How to turn off AI Training of your content on Web and Mobile:
On a Web Browser:
I had some trouble finding this option. My first instinct was to click the settings button on the left, but that's where it is!
First, you'll click the name of your blog on the left sidebar to bring it up on your browser.
Then click "Blog settings" on the right sidebar once your blog is brought up. That's where they're hiding it.
Click "Prevent Third-Party Sharing" under the Visibility section, and bam! You're done.
On Mobile:
Thankfully it's much easier on mobile. Just click the Gear icon on your blog's page, to go to settings.
Scroll all the way down until you see Visibility, then toggle the Prevent third-party sharing option for your blog!!
If you disable this setting on mobile, it automatically synced it to my web browser settings, too. ...But if you use both Web and Mobile, I would still highly recommend double checking that it actually turned off on both!!
Check that it's turned off on your side blogs too! And check your settings every now and then anyway to ensure that it's staying turned off, because if my memory serves right, some other websites will pull some shenanigans on things like this and opt you back in without telling you!
Leave Feedback on New Features at Tumblr Support Here!! Let Staff know however we can that having our content fed to AI at their whim is unacceptable.
And if you have the option to poison your art with Nightshade or Glaze, keep it up!!
So, I'm trans. And several years ago, I was at my great grandfather's funeral. 17, newly on T, barely out to anyone other than my close friends and family. And I'm standing there at the refreshment's table, surrounded by strangers and members of my family's church, when George walks up to me.
This man is ancient, bent like a finger and frail. Tufts of white hair surround his wrinkled face. Like always, he's wearing thick glasses, massive hearing aids, and his veteran's hat. George was my first introduction to the concept of war, when he told me as a child why he was missing two fingers on his hand. He's been a fixture at church since I can remember. I've only ever seen him at there or in uniform at parades, the rest of his time spent in a nursing home somewhere. He picks up a deviled egg and says, in his quiet voice,
"You know, before your grandfather died, he told me that now he had 3 grandsons."
I'm frozen in place. I don't know what to say to that, if I should say anything at all. This is not a conversation I expected to have, especially not with this man. But he continues.
"I didn't know what he meant! So he explained it to me."
And I can imagine it. My great grandfather, uninformed and opinionated but supportive, explaining to his friend the news he barely understood himself over after-service coffee and cookies. His eldest grandchild was now a boy.
"And, you know, I didn't know what to think."
Here, George looks me up and down. This 90-something year old war veteran, who knew me mostly as the little girl playing in the church kitchen with his wife, processing what my great grandfather had really meant. It feels like a long pause, even thought it probably passed in a second.
"But you look good. So, eh!"
And then he smiled, shrugged, and walked away without another word. If I was fine, if I was happier, then that's all that mattered.
George passed away this week, at the age of 99. This memory has been bouncing around in my head for a while, but I wasn't sure if or how I should share it. It was a conversation that meant very little, but also meant the world. It was scary, and funny, and the moment when I realized that sometimes the people you least expect will accept you. Sometimes, even if they don't fully understand, even if they barely know you, someone will choose to support you. And that will always matter.
anyway i looked up the post about seeing your grandma's boobs and tumblr has deleted the screenshot of the story where the finnish dude says that americans are "like that" because they haven't seen their grandma's tits
my comments on that post were (sorry for shamelessly copy-pasting them):
american attitudes about nudity are fucking wild, and the worst part is that because they're american, they just assume that everyone everywhere thinks the same. i will never forget seeing people on a left-leaning, progressive site saying that families bathing together is creepy and gross and clearly a sign that something is wrong with the family, that they'd never seen their siblings or parents naked and would in fact rather die. meanwhile to this day i bathe and go to the sauna with my sister and mother and have been bathing and sauna'ing with various family members - and even strangers! - my whole life.
but yes, can confirm, seeing your grandma's tits as a child does you good, and not just because it teaches you that "beauty is fake and temporary", but because it broadens your ideas about what beauty even is in the first place. my sister and i used to spend our summers at our grandma's house by the countryside and frequently bathed and went to sauna with her. we saw not just her breasts but also her flabby skin, her moles and liver spots, her body hair and varicose veins, and we didn't see any of that as weird or ugly because they were a part of our grandma who we loved very much. and when we see those things in other people - ourselves included! - we think "well it wasn't ugly on my grandma's body, so why would it be ugly on anyone else's body?". it makes you much more understanding and "forgiving", if you will, towards the completely normal bodies of strangers as well as your own body.
