I've seen dozens of posts now asking people to reblog things, and when I check the notes it's almost all people completely missing the point in the most obnoxious way possible, or just people who genuinely aren't familiar with the sites features (and on the lowest percentage, people who know about the features but knowingly don't reblog for one reason another, which is perfectly fine, I think) But all in all the replies are usually people who feel targeted for some reason... (which you are not, ignoring the post is fine, most of you have seen it because you follow someone who reblogued it, do I need to explain to you then, the value of reblogs? just ignore it and carry on, noone has @'d you)
Anyways, I do not think people who don't want to reblog things should.
What I think is that knowledge and understanding is important. This post is aimed at people that genuinely don't understand or know. Noone else. I'm not telling you to reblog things if you don't want to. I'm explaining something to people who might really just not know the benefits of reblogguing things.
Benefits of reblogging (besides the algorithm):
- Archive: There's a risk to using "likes" as an archive. When people delete a post or their blogs, their posts WILL be deleted from your likes. Things on your likes depend on the blog you liked it from (not necessarily OP, but if it has a "readmore", which always links to OP, then consider the post lost either way). An effective way to archive that depends solely on you? A reblog. It will stay on your blog regardless of OP or whoever you reblogued it from, for as long as you keep it there.
- Encouragement: Are you here because of fandom? To see writings and fanart? If the answer is yes and you want to encourage the people who make the things you like, then reblogging is a great way to do it. It's a way to give back, and it's free.
- Ecosystem: It's just a healthy way to keep your fandom alive. You will often see artists feeling dicouraged, who delete or stop sharing their work because they only get likes. If people out there have the right not to reblog because they don't feel like it, then artists have the right to be discouraged by that sort of reception.
Reasons you might not want to reblog, and explanations:
- "Noone will see it": Factually wrong. Not everyone, but lots of people check the blogs of people who leave only likes/follow. Otherwise noone would know those blogs exist and noone would be raising a stink about it, would they? They might not follow back, but just going to your blog (because they saw you on their notifs) will already put before their eyes anything that is on it, if only for a minute. Like reblogs. So, somebody would see them.
-"I don't have any followers": If you don't want any followers, that's fair, you are doing what you should by keeping a blank blog then. If you want followers, reblogguing is a good way to do it. Often people will come across a blog that maybe doesn't post anything, but reblogs lots of things they like, and just follow. You've curated your reblogs in a way that someone decided to follow.
- "It doesn't fit the theme of my blog": Fair. I don't vibe with the posts that tell people to reblog things regardless. If you want to reblog things outside of your main blog's theme, you can make a secondary blog and reblog it there (you can make that blog a different theme too!). And if you don't want to reblog anything outside the one theme then you don't have to.
-"I don't want to spam": You don't have to! You can reblog things once a day, once a week, once a month, it's fine either way. Whether you reblog 1 thing or 200. Queueing things will automatically schedule them one hour apart I believe. But you can edit that manually by going to your queue tab, to however often you deem good.
-"I don't know what to comment": Then don't! You do not have to. A blank reblog is always preferable to none.
-"I don't want to reblog reblog bait/political stuff.": Then don't. That's far from the only thing on this hellsite. You don't have to if you don't want to.
-"I leave my likes public": Most people who go to your blog will not see them. Leaving them public or private is all the same.
-"I don't want to tag things.": Then don't. You do not have to, there's a reason this is one of the few sites that don't force you to tag anything you post. (It would be good practice to say you don't tag things in your bio though)
-"I do not want to reblog it.": Then don't! If after reading and understanding all this, you don't want to reblog things, then don't. You have your reasons. You are using the site as you want to, knowingly. Like I said before, this post is for people who might NOT know these things.