Tumblr’s Dead and It’s Their Fault
Some people call me a cynic, or that I expect the worst of everybody. Some even say I’m a bad time to be around because I’m a pessimist or just an angry person.
I’m not gonna say “I just tell it the way it is” because that’s hokey. That being said…
You can’t sugarcoat this. They’ve been contemptuous towards NSFW users for years, but we just didn’t care because we still got to keep our existence.
They lied to us years ago when they said Yahoo’s purchase of Tumblr won’t affect the hosting of NSFW content. Truth is, for years, they tried to monetize this place very poorly. They couldn’t, to sheer incompetence, but now they are trying to spin it to their shareholders that they need to “reemerge their userbase” and, yknow, what else to do to make your site more “family-friendly” and “facebook-y?”
They lied to us last month. They tried to nuke the NSFW blogs with no heads up, and said it was an accident. Now we know it was untrue, they were carrying out what they wanted to do, but just realized that they were too quick to annex. But a lot of you bought the bluff because, for some inane reason, some of you still expect the best out of the situation we’re in.
They’re still lying. “There is no shortage of Adult-hosting websites”. Not now. How can you tell from a year later, when the silicone valley chums just realize that the best way to appeal to investors is to follow suit with this sex-negative, sexually-profiling, anti-LGBT, anti-fun narrative?
This is corporate censorship. Signatures and surveys won’t fix it, the userbase is not what they care about. It’s the investors and numbers. You don’t matter. This is a corporation who loved waving the LGBT flag around until it wasn’t financially beneficial to them anymore. Now we are expected to pack our sex-positivity and leave. And it’s so matter of fact, so “normal” for them, too. I want to reassure you that this isn’t normal.
“It can’t be that bad” a lot of you said, and were more than happy to act all smart and smug. I met a lot of people who keeps saying “people just love to fight and go hysterical because it’s the internet and everyone’s dumb”. Fuck you. Enough with the belitting. You ain’t intellectually superior because you’re a fucking centrist. You’ve been wrong. Admit this.
This place has been, for its better and worst, a haven for those who wanted to have it better than what the social life allowed them for. I’m a trans person who can’t experience her own personality because of living in a third-world country. It led to my art and my selection of things I like to draw. I know Tumblr shutting down won’t stop what I do, but it’s the reverbarance of the mentality that opposes me and my content, and I fear that other platforms can and will follow suit.
Who might follow suit? Twitter… Patreon… Patreon’s doing its best to keep us in despite the huge pushback from their benefactors, but every single month it feels like it’s up to the wire. And there might be a day we can’t even fund our lives doing this anymore. Hell, it is harder for some than others, like me. Did you know I can’t actually use PayPal because it’s region-restricted for me for YEARS? Patreon is my only way to make any dosh so I can keep on delivering content. Guess what when that goes away too.
Do not mistake this entire debacle as an action for the greater good. They’re always fighting against us, and we’re always tolerating our losses. Wake the fuck up and maybe, be more hysterical. Be angrier. No toxicity your “negativity” brings will ever be any more harmful than this separatist, anti-globalist, conservative, anti-movement agenda that they roll out to daddy us around.
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