This game really touched my heart... and gave me so much inspiration... this is my tribute
I want to mention @thirdchildart , her work with visual metaphors was huge inspiration for this comics too, especially that stream where she was talking about visual storytelling in her tma animatic
Disclaimer: This is not an instruction on how to deal with amnesia or the effects of alcohol. I've never drank alcohol and have absolutely no idea what to do in alcohol situations. The situation in the comic is fiction, based on the game lore. If you see someone in similar circumstances, or you experiencing something like this, go to doctor
The first time I played through Disco Elysium, I talked to Lena right after Kim joined my party and immediately got the dialogue option where she says something racist.
Because of that, I was iffy on her from the beginning. But I’ve seen a lot of people say that they actually didn’t know about this dialogue or that they didn’t get it on their playthrough. Whenever I see this dialogue mentioned, there are always a lot of people saying how disappointed they are that she would say something like that because she seems like a nice old lady.
I think that this moment is actually one of the most important depictions of racism in the game. Besides this one instance, Lena is friendly toward you and Kim. If you call her out on the implication that Seolites are a different species than her and Harry, she basically says that being a different species isn't a bad thing because white people have earwax that smells and Seolites don't.
The whole interaction is such a small moment within the game, and a small part of her character. It’s so easy to miss. And that is exactly how racism works.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been talking to an older person who seems kind and then all of a sudden they say something extremely bigoted out of the blue. I actually got the idea to write this after the nice old lady who is a custodian at my job said something transphobic in front of me and it totally broke my heart.
It’s easy to condemn a cross-burning KKK member or a homophobic preacher who says that all LGBTQ+ people will burn in hell. It’s a lot harder for people to condemn bigotry when it comes from people that they otherwise see as kind.
But most bigots are not like Gary the Cryptofascist or Measurehead. Most of them are like Lena. They are the uncles who think that “if people just cooperated with the police then they wouldn’t be shot.” They are the classmates who make fun of the professor’s accent. They are docile old ladies who think that Seolites are not as human as white people are.
And that makes it harder for people to see the bigotry within themselves. People can easily tell themselves things like “I don’t want all trans people to die, so I’m not transphobic. I’m just worried for the children.” When the media only portrays bigotry in its most extreme forms, it is hard to see that being a little bit racist is still being racist.
And this is even more interesting because of her and Morrell’s friendship with Gary. He is a self-proclaimed fascist with an extensive collection of racist mugs, but Lena and Morrell still keep him around, presumably because they are willing to overlook his “differing political opinions” because they think that he is a good person in other ways. And because his fascist ideas do not affect people that look like them.
So yeah, I want to see more people talking about how fascinating Lena and Morrell are as depictions of racism in Disco Elysium.
I’m closing my Redbubble store at the end of the year (2023) - this is one of the only illustrations still available there. Just a heads up!
It’ll still be available on my Inprnt store regardless.
It really is too bad that you can't romance Kim in Disco Elysium because your typical RPG romance being done in the style of Disco Elysium would be a real goddamn treat
[Suggestion - Challenging] Unleash some flirtations upon the lieutenant!
SUGGESTION [Challenging: Failure] - What's his most prominent feature?
YOU - "Hey hotcock, your glasses are looking thick today!"
KIM KITSURAGI - He looks at you blankly.
EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - He would be more offended by the references to his sight issues if he weren't so thrown by the term "hotcock".
before I played Disco Elysium, I thought Harry du Bois was a co-worker in the precinct you work at and, reading about him being such a fucked up guy, I was literally planning on avoiding him as much as possible in my playthrough... colour me surprised when I found the badge and found out the main character's name
EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - She says it so insistently, as if arguing with you. You may have upset her.
COMPOSURE [Formidable: Failure] - You feel a pit in your stomach. You did something wrong, but you don't know what.
LOGIC [Trivial: Success] - Her way of dressing, the feminine name, yet deep voice - it should have been clear to you sooner. She's transgender.
ESPIRIT DE CORPS [Formidable: Success] - Almost imperceptible, the lieutenant anxiously twitches his eyebrow.
DAMAGED MORALE - 1
Transgender? What's that?
This doesn't have any bearing on the investigation.
ENCYCLOPEDIA [Trivial: Success] - A transgender person is someone who does not identify with the gender they were assigned at birth. Oftentimes they will dress conforming to their desired gender roles, change their names, and seek medical intervention to, "transition."
Gender is rather bourgeois, anyway.
Why would any proud Revacholian discard their masculinity?
Changing your gender? That sounds like quite the hustle. Maybe we can learn a thing or two from this woman.
That's cool. I have no opinion on this one way or another.
RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - Just as Mazov dared to challenge the established order of capitalism, so too do others challenge the order of things such as sex and gender.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] - IT'S BEEN SO LONG SINCE WE'VE FELT THE TOUCH OF A WOMAN. WHO CARES IF SHE USED TO BE A MAN? HAVE SEX WITH HER NOW! ITS WHAT A REAL MAN WOULD DO!
