, that's happened so many times by now that the thought of doing it again feels exhausting.)

But also, no community space just builds itself. If everyone waits around for it to "just happen," it's not going to happen anywhere, and it's frustrating when all the people crying out about how there's no community to be found... also refuse to participate.

Yeah, that makes sense. But for me, that was before my digestive thing diagnosis so even at *mumble* years old I have tons more energy and mental clarity, despite my medical stuff. Kinda fucked to even think about. Anyway, yeah, that just wouldn't occur to me. I miss the opportunities of the earlier form of the internet, but during those times I was not able to do things.

The LJ wanters swarmed Imzy. All the old mods come back and ran tons of coms, all sorts of effort, etc. For some reason they came out of the woodwork and that side had enough momentum that I was doing paid photography writing for a while due to having been a photography comm admin. But Imzy fell apart for reasons that I know, but aren't known to the general public. It had the momentum and funding, and honestly a much worse posting interface than DW.

It's awful the way that you can so easily lose *years* to something like a health condition. I'm sorry that was what happened for you, and I'm glad that the diagnosis DID improve things. It sucks that it doesn't bring back the time that was lost to it.

I do definitely miss the earlier internet, before it felt like everything was just centered around a few big companies and their race to steal your data.

I never did manage to make the jump to Imzy. I feel like I *probably* heard of it at the time, but never actually tried it out.
It sucks that it did collapse, because hearing about it after the fact, I can see how it could have been a great space (and was pretty good it sounds like, however temporarily!) For me *that* was the time period that now feels like lost years, while I was living in my car.

Yeah, and it was 100% me just not being taken seriously. Just... years.

Back when you could easily monetize stuff directly yourself, before people lost all standards and stuff was being built... it wasn't all rosy but, I miss the good bits and positive stories and now it's all just bad.

I knew about Imzy because it was basically my job to know about all social media sites from Ello to Writscrib to Imzy, etc. The site could have been viable, but A Thing happened. That suck that you had to put up with that and also lost time. Stuff like that shouldn't happen to people.

I hate how often that is the case. That you can know something is wrong for years and years, and not have it taken seriously. It feels like that's the case more often than not with chronic health issues, and it's terrible. I'm sorry it took so long to get answers and improvement.

The early days of the internet weren't all rosy, but I do miss a lot of things about it. It feels like it used to be a mix of good and bad and the ability to try and do sort of whatever you wanted, even if that didn't always work out. Now it feels like less and less good, with more and more corporate bad controlling all the real estate. Amazon is everywhere. FB is everywhere. Google is tracking everything you do. Want to accept payment? Good fucking luck if it isn't "family-friendly" for our payment processor!

I'm sorry that A Thing happened and sunk the site. It seems like it was more than the stated "we didn't find our niche" thing, because it was only around for what, a year? A year and a half? That doesn't seem long enough to give something a fair shot, unless there's some shit going down in the background.

I hate how many people have that experience, for various reasons, where they've just... lost years of their life. Physical health issues, mental health issues, abusive relationships, homelessness... It does suck, and it's hard (for me at least!) to move past a sense of mingled resentment and regret and guilt about how much time I just can't ever get back.

It was good and bad, but I really miss early internet. Also, tiktok and where people get opportunities these days are very, very youth biased.

Yeah, Imzy is frustrating people people use it as an example as to why even with a large userbase, lots of talent and secured funding nothing new can grow in the age of Facebook and ... yeah, thaaaat's not what happened. But, I can't say what happened without violating someone's personal privacy so I just watch the discussions and am like 'everything about these conversations and conclusions is based of off incorrect info....'

It's too much for me to even think about most of the time. Chunks of my life just flushed away and I can't do anything about it. I try to balance things, I need to not invalidate my own experiences and isolation and stuff, but I also can't get too caught up in it. The resentment is just so hard to deal with, like what do you even do with that?

Yeah. Things that are so very visual-focused, where identity is a big part of it, is going to skew young/white/affluent/hot. Tiktok more than almost any other site, which I know was proven to be a part of the site's own algorithm, beyond just user bias.

Understandable to not violate that sort of privacy. But it does suck that it's skewed perceptions that way. People base their assumptions on public info, and a lot of people seem to forget that public info can be very incomplete or downright untrue.

That resentment over lost time is hard to deal with, because it is profoundly unhelpful. It's not going to bring those years back, or make things better now. But at the same time, it's painfully inescapable, because how do you NOT regret and resent all the things and time you can't get back?
It is a balance to strike, not invalidating it or pretending it didn't exist, while also not letting it be something you dwell on or get stuck in.
It's GOOD that things are better now, and moving forward and doing the things you want to do are good! But it is kind of a... grief process, too.

