Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrom

Just a wet bear in a dry world.

[bearwithoutpaws]

Since it's become clear that 'the new dashboard is here to stay' and staff seems committed to, impossibly, make even that experience worse, I've decided to leave Tumblr.

I'm not going to delete my account, but I will no longer be logging in anymore or visiting Tumblr dot com.

When the A/B testing happened and I was one of the lucky chosen to test the new UI, I decided to use that testing phase to temporarily leave Tumblr. On the one hand I did this because the new UI is literally unbearable to me (which, ha, a pun, given my username). But I also did this in order to make sure I didn't interact with any aspect of the new UI, to not give any of the new or newly placed icons an extra click. The hope being that if enough users part of the testing phase did the same thing, the stats would reflect a decrease in interaction after implementation of the new UI, helping to declare the testing phase over, failed, and for staff to decide that the old dashboard was, after all, better, and let's stick to the old guns.

This period of hiatus has not worked in the way intended. Staff is determined to stay on this path they've embarked on. However, the hiatus did work in another way. It has shown me that, actually, I'm not *as* addicted to Tumblr as initially presumed. It's been surprisingly easy to simply avoid the website from now on. Sure, it's an immense gap in my fandom experience, but I'm just about petty enough to take that loss over giving into the new Tumblr experience. Instead, I have been spending much more time on AO3, a website that still sparks more joy than stress, as opposed to Tumblr dot com.

Therefore, after having logged in once more to see that staff has not reversed back to the old UI and is instead making even more atrocious changes and getting really snarky with users when they point out valid concerns such as accessibility issues, I find myself all out of fucks to give to a website that has been, in essence, my digital home for the past decade.

You do you, staff, and I sure hope that your decisions regarding recent dashboard changes do not come back to bite you in the ass, because from what I'm seeing, I'm not the only one to have reached the end of their patience. Userbase loyalty only goes so far. You should research the trust thermocline.

[lastoneout]

I think Ryan Gosling's Ken and Gomez Addams would get along

[pinkpolkadotflower]

the way BBC Pride & Prejudice 1995 was specifically mentioned in the Barbie movie at a very specific part of the plot is so so so relevant. I literally saw my life flash before my eyes

[alilaro]

sometimes the cynical and bitter part of me gets ahold and im like 'maybe representation in media isnt that important,, its all just hollywood bullshit anyway' but seeing margot robbie talk about having cellulite in the barbie movie has like permanently altered my brain chemistry

[sedlex]

Anyway, Barbie (2023)'s most important message for everyone is literally hidden in plain sight:

when it's time to vote,

show up to the polls!

[rottinghaven]

barbie called me the fuck out with depressed barbie watching 1995 bbc pride & prejudice 7 times

[animentality]

[patronsaint-ofmystery]

i can understand why people think the activism plot of barbie was too “heavyhanded” but OF COURSE the barbie movie was going to have a feminist message! the whole point of barbieland is that the women run everything! we see barbie getting catcalled in the trailer and punch the guy who does it! personally, i felt seen when america ferrara’s character was going into how hard it is to be a woman and it’s still important to go into that in depth because it REALLY IS hard to be a woman! and men don’t understand that and they need to see this movie, and understand it, and maybe the treatment of the kens will help them see how they treat women.

[tealighthouse]

barbie: i’m not pretty anymore

narrator: this would be a far more effective line if it wasn’t coming out of margot robbie’s mouth

[paper-lilypie]

the narrator taking a swing at mattel for casting margot robbie as barbie and making her say she wasn’t pretty like so true bestie scream it LOUDER

[thebctman]

I came out of Barbie with one single thought in my head and that was that I wanted Ken’s “I am Kenough” sweatshirt immediately

[rylandsgrace]

I love male fragility <3

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

ngl im kinda sick of seeing posts complaining about the dashboard update without mentioning the ways you can complain about the change to @staff that isnt just @ing them

like here are two surveys staff set up where you can bring this shit up to them. give them feedback.

if anyone has any other links or resources, please add them. if you want your voice to be heard, here is how you can. tell them what you dont like and why.

[joanrisu]

I have to separate the links cause my amateur web design brain needs to remove visual ambiguity for UI reasons. - This short survey asks about what social media you use and why. - This longer survey asks about your user experience on Tumblr.

Please take the time to fill them out and please reblog and share the word about these surveys!