EMPATHY - [Trivial: Success] - Don't do that. It's clear now, you upset her for accidentally calling her a man. Just apologize.
COMPOSURE [Medium: Failure] - Profusely.
ESPIRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - It's important to be a good ally.
DRAMA [Medium: Success] - Make a real show of it, sire!
"Oh, I didn't realize. I'm sorry."
"I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I'll leave you alone forever now."
"I haven't been a good representative of the RCM. We're here to help the people of Martinaise, no matter their identity. I'm sorry to have let you down."
[Drama - Legendary 14] Try and come up with an elaborate, heartfelt apology in the style of the turn of the century thespians.
HIGH
83%
+1 Found testosterone ampoule on nightstand.
+1 Homo-Sexual Underground.
+1 Read about the turn of the century thespians.
-1 Recovered your gun.
-1 Masculinity challenged.
This is a Red Check.
It cannot be retried.
⚀⚀
CHECK FAILURE
YOU - You try and come up with the words to convey your apology to the young woman, but you come up blank. It's hard to fit, "transgender" into iambic pentameter, as it turns out.
DRAMA - I'm sorry, sire. I have failed you.
KIM KITSURAGI - "Detective? You've been standing there for a whole minute. Are you okay?"
ESPIRIT DE CORPS - Shit, the lieutenant is onto us. We have to say something soon, or we could lose him.
COMPOSURE [Trivial: Success] - Don't worry, we can still salvage this. Anyone have any ideas?
VOLITION [Heroic: Failure] - Let me handle this.
You - "I'm so sorry, I'm so fucking sorry. I'm such a fucking failure. Do you want me to kill myself?"
In April of 2021, I posted a short to YouTube - a 60 second video in the format of their TikTok competitor. In the nature of shorts, it was a one-minute, necessarily un-nuanced hot take about a subject I like to talk about: character design. Specifically I made the mistake of lamenting that the character design of female heroes in major games tend to prioritize attractiveness rather than using their body shape to do storytelling about their lives or capabilities.
It did okay, garnering about 38k views in its first month. Didn't set the world on fire, but I got my point out there, and while there were some crappy comments, for the most part people seemed to understand what I was driving at.
The short had eventually climbed to about 100.000 views after a full year of being online, which is respectable, but in the world of YouTube Shorts a fairly middle-of-the-road level of success (these are extremely short videos being served extremely quickly to a huge base of users). Fast forward to November 8th of this year, and... something happens. More than a year after it was originally published, it starts gaining traction.
Slowly at first, a few thousand views, but by the 14th it's gained 80.000 views in a day. On the 16th, 400.000, on the 17th, 680.000. I have no idea why this is happening, there's no influx of viewers from any outside source, there's no topical news event that would make the video suddenly relevant.
I tweet about it, bemused by the sudden jump, but also hinting a bit at the other side of this story.
"There Is No Such Thing As Negative Press"
On YouTube, there is on the systemic level very little difference between positive attention and negative attention. If you create excellent work that brings joy into people's lives, they engage with your video and the algorithm reads that as success. And if you create miserable, hateful content that makes people angry and stokes them to responses of outrage, disgust or jeering, the algorithm reads that as a kind of success, too.
Hate-bait and rage-bait YouTubers operate in that latter space, churning out inflammatory or distressing content, hoping to elicit either reactions of horror, or gleeful cheering from people who like it when their favourite online personality trolls the Other.
But there's another way to garner negative attention, and that is to create content which is not at all designed to bait or elicit a negative response, but whose subject matter nonetheless produces a negative response from a certain kind of person.
That is the unfortunate slip-and-slide I have found myself on.
At the time of writing, the short sits at 6.8 million views, has been gaining on average 2 million views per day, and it still seems to be accelerating. Despite those skyrocketing numbers, however, it only ("only") has around 1300 published comments underneath it.
That is because, after the first couple of million views, I told YouTube to automatically hold all comments for review. That is, YouTube allows users to comment on the video, but those comments are not published until I manually approve them.
The reason I did this is... well, it's easier to show you with some pictures. Content warning, these are unfiltered YouTube comments, so expect casual bigotries.
These are screenshots from the "held for review" tab of my YouTube Studio backend. YouTube in recent years has gotten good at filtering out content like overt racial slurs and the worst of the worst insults, which is nice, but the filtered comments tab is still not a particularly pleasant place to read through right now.
Most of the comments are like what you see above: casually rude, fatphobic, homophobic, transphobic or otherwise unpleasant. Some of the comments are more intense, threatening me with violence, insulting me personally, "I hope your mom gets raped by a [racial slur]," and worse. The worst comments are a small percentage, but as you can imagine, they do stand out in the mind, and a small percentage of a huge number can still be a lot of comments.