I created a cohost and followed you!

I also have reservations around the site due to their TOS but I would rather have a site with some crappy elements where I can follow a bunch of people I enjoy, than a perfect site with no one I like posting there.

I also have a bluesky now--because even though I was never a twitter fan, I really missed porny fanart after the Tumblr Purge.

But more importantly, I can also use the Bluesky account to keep track of people I enjoy following are headed.

Followed you back! (And on bluesky as well!)

And yeah, that's... pretty much my feeling, too. I want to be able to follow the people I like, the people I enjoy seeing content from, etc. If that means I HAVE to adapt to a new site? I'll at least try to do so.
Also, the general vibe and direction of a site is largely led by the community that develops on it... While people have said they were frustrated and turned off by an early sense of negativity, I have hope that can be changed by an influx of people who are looking for better.

I never really "got" twitter. I had an account, but I never used it, even though I'd planned to someday try to get the hang of it. I like a lot of the types of people who are on Bluesky (writers, artists, etc.). But yeah, the porn ban on Tumblr really limited the choices!

The CEO is making his thin skin into everyone else's problem like a value-brand Elon Musk

Brutal, yet accurate from the rumbles I hear...

I wrote my Cohost thoughts (locked) a while back and the platform doesn't really work for me personally. The ToS vagueness I mentioned was "resolved" soon after except they changed it again in like 2 hours after antis piled on the staff. I think the platform is probably fine for some subcultures, especially the ones that were already established before the initial Twitter collapse. The fact that you can't see discussions on reblogs of your own posts is pretty discouraging for me in general.

Yeah, I see that they... "fixed"... the TOS, but it's frustrating that they wavered on some of their guidelines and seem to have capitulated to antis in at least a few ways. (Though at least they seem to have handled it better than pillowfort.)

I am glad that it looks like they shut down the attempts by antis to make the platform theirs (nixing the "freak hunting" stuff), and it seems like a lot of the people I'm now seeing express interest in the platform skew more toward opposing censorship. However... it certainly depends on who winds up actually sticking around vs. who namecamps and then leaves.

It seems like they want to limit how much you can see in terms of numbers - I saw that as one of their guiding statements, that chasing numbers is part of what makes social media so toxic, so I get why the ability to see like/reblog numbers is limited. HOWEVER. The "social" part of social media means you should at least be able to see and interact with comments, and the idea of missing huge swathes of conversation just because they happen on a different person's reblog is quite discouraging.

Yeah, the comments on that ToS news post, and the way users treated both the staff and other users who explained how fiction can be a good coping mechanism, just didn't make it sound very friendly to me. I do appreciate the "no numbers" aspect a lot, though. But all of my impressions are from a year ago so I don't know what/how much changed since! If you do spend more time there, I'll be looking forward to your thoughts :)

Yeah, the fact that it got really dog-pile-y and just HOW awful some of those attitudes got definitely seem like ones that could lead to a pretty toxic space. Though a lot of the people I know of that are looking to Cohost now are the type that definitely don't go in for the purity policing. The culture of the site is likely to be determined by who sticks around in the space, so it'll be interesting to see.

I haven't poked around much yet, but if and when I do, I'll let you know!

While I have an account on Cohost I don't actively use it. The one thing I can say with surety that bugs me the most is the way threaded comments are displayed; after a certain number of them in a single thread they just become straight-up unreadable. (They get indented to death, basically.)

Personally I recommend Pillowfort! I use it now and then and really like it, and it has a community function! :D

Comment threads getting indented to death reminds me of ye olde tumblr days, haha.

I have a Pillowfort account, but I've never used it! I was a little pushed away by some of their early TOS missteps, but it's certainly the type of project I generally like. I may have to give it another look.

I love cohost personally, my accounts are https://cohost.org/lavender-goth?page=0 for art stuff and https://cohost.org/ej-the-psychic?page=0 for more personal/casual stuff. it's like tumblr but with no algorithm and it doesn't make you wanna die

Nice! I'm glad to hear from someone who enjoys it! "Like tumblr that doesn't make you want to die" is a fairly good selling point, haha.

I am currently on DW and Tumblr and that's it. My Tumblr is mainly for lurking, I think I have four (?) followers, and honestly it's morphing into a "pro for me, not for thee" edblr account anyway and those are terminated all the effing time. (A whole nother discussion can be had around "the purpose of a system is what it does" regarding edblr...sigh.)

