The Reddit Blackout, #196, And Being New to Tumblr
okay i've seen a lot of people in the past ~24 hours or so confused by everything going on with Reddit & Tumblr from both sides - people new to tumblr who don't know how to use it, and tumblr users who don't know what's going on with reddit and why many of its users have joined up here
i know this isn't really related to my blog but fun fact about me: i was up until recently a very active reddit user and even mod a subreddit, but I've also been on tumblr for about 3 years now on different accounts, so I think I can see pretty well from both sides of this and explain what's going on
this post will be split in 2 sections: what happened with reddit (and what #196 means), and a guide for new users
1. What The Hell Is Going On With Reddit?
The thing that's caused all this ruckus is a major change to Reddit's API, which is what Reddit provides to people so they can pull directly from Reddit to make third-party apps or tools.
The change is that Reddit is changing its previously free API to be paid. Which on its own kinda sucks for developers, but it's not unexpected. They need to make money somehow, right?
The problem is that the API pricing is WAY TOO FUCKING EXPENSIVE. The developer of the most popular 3rd party Reddit app, Apollo, says it will cost him $20 million a year to continue running the app as normal.
Essentially, this pricing forces almost everything third-party to shut down, which causes 3 major problems:
Third-party apps cannot keep running, which sucks for normal users because Reddit's official app is awful. It's slow, its video player is a thing of nightmares, it doesn't have many useful features third-party developers have made.
It sucks even more for visually impaired users because they can't use the official Reddit app at all. Reddit's official app does not work with iOS's native text-to-speech function. Third party apps, on the other hand, often do. So Reddit is forcing blind users away.
Third-party moderator tools cannot keep running, which sucks for moderators because many rely on these tools to properly moderate their subreddits. And moderators are often necessary, because without them subreddits get banned and hate speech and even CSA can often run rampant.
So you see why this change is bad.
Reddit users were PISSED.
So over the past week and a half or so, they have been working on organizing a site-wide blackout. The majority of the most active subreddits have now gone private. Some are only doing it for 48 hours, others (such as r/196) are doing it indefinitely.
That's why you can't access most of Reddit right now, and that's why many users have come here.
You're probably still wondering, though - what is this #196?
Well, as you may guess, it's connected to that subreddit r/196 I just mentioned. r/196 is a subreddit which only has one rule: every time you visit, you must post before you leave.
That's it, that's the subreddit.
The thing about r/196 that set it apart from most other subreddits - and what lends the subreddit's users perfectly to Tumblr - is that it was dominated by queer and leftist users.
So now they've come here and set up shop in #196 and r/196 so they can continue their merry little shitposting.
There's a ton of lore related to r/196, actually, but this is already a long tumblr post and quite frankly I cannot be bothered to write about it at the moment.
2. I'm Here From Reddit, What Now?
Hello there, random new user. As a double-citizen of Reddit and Tumblr, let me show you around this place.
First off, there are some other people who are better at explaining that I am who have made some really helpful things. Watch this Strange Aeons video as a guide to Tumblr culture and functionality and read this post which directly compares Reddit and Tumblr.
Assuming you've done that, here's some additional advice of my own:
Do you miss sorting subreddits by top of all time/the year/the month? Well, you can do something very similar with tags! If you go to a tag at the top of the screen you can select top, and then at the dropdown that says "all time" you can select different time periods! Even 6 months, which Reddit hasn't ever had.
Tumblr has a lot of cool customization features! Even outside your icon/banner/bio, you can change you blog colors and on desktop you can have an html theme (which has its own thriving community here). That customization is part of what sets Tumblr apart from everywhere else - I think you'll enjoy playing with it.
Notes will probably confuse you at first. Unlike the different numbers for upvotes and comments, notes combines the total number of likes, reblogs, and replies into the same number.
Outside of organizing your own blog, when making your own posts tags are what help other people find your post. Use them! But don't abuse them, because then people will just block you.
There are three ways of people finding your post: if someone follows you, if someone follows the tag(s) assigned to your post, and if someone is just scrolling through the tag(s) assigned to your post (and also the secret 4th way no one uses, which is finding it on the trending page, but even if people did use it no one will find your post initially that way)
tumblr is no longer The Discourse Website. And unlike what Reddit wants you to believe for some reason, it is very much alive still. Most of the people seeking fights have moved to Twitter (though some have also moved back here again). You will not get any brownie points for being a dipshit like you do on some subreddits.
So there, welcome to the hellsite (affectionate), you'll pick up on all the in-jokes eventually, for now just try not to be a nuisance and soon enough this'll be your new internet home.