And that's the thing. There are hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds, and hundreds of comments. I scrolled for fifteen minutes and did not see the end of it. YouTube doesn't keep a visible count on how many comments are held for review, but I'd not be surprised if the 1300 comments count would have been doubled if I hadn't stopped it when I did. And since the video is still accelerating, that number is likely to skyrocket as well.
This provides me with the best theory I have as to why the video took off: the YouTube algorithm started showing it not to people who it thought would like it, but to people it thought would dislike it enough to react, to comment. And the more people did comment, the more the algorithm showed it to other people just like those who commented, who were also likely to dislike it.
This causes a feedback loop of negative attention, which the YouTube algorithm (horrifyingly) interprets as a success and an incentive to keep pushing the video.
Moderating this comments section is now physically impossible - I would need a staff of a dozen to handle it, which I can't afford and who I wouldn't want to expose to it, and while this deluge is going on, moderating the comments of other videos becomes next to impossible as well, since the "held for review" tab is utterly monopolized.
One fix for this problem, of course, is to simply disable the comments. But in my experience, doing that only encourages the worst of the commenters to seek out your other content and leave even worse comments there instead. In fact, a couple of dozen particularly irate people have already sought out my other channels to post insults there, adding to the stress and workload of dealing with all this viral "success."
How YouTube Makes YouTubers Worse
This situation is stressful, because humans are monkey creatures with monkey brains that do not like being exposed to a constant stream of rudeness, cruelty and casual bigotry. However rational you try to be about it, however detached and cold, it wears on you. It chips away at your mental defenses and becomes a constant source of low-level stress and misery.
But as far as YouTube is concerned, it's a huge success.
YouTube's systems are all set up this way. They celebrate increases in numbers with cheerful messages and positive green arrows and "helpful" statistics showing just how much things are growing - meanwhile, if you post otherwise positively received work that doesn't attract as much attention, it will give you dour "your content received fewer views due to lower interest this month" messages and greyed-out downward arrows. If you have a video that does really well on the numbers, YouTube will even play a little fireworks animation on its statistics to celebrate.
It's a form of not-so-subtle psychological manipulation. As a YouTuber you are dependent on your statistics to inform your work - if your rent depends on making those numbers go up, you essentially have no choice but to pay attention to them and let them guide your decision making. And so YouTube designs its systems to push its creators towards the behaviour that the platform finds most beneficial: numbers optimizing.
And the thing is, if I went only by the numbers, I would look at the success of this short and go "oh, there's a viable content strategy here!"
I could try and replicate its "success" by creating more content around the same topic, by targeting the same kind of outrage-baiting, by identifying the contentious subjects and trigger points brought up by the angry people in the comments and hitting them repeatedly, hoping to make engagement fall out.
YouTube would reward me for that, quite handsomely, in fact, even as mental health and professional happiness would absolutely crater. I don't have the personality for that kind of content creation, it's not what I want to do with my work, it's not the kind of person I want to be.
But I am not immune to propaganda. I have already changed as a person from doing this job, I know this for a fact. My priorities have shifted, my wants and needs have changed. Not for the worse, I believe, not yet, but the platform is constantly, constantly pushing on me.
It's unpleasant and it's stressful. It's hostile design, coupled with primitive and insufficient moderation tools, coupled with an aggressive algorithm which will go out of its way to ensure your relationship with your audience is toxic, if that toxicity produces better numbers for the platform.
Viral success is often thought of as a desirable thing, something which can launch a career or skyrocket an unknown to success. The reality is, it is mostly just overwhelming. I'm a grown man and I have done online content creation for a long time, and I have learned strategies to manage toxic comments sections over years of experience.
But imagine if something like this happened to a sixteen year old. Imagine if it happened to a teenage girl just starting out making videos. Or a trans person. Or, hell, any person from a marginalized community. I am sheltered by my privileges, but I have seen how dark it gets and how fast it gets dark for people who don't have those extra protections.
Well, it does happen to them, and no matter how rancid, bigoted and horrible the abuse they receive, they will log in to YouTube Studio to see happy fireworks and "Nice! Your video got 20 million views!" with a little green upwards pointing arrow right next to it.
You might have seen articles and thinkpieces around "creator burnout," and I want you to know that a huge part of what burns creators out is the primitive, profit-optimizing, hostile systems that power these platforms and monetize our worst experiences on them as "engagement."
In case you're wondering how much money I've earned from those 6.8 million views, by the way, it's about $20.
YouTube says they're rolling out full Shorts monetization next year, so I guess I just picked the wrong month to go viral.
---
If this story resonated with you at all, do me a favor and leave a nice comment under the work of an online creator you enjoy. It helps more than you might think.
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