Tumblr was a lot of fun. Yes it is a microblogging platform, but that doesn’t explain what the appeal was. I have no idea what the appeal is today as I left in 2015.
People would share text or image or links of things they liked, and if you reblogged it (shared to your own blog) the comment you added would be retained when someone reblogged your reblog, creating lusicrous chains of conversations that people would build and build on. They evwntually became unreadable because they got squashed into one line. There was no way to comment without reblogging.
Tumblr predates influencer culture, and tumblr celebrities were not really a thing (except for maybe @pizza by accident being tagged everywhere).
You also had a tag system, where you added hashtags to reblogs that were searchable. This way you would find topics you liked, ans blogs.
The blogs had custom CSS, with graphics and music playing but less free for all than MySpace. This made some blogs into minor art pieces, along with the things they reblogged.
For me the initial appeal was high def images. Instagram had not taken off, and so finding consisten high quality images of art, nature, sub culture and pop culture imagery or artists, porn etc. was not as obvious as it is today.
I loved tumblr but eventually got bored. Eventually they killed custom CSS and porn, and basically made tumblr worthless for anyone who wasn’t into fandoms (/s but kind of not. I have no idea what happens on tumblr today).
cheers_queers@lemm.ee 1 week ago
it’s an old microblogging platform, was popular around Myspace era but still has a decent base. it’s mostly fandom stuff, art and porn… i personally like following artists on there
slinkyjelly@lemm.ee 1 week ago
wasn’t the porn banned a few years ago
cheers_queers@lemm.ee 1 week ago
they backtracked when they realized how many people were on there for the porn lol