The Ask Blog Community Is Dying
The ask blog community on tumblr is dying, and it needs help.
I’ve been involved in the ask blog community on tumblr for roughly a year and a half, both following other blogs and with multiple of my own blogs. There have been lulls in the community before, but they’ve never been this bad and they’ve always bounced back. This one is…the worst I’ve ever seen. And it’s not recovering.
Blogging is my favorite thing to do. I’m invested in and I care about the blogs I run and the blogs I follow. I don’t want them to delete and I don’t want the community to just fade out. I want to make things better and I want everything to pick up again. I’ve been waiting patiently for the lull to give out like it always does, but it’s been months and it isn’t getting better, so instead of keeping quiet about it and complaining, I’m going to try and help out as much as I can, and make this post so other people can too if they want to.
If you could care less about ask blogs, and you don’t really mind if they delete or fade out, then feel free to ignore this. The same goes if you’re in a bad position right now and you just can’t give energy to supporting ask blogs at the moment. I’m not trying to guilt-trip anyone into doing anything, make them feel bad, or force someone to do something/be interested in something they don’t want to. I just know that I care about the ask blog community and want to see it prosper, and I’m willing to do almost anything to make that happen. I know there are a couple people like me that I’ve talked to, and this post is for those people. The ones who would enjoy helping out and enjoy being involved in the community, and who don’t want to see it end.
I’ve been talking to other mods in the community and there is definitely a problem. And it goes deeper than ‘no one sends asks anymore’.
When I first started following other ask blogs, the community was huge. People were active and posting often, anons were flooding in, events were happening, new blogs were popping up, and it seemed like everyone was invested. When I started my first blog a year ago, I got a taste of that. People were so interested. I got so many asks that I could sit at my computer all day and answer them. People would comment on plots, drive things to happen, ask deep questions, send M!As, start interactions, just…everything that makes blogging fun.
In September for me, October for a few other mods, and other occasions there were lulls in our activity and asks, but it never felt like the community just died like this. Even if we weren’t busy, other people were, and the lulls would always end after a while. March was when the community really died. People started leaving left and right, losing interest, deleting their blogs or going inactive. People stopped sending asks or getting invested in plots. Everyone just disappeared suddenly. The mods I talked to and myself had to start fishing and begging for asks, and had no one left to talk to or interact with. It really seemed like we were yelling down an empty hallway. It was pulling teeth to get anything done. And I know that the disinterest of the community was at least partially the factor of a very popular blog recently deleting, and has made other mods consider it. I know my biggest blog got less asks in the past few months with my biggest follower count than I did the month I first started with only 100 followers.
How can it be saved? I have no idea. There’s no way I can force people to get interested in something they don’t want to do, and I have no desire to do that. I just don’t want to see the community and hobby I care about go under without trying to do something about it at least. When I did talk about it with other mods, we thought that part of the problem might be that people just aren’t aware of what’s going on. Most people in the community are new and probably didn’t see how things were when they were really active. Maybe people think that to be inactive or less active is the mod’s choice, instead of us not being able to get asks or interactions. Maybe they think that we have enough asks already, and don’t want to interact with them, so part of me trying to help out is to make this post.
Let me be clear: you can never send too many asks. We are always looking for more and our inboxes are usually empty. The whole point of what we do is to get asks anyway. Please don’t hesitate to send them. And if you have a few seconds, send some in anyway. It goes a long way. Especially asks that are deep, that are about the plot and events happening on the blogs, and that move things forward. Things that ask “why did you do that?” or “how do you feel about this?” or “I think you should do this, here’s why.” Asks that are involved in what’s going on with that blog and that character story-wise. I remember getting those kinds of asks when I first started. I love those. Asks that are giving advice, giving opinions, trying to push events to happen, showing that people are paying attention to the story and care about it. Maybe telling on one character to another, or trying to make one character do something or talk them out of it, or just examining what’s going on and why. Those can really help ask blogs feel like they’re being paid attention to, like people are invested in their blog and character, and they can help because they start conversations that can lead to more asks. Asks that are just like “hello!” or “you’re cute” are sweet and fun, but they don’t help progress things. It’s fun feeling like people are actually invested in the story and character instead of just stopping by. And along that note, ask blogs can’t run on just sending maybe one ask a week. If you really like a blog and want to see them be active, we need sustained asks over a long period of time. Ask blogs need asks to work. We can’t create content on our own. If you like our blogs and want to see us continue, we need asks. Good ones. If you don’t know what to ask, just send “how was your day?” That gives the blog something to work with, something to write about, to tell everyone how they’re feeling and what’s going on. And that creates the opportunity to get more asks.
And we’re always welcome to new interactions. Yes, even you, even your characters, if you’re thinking “Well not me.” Yes, you. We all need more interactions! We all need more people to talk to! If you want to interact with someone, please reach out to them. It feels lonely blogging nowadays because there’s no one around. It’s hard to keep up relationships.
And we need new blogs. They’re a big commitment, but if you were considering making a blog and looking for a sign that you should: let this be it. We need new active blogs in the community to interact with everybody. It seems like everyone has left except a few. Obviously you can’t run a blog if you don’t want to, but if you were thinking about it already, I strongly encourage you to.
And send M!As! M!As are so much fun. They can create so much mayhem and conflict and silliness. It’s the perfect remedy for a dull day on a blog. Hardly anyone sends M!As anymore and I really miss them.
Lastly, just be involved. That’s really all I can ask for and the biggest way to combat this fading out. Pay attention to your favorite blogs, send them asks, send them asks about what’s going on, talk about it, send your opinions, try to make things happen or not happen, try to advise the character, talk about it to other characters, send M!As, send interactions…anything. We all want to feel like people are interested in our blogs.
I’m not trying to guilt-trip people or force them into anything. If you don’t like ask blogs, or are having a hard time right now and can’t spare the time/energy, then you have no obligation to do anything! This is just kind of a…reminder, I guess. I and a lot of other mods think the problem might just be that people aren’t aware of how desperate ask blogs are right now. If you like a blog and get enjoyment out of it and want to see more content, then you need to send asks and be involved. That’s the only way to keep up those blogs. And it means so much to the mods when you do that.
I’m guilty of just sitting around waiting for this lull to end without doing anything to stop it, and I’m going to change that now. I’m going to be sending as many asks as I possibly can to my favorite blogs. I’m going to be involved in their storylines. I’m going to send M!As and make M!A lists for other people. I’m going to reach out and interact with the other people in the community. I want things to get better, and I’m going to try my best to do that, even if it’s by myself. But I feel like there are other people who like this community enough to try and save it, and I feel like it’s worth trying. That’s why I made this post. I guess to ask for your help, if you can possibly give it. I’m not going to be a hypocrite and not do any of this stuff myself. I’m going to try as much as I can, because this is my favorite hobby, and I want it to be as fun as it used to be. I want this community to go back to its’ glory days, when people were all having fun together.
