Rethotto's Home for Broken and Misplaced Things

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free...

[undead-knick-knack]

Gonna put one of these stickers on each of their foreheads

[my-dailydreams]

[reckless-glitch]

[ramblingandpie]

[Video description: Gritty is turning the crank on a flagpole to raise the Progress Pride Flag. He gesticulates angrily that the flag is not blowing in the wind, then gestures offscreen. The flag begins blowing. As Gritty begins raising the flag more, the camera pans out to show a man in a suit and sunglasses, looking like a stern Secret Service agent, is holding a leafblower that points at the flag. End description.]

[one-time-i-dreamt]

And why did the value plummet, Marissa? Why did it plummet?

[red-mercer]

Would like to know how exactly she wouldn't fuck up Netflix or Hulu

[sreegs]

Yahoo thought Tumblr would be the next PDF

Yahoo’s grand plan for Tumblr was to turn it into a “next-generation PDF”

They didn't really get it.

[noctumsolis]

What does that even mean? PDF as in Portable Document Format?

[sreegs]

i cannot stress enough that i dont think yahoo even knew what a pdf was

[virdigrishammer]

you left out the best part of that article. the poor yahoo emplyees at those meetings were just as confused as the rest of us.

[ralfmaximus]

Everyone is right to dunk on Yahoo and "tumblr is the new PDF" because yeah, everything about that era was stupid.

But the PDF thing kinda makes sense. Bear with me.

But first, some context.

See, in the 1990s before PDF files there was almost no way to generate a document on a Mac and read it on a PC. Or vice versa. Businesses struggled with how to email important documents around and guarantee they looked the same on the other end, regardless of what computer & software the recipient had.

Adobe changed all that with PDF.

Since Acrobat Reader was available (and free!) for Windows & Mac, suddenly the problem went away. Everyone knew how to read a PDF. Adobe became a universally recognized brand overnight even if you'd never heard of Photoshop, because everyone had goddamn Adobe Reader installed.

Because of that, every tech company yearned to be just like Adobe: invent something universally desired, used by billions of people.

Fast forward to a Yahoo/tumblr meeting sometime in 2013/2014.

Tumblr development staff demonstrates how the back end of tumblr works, which (honestly) is revolutionary as compared with how any other social media site worked at the time. Each tumblr post is composed of blocks of data, any one of which can be text, sound, an image, a movie... anything. These blocks of data are threaded together into what looks to the user like one cohesive message (a single tumblr post) but under the hood it's magic.

Further, the mechanism for doing this can be standardized. In other words: tumblr could, if they wanted, publish the standard as a way for ANY social media site to manage its data.

If other sites did that, then they could trade messages with tumblr! Imagine posting a message on tumblr and reading it on Instagram. Or see twitter messages natively on your tumblr feed. I mean personally, that's a horror show. But the concept is interesting.

(In fact, that's how Mastodon and the Fediverse work in 2025. Each Mastodon post is a standard chunk of data that any website can read & display, assuming it understands the underlying ActivityPub protocol and plays by its rules.)

So the Yahoo executives attend this technology demonstration and one of them quite visibly has a light bulb wink into existence over their head. The light bulb is an old school incandescent, 300 watts at least, and glows furiously bright.

The Yahoo exec stands up. His chair knocks backwards.

"OH MY GOD," he stammers. "This tumblr thing could revolutionize social media. It'd be like the new PDF!"

Then blood shoots out of his nostrils and his head explodes, but all anyone ever remembers from that meeting is "PDF".

@sreegs or @cyle or @jv can probably explain it better, but that's what I remember hearing at the time. Please feel free to correct me.

[cyle]

the details here aren't correct, but as i've said many times, yeah, the PDF thing was in direct response to the Neue Post Format, which is how post and reply content is stored on tumblr. it's not as dumb as it sounds. (without that context, it does sound dumb.)

[hugtheteadrinkthekitten]

Can't believe over a decade later we're finally getting an explanation for the PDF thing.

[dipdieddreams]

This makes sense, I think.

They saw in tumblr potential for a universally read social media site that could interact across other social media platforms, and potentially becomes the dominant form of interconnectivity between platforms.

Except they fumbled it massively?

That’s my understanding of the above.

People frequently ask me why I’m still on tumblr and one of the things I tell them is the fact you can post anything on here. It’s not limited to one form of media. And yes you can post videos and reels or whatever now. But not back then. And gif sets are still best on tumblr. Sorry.

[swhftt]

SWHFTT 107: Do not go gentle

[catchymemes]

[goth-queen]

[cursedpossums]

unrestrained summer fun

[cursedpossums]

every year around late may, without fail, this post starts getting notes again . and my little wet raw chicken breast of a brain gets puzzled. because i forget that summer is , in fact. a yearly event

[depsidase]

[black-quadrant]

ADHD affects how I experience time, not how I experience attachment. I love you. I miss you. I just don't realize how long it’s been since I last said that, let alone messaged.

I understand that most normal functioning brains need regular engagement to maintain a bond. Absence doesn’t diminish my affection. My silence isn’t neglect or disinterest. It’s time blindness and object impermanence. The contact gap is purely neurological, not emotional. Thank you for being patient with my inconsistency and holding a seat in your heart for me.

[salvadorbonaparte]

my mum just answered a spam phone call with "catholic horse cemetery how can I help you"

[tieflingkisser]

[lesbianslimefriend]

here's where to find it on windows 10

[the-tiny-dragons-tea-room]

Ugh, it was in mine. It's off now.

[the-tiny-dragons-tea-room]

IT GETS WORSE

I had to turn this off, but it's something that allows Windows and anyone using your device to generate text/images.

LOBOTOMIZE YOUR MACHINES

[banchie]

i've been phasing the phrase 'google it' out of my vocabulary and going back to 'look it up'. fuck you youve lost your generic trademark privileges

[phantomrose96]

I think it's funny world-building how like, so at the center of Life we've got Water. Arguably The most important resource. Colorless transparent substance that molds to any container and we die without it and quickly. And all organic functions of society hinge on its availability. Could fight a ton of wars over this thing.

And well beyond organic life, modern society's great human invention is the Electronic Magic. Our greatest minds invented the Electronic Magic and it sends information around the world instantly. Our infrastructure our economy our modern life, minute by minute by minute, hinges on utilizing the great Lighting Technology.

BUT ☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️ DO NOT. DO NOT EVER. get the magical Elixir Substance of Life and Living and Healing, Water, IN the Electronic Device. The water keeps you alive critically but it KILLS the Electronic Device instantly and catastrophically. This Says something.

[phantomrose96]

and this Says something...

[samreich]

sometimes you dont know what youre signing yourself up for

[danielkanhai]

i hate when apps know that i’m screenshotting something. when i screenshot something, that’s me acting outside your realm of understanding, app. i am beyond what you consider the observable universe. you’re not supposed to perceive me. we don’t know when god screenshots the earth. we don’t know when he’s like, “okay i’m just gonna take a pic in case i ever want to add dinosaurs back to something later and don’t remember how.” and if we did, we wouldn’t act all smug about it like, “hey, you wanna share that post? you could just click here to share it.” no, man. you didn’t catch me. i screenshotted this for my own reasons. what’s next? i can’t take a photo of my computer screen with my phone out of laziness without being shamed by the printer i don’t own?

[arcanumnyx]

I don't want AI. I don't want meaningless wars. I don't want fast fashion. I want old growth forests. I want glaciers. I want coral reefs. I want clean water and air. I want bees. I want animals to be protected and not endangered. I want a thriving wildlife population. I want A FUTURE for the following generations.