nothing gold can stay
this last year has marked a number of endings in my life--but I never imagined those endings to include two websites that I used to heavily frequent: flickr and tumblr. Neither website is disappearing per-se, but flickr was sold by yahoo and no longer offers 1TB of storage to unpaid users, and tumblr is getting brutally sanitized after being acquired by verizon. I don’t believe I have any content that conflicts with the new tumblr TOS, but I also don’t believe there will be a careful, nuanced approach to removing supposed adult content. I had recently started posting scans to my flickr again, but I also happened to upload my 1000th image, which is the new maximum allotted images for unpaid users.
at one time (long, long ago) I was a paid flickr user. My pro account expired around the time that free storage up to 1TB was offered--obviously I had no incentive to upgrade again. With the new limitations, I feel that I will simply let my account sit as an archive--I don’t want to remove the images, but I also don’t feel a strong urge to export the content to my home computer. I haven’t been active in the flickr community in ages, so I don’t feel like I will be missing out on anything.
the decline of tumblr is much more sad. like my flickr, this blog has also become more of a repository of memories than an active blog. however, I really felt like tumblr had a magical ability to connect users, with more substantive and involved dialogue than other social platforms. I also really appreciated the attribution inherent in the reblog system--it made it easy to find the original sources for the content you loved. sadly, just like so many platforms before it (most notably livejournal, on which I still have an embarrassing, cringeworthy inactive blog from high school) it seems like it’s dying a slow death.
I don’t know if I will continue to post here. my website through squarespace offers a blogging page, but it obviously doesn’t have the community aspect of tumblr. I could start a new blog here on tumblr, but considering the overall health of this platform I feel uneasy. I have started the archiving process, should I be accidentally culled in the upcoming transition.
as daddy frost said, nothing gold can stay. I’m happy tumblr helped me share my interest and enjoyment of images I found at garage sales and in library basements. and some of my own artwork too. time to think about the future.
--P