Okkk so apologies for the long post- this is as much as I managed to condense it (the original was longer 💔)
This is a post about some questions I have on mutuals/moot culture and such… adding a divider just cause it’s a long one by accident oops.
So, despite being on tumblr for a good few months now, there’s still a lot of stuff I need to get used to. Namely the whole culture around mutuals/moots.
For example (or rather, maybe for some context), sometimes I see people tagging a BUNCH of their mutuals in a silly/lighthearted “tag your moots so they can blah blah blah” posts, and then they follow it up with “sorry if I missed anyone :(“. Which is almost shocking to me— because I feel like if I did that, I would be following it up with “sorry if you didn’t wanna be tagged whoops” instead of “sorry for not tagging you :(“ (/not a vent). And I always see posts and tags and stuff like “I love my moots!”. It’s always very wholesome and full of love, and seeing that positivity definitely makes me happy, but again, it makes me think about how little I know about moot culture, and how much I might just be genuinely overthinking something as simple as tagging my own mutuals.
So with that said, I have some questions, because I wanna learn. Again, I apologise if my tone comes off as negative; I’m being straightforward cause idk how else to ask 💔. But I’m not nessisarily opposed to any of this. Again I’m just genuinely curious how this works.
1) first of all, what even defines a mutual/moot? I know that if two people are following each other, then tumblr labels them as mutuals— but is that all that defines a “moot”? like if you see a post that says “tag all your moots! :3”, do i tag everyone that tumblr labels as a mutual? Or do I only tag mutuals that I consider myself more close with? Like is moot defined by “these people follow each the back”/“tumblr labels these users as mutuals”, or are mutuals people that I specifically consider to be my friends? I feel like defining what a moot even IS is very important, and would help clear up a bit of confusion.
2) what is the whole “culture” even like? Should I apologise for tagging people in case they didn’t wanna be tagged? Or do people expect or even look forward to being tagged by their mutuals? Is it considered actively rude to not actively tag them/engage with them? and also, similar to the first question but still directly related to the question about moot culture — If someone follows me and I follow them back, is there a sort of “standard”/“expectation” that we are close/friends, and do they expect me to interact with them and tag them etc etc? Or again, is that only for people I actively consider myself close with? Does following someone back mean anything more than “I like your blog”? Does it inherently mean “I like your blog too, let’s be friends and skip off into the sunset together! :D”?
If anyone can answer, that would be much appreciated