Boneheaded Business Decisions: Tumblr Edition

It’s not uncommon for companies to make stupid decisions, whether it’s forcing AI into all aspects of functionality, or suddenly announcing you’re going to start a streaming service. Earlier this week, Tumblr released an “update” that was able to unite its userbase in a way nothing has since Goncharov. Only badly.

Despite claims on other social media platforms, Tumblr is still very much around and very much active, at least for those of us in fandom spaces. As it remains the only place where you can find gifsets, it’s still a major hub for graphics makers, as well as fan theories and analyses. (I will often link Tumblr posts in my reviews if I thought a theory or analysis was particularly interesting.) And unlike platforms like Twitter (currently known as X) or Instagram, it’s virtually impossible to be “Tumblr famous” because it still maintains the near-total anonymity of its users.

And, for Automattic, the company that currently owns Tumblr, I’m sure that’s part of the problem. With no algorithm, no “influencers”, and a userbase primed to be extremely hostile towards ads (unless they’re utter nonsense), Tumblr is not able to be monetized the way other platforms are. Yes, you can get a paid account, which offers some additional features, including no ads, but if you don’t care about the features and have a decent ad-blocker, a paid account is unnecessary. (I personally do have a paid account, because I was hoping that paying for the service would prevent updates like the one that happened this past Monday.)

Something else that makes Tumblr different from other social media platforms is that it’s a very collaborative experience. Tumblr is about community. Posts that go “viral” often contain contributions from more than one user, such as the iconic “piss on the poor” post. It’s like a series of quote tweets, except it can be – and often is – read as a conversation. This functionality, as well as the culture of adding more context in the tags, is what allows for the communal aspect of its userbase.

A prime example of this is Goncharov, which, for those of you who aren’t terminally online, is a fake 1970s mafia movie that was created by Tumblr users as a long-running, collective meme. It started because one user posted a photo of what looked like promotional swag from a film that mostly consisted of gibberish. Another user reblogged the photo and added something like, “This guy’s never heard of Goncharov.”

From there, it exploded. People were making posters, trailers, and gifsets. I know of at least one user who legitimately composed an instrumental score. There was intelligent literary criticism about plot and themes. All for a movie that doesn’t exist. Eventually, the meme broke containment – to the point where Martin Scorsese (Goncharov’s “director”) got involved. Commitment to the bit is a core aspect of Tumblr. But other platforms didn’t seem to get the joke.

Creation like this doesn’t exist on other social media platforms. They’re not designed for it. Unfortunately, everything that makes Tumblr unique is exactly what makes it confusing for new users. And slowly, the company has been introducing updates that make Tumblr a little more like other platforms with each new addition, to make the site easier to understand. Existing users tend to react to these with vitriol, but there’s really nowhere else to go for a similar experience, so we put up with it.

That all changed on Monday, March 16, when Tumblr suddenly and unexpectedly introduced a new feature that basically caused a mass revolt. You see, unlike sites like Twitter or Bluesky, the notes (reblogs, likes, replies) on a Tumblr post are collective. That means, regardless of who originally posted it or who has interacted with it since, only one set of numbers can be seen. (It actually used to be just one number, period; this is one of those updates that upset a lot of the userbase.) Whereas somewhere like Twitter, someone could make a quote tweet that gets more attention than the original tweet, the OP of a Tumblr post gets every single notification.

Plus, when you click on the notes, you are able to follow the entire chain, beginning with OP, so you can look for funny tags or interesting comments. This is often how a lot of these “viral” posts happen. That, and Tumblr’s habit of keeping old posts in circulation.

The update on March 16 changed it so that every reblog counted as its own post. That meant that the OP would only be notified if someone interacted with their original post. If another user reblogged it to add something, any notifications for interacting with that reblog would go to the second poster and not the OP. Instead of one set of numbers on the bottom, each addition had its own stats.

Users were in an uproar. First of all, it’s an unnecessary update when there are actual features that need work. (You can’t just search a particular blog’s posts, for example. That’s something we’ve been asking for since Tumblr’s inception.)

Second of all, it’s such an easy way to “steal” credit for someone else’s post – which is something most Tumblr users don’t actually want. An artist posting their own work would only be notified if someone liked or reblogged their post. If a bigger account reblogged that art so that more people would see it – which is the whole point of Tumblr – that post would then become “theirs”, and they would get all the notifications. So an artist (or writer, or whatever) would not be able to see how widespread their work was, or read any tags on the post.

Third of all, something like this is ripe for harassment. If the OP no longer gets all the notifications, they are unable to correct any misinformation that may be added. They are unable to see the harassment unless it’s reblogged directly from them, but it would absolutely be used to harass people. Terrible people exist on every platform, and though Tumblr users like to joke about the site’s “insane hate mail game”, this is the site that basically bullied John Green off the internet.

Reaction to this update was swift and righteous fury. It was stripping everything that makes Tumblr different from other platforms while fundamentally altering a vital aspect of the experience. The userbase was united in its anger, and the initial post on the official Tumblr account got tens of thousands of comments within hours. And while the number of reblogs was greater than the number of comments, it’s still the closest I’ve ever seen to someone getting ratio’d on Tumblr.

There were calls to flood the site with feedback submissions, as well as a number of posts directly tagging the staff account so that they would see how many people hated this new update. Someone made a poll with over a hundred thousand responses where “hate it” won with 98% of the vote. There was talk of a mass “walkout”, as in logging off and not using the site at all for at least a day. Many users claimed that they would have to leave if the update became permanent. And, of course, there were memes.

I know, at its core, that this update was about monetization. We live in a capitalistic society and Tumblr is, basically, a money pit. It was famously bought by Yahoo for over $1 billion, then sold again six years later for only $3 million. It’s not a profitable website at all, and the userbase often worries about what will happen in the event that it gets shut down. So I can understand why they try things like this. But I do think there are alternatives to, you know, fundamentally changing the very fabric of a website’s culture.

For example, tiered subscriptions. Many people don’t want to spend $6.99 a month for something a good ad-blocker can do for free. But I’m sure people would be more willing to spend, like, $1 for that. Higher tiers could get more additional features. I would personally pay to have April Fools Day boops be a permanent feature.

Shockingly, Tumblr actually listened to its userbase and rolled back the update approximately 24 hours later, which is more than I can say for some websites. And while I do appreciate that they backtracked when they saw the response, it feels like a hollow victory. Unfortunately, the verbiage in their post announcing the rollback implies that they still intend to introduce this feature at some point, which proves that they still misunderstand what makes Tumblr fun. It’s not about getting credit; it’s about being part of the joke.

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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