you may be thinking that some of the reactions to the tumblr update are unfounded or panicky. but i meant what i said: this will fucking destroy any artist on this site.
for your reference, i tracked down one of my original posts; which had a notes section that looked like this:
and here is what it looks like now:
holy shit. by my math, that is not even two percent of the amount of aggregate notes my writing actually has. i am not able to see any of the literal hundreds of replies, comments, or tags.
maybe this is a bit presumptuous but i consider myself to be fairly popular on this site. i still remember the first time a large blog "picked up" my work - how quickly all of a sudden i was getting seen. notes on my poetry jumped from like 10 to 300 to 3k. overnight. that was the magic of tumblr, and the incredible writing community i found here.
but now if i answer any of my fellow writers, if i say please go check this out or even if i add additional context to my own work - the artist is removed completely from their own content.
do you want to reply to an "ask game"? do you want to reply to a story prompt? do you want to just make a funny joke with your friends? well, that sucks - you might be depriving them of literally 98% of their notes.
it isn't about clout chasing. it is about giving creators control over their own materials. even a silly post deserves to be connected directly with the person that thought it up.
the tumblr feedback form is currently crashed for me, but when it's up, everyone please go (politely! calmly! like you're walking in a burning building!) tell them what you think. in the meantime: @staff @changes like... i am begging you. literally just set up a suggestion box for ideas on how to monetize tumblr, surely one of us can help you.