I might try cohost though. I like the long-form posting style of Tumblr, the formatting options, and definitely the ability for op's to delete nasty comments. I hope cohost has similar features.

DW, Tumblr, and one extremely lurker-y FB to follow a handful of old friends and family I don't have other contact with is about all the social media I've ever done.

Cohost seems to have some promising features. It seems that posts are pretty customizeable, so allowing for longer posts the way tumblr does. I don't think I have a great sense yet of the "how" everything works.

Dang, I did not know that was going on over there. I use tumblr sometimes & now it seems like there will be another exodus in which I try to find users again. TAT

Right?

Currently, at least SOME of the exodus has been paused. The CEO who is being an embarrassing manbaby is on a sabbatical until May (which didn't keep him from doing all of the above, but he's not making big decisions for the company right now.) A group of trans staffers wrote a pretty long post on the official staff account both apologizing and outlining ways they are hoping the site will improve. A lot hinges on what DOES happen when the CEO returns.

However, even minus this drama, there's still the rumored midjourney deal, and that may chase people away even if the site improves how it treats its trans users.

(But ugh, SO not excited about trying to re-find the people I like! I did spend some time looking to try and find out if some of the users I follow have other sites they could be found on, and did find some on cohost or bluesky, but it's far from everyone I follow!)

Yeah, that whole situation is just wild to me. Such an unprofessional public display. I'm glad they stepped in and handled it with more grace and gave an outline on how they plan to improve things. But yeah, we still don't know if that'll save it.

That deal will definitely cause a mass user exodus, especially with all the creatives on there. I hope it doesn't fall through.

I feel you there, it's no fun trying to find everyone across different platforms. And even then you don't find everyone. How is cohost, is it similar to tumblr?

So unprofessional!

I am glad about what the staffers had to say, and we'll have to see how it actually pans out.

And oh yes, the possible Midjourney thing would likely chase a HUGE number of artists off the platform, and following artists I enjoy is half of what I'm on there for!

Cohost definitely feels more like tumblr than anything else. I haven't used it a whole lot yet, but the look and feel is pretty similar to tumblr, though maybe a bit more like "old" tumblr than current (for better and worse.) A lot of people have mentioned that you can't really view notes (likes/reblogs), which is an intentional thing for the site (wanting things to be shared, but not wanting people to be chasing numbers.) That mostly doesn't bother me, but it does mean it's more difficult to find out if people are having conversations on a different reblog of a post or such.
I feel like it'll take me some time to get used to it - at the moment it feels very quiet, and I'm not yet good at finding things to make my feed more active.

Extremely!
Yeah, I'm there for the artists too, lol.

I decided to check it out as well, I definitely feel what you mean by old tumblr vibes. I quite enjoy it, but yeah it is a little quiet. Hopefully things will pick up.

Yeah the lack of metrics makes it difficult for me analyze, like I get the whole don't chase the numbers stance, but I do find the data a bit helpful. And yes, as you stated it does make it difficult to gauge if there's a conversation going.

I'm with you there, gotta learn the ropes on how the site works. But it's kinda fun, lol.

I do hope that cohost picks up. I feel like if people DO move there (especially now that the AI thing has been pushed through, and is no longer the realm of speculation and rumor), it's a chance to steer a site in the direction that a lot of people have been longing for. (Particularly how many people want something creativity-focused, with stronger community norms. I have hopes that this could become that.)

Though yeah... I don't mind the idea of discouraging the number-chasing, because I agree with the site's ethos that it can contribute to the ways in which social media becomes toxic. Engagement-bait, or rage-bait are some of the worst things that become prominent on a lot of sites, and I appreciate having that preemptively discouraged.
BUT, when you want a sense of community and connection, it's hard not to know what things are getting interest! (And yeah, if you post a piece of art, and someone else reblogs it, and their reblog gets a lot of conversation... I'd want to see that about my art, rather than possibly just miss it entirely!)

I'm still looking forward to exploring the site more!

Yeah, I'm pretty bummed out it did fall through. I hope so as well, I'd like to see familiar faces and meet some new ones as well. Oh I'm also hoping for that, I want to participate in a strong creative community and I agree with you there, it has the potential.

I totally agree with you there, bait content and number chasing aren't the best byproducts of the modern web. But yeah, it's hard to gauge community interest with a post. Yeah, I almost missed out on a post I made (since I can't see the number of reblogs) but when I checked my notifications I saw people were reblogging it.

Same! I'm still trying to get the swing of it, lol.

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