[bearwithoutpaws]

Trying to go on Tumblr.com without dying from sensory overload like

(look at how little space is left for Actual Content!!!)

[bearwithoutpaws]

By some interesting turn of events, when I came home and turned on my personal computer, I was still logged into the 'older' version of Tumblr. And it really drove home why the new version sucks so bad.

At the top of the dashboard (of the 'older' version), you still have some cluttering happening on the right side of the dashboard, with the 'check out these blogs' for example. And I've gotta admit, I never really tolerated even that much cluttering. But!

But! What made it bearable and not too bothersome, is the fact that it was *only* at the top of the dashboard. The moment you start scrolling, it's so empty and calming. It's really a place where your eyes can rest and the only thing to focus on is the Actual Content.

No distractions, nothing else clamoring for your attention.

Notice how you can still, at any point, leave your dashboard to go to 'Explore', check out your notifications or create a new post, at the very top of the screen. The icons are ever-present, but not in an annoying way. You're allowed to Just Be on your dashboard without Tumblr trying to convince you that, hey, actually you wanna be anywhere else, really.

Compare this to the new version, which, sadly, I still am logged into the moment I try to access Tumblr through a new tab.

This is after some scrolling because the top of the dashboard has become a hellscape that I Physically Cannot Handle and only makes me want to Flee.

Even after endless scrolling, the menu on the left side Stays. And okay, the ads on the right side disappear with some scrolling (although, Tumblr staff, do try and convince me, without lying, that you're not itching to fill up that space with paid ads) but the left side is constantly filled!

And because the left side is just so cluttered, it actually bothers me that they changed the position of the general searchbar from the left to the right. A searchbar that didn't bother me in the older version on account of the fact that the search bar, the top icons and the 4 links at the bottom were the only thing going on, and in between there was so much empty space my eyes still had plenty of room to rest.

But now, with the general full-ness of the entire page, there being *anything* on the right side of the dash is one thing too many. In this case, both the search bar and the 4 links at the bottom.

Also, if you compare this picture with the previous ones, you will notice they spaced out the Actual Content more to the right. The left menu is literally pushing aside the Actual Content and taking up *even more* space on the left side than initially thought.

The menu bars take up such a prominent place that every moment you're on your dashboard, they're basically screaming, why don't you go 'explore' instead or look at your messages or your activity, or better yet, go spend your money in the TumblrMart or by buying an ad-free account. Go anywhere, as long as it's not on your dashboard, ffs.

And don't even get me started on the 'Create' button that is so obnoxious. It's Always There, so bright and colorful in an otherwise dark dashboard (which my eyes love! the darkness, not the bright button!) that your eyes keep getting drawn to it, distracting from even the Actual Content, drowning it out with sheer obnoxiousness.

Do staff really think this is going to make people create more new posts? What's the use, if the dashboard is so awfully designed now that you don't even wanna be looking at the posts (re)blogged by the blogs you follow? You literally wanna do anything else but that.

To be honest, the only thing this dash makes me wanna do is hit that 'Create' button to spew my dislike of the changes and then promptly leave Tumblr altogether.

As long as I can still access the 'older' version through this one (1) leftover tab, great, I will be enjoying my time on good ol' Tumblr as always. But the moment I lose access to this tab and am forced to enter that newer hellscape, the only button I will be hitting next, will be the 'close tab' button. I can only hope that enough people forced into this testing will do the same, so engagement numbers with the new UI will drop drastically and staff will be made to see reason.

[alightbuthappypen]

So last year @/jingyismom commissioned this piece:

everything is just about the same but they're all fairies... wwx coming back after being dead, and seeing lwj for the first time with his huge beautiful iridescent wings dragging mangled and useless behind him

and then I dithered, intimidated by the concept, for about six months before starting, then dithered for about another six months before pulling myself together and finishing it.

Anyway it's DONE NOW. Thank you rara for the opportunity to indulge my fairytale illustrator dreams

[pechebeche]

this is so nostalgic. tumblr rolls out something terrible. everyone complains. it breaks several people's dashboards. for some reason it only rolls out to a few people at a time with seemingly no warning. the community collectively and immediately searches for a browser extension that undoes the change. i know we've all gotten burnt out on all social media sucking but this is genuinely The tumblr experience. everyone who hasn't gotten it already gets an achievement. welcome to the club

[jessiarts]

Based on actual events