#keyboard shortcuts are my friend

drst:

I just had a small “oh” moment about Tumblr and how the user base has self-selected over time to certain personality types.

I tend to reread/rewatch things I love a lot. I reread the same fic a hundred times. I rewatch tv shows over and over - and not like I revisit them every few years, although I do that sometimes too, but I will finish a show and decide to rewatch it again right away to pick up on things I didn’t notice the first time through.

My family and many of my friends are not like this, or aren’t as extreme about it. They watch something and that’s it. They read a book and they’re done and they don’t really think about it again. I can do that, sometimes, but not as often as I  hyperfixate on something and just go all in for weeks or months, until I absorb every micron of it.

And if I go back to rewatch some time later, I usually skim through to my favorite moments, rather than a complete rewatch or reread.

I have no idea how many other people on this hellsite have hyperfixation tendencies (more than a few I’m sure), but this seems to be the only social media site where content circulates infinitely. I will occasionally see certain memed tweets show up on twitter (dril “I’m not owned” for example), but Tumblr not only recirculates memes we just recirculate cool posts about stuff. No, I did not love the color of the sky clogging up my dashboard but I laugh every time I see it, and I reblog every color theory joke. I love humans are space orc posts coming back around, or “your blood is seawater” etc.

We don’t just endlessly reshare memes, which is what happens on Twitter and somewhat on Facebook, there’s just posts that aren’t really memes but are just popular or interesting that endlessly reappear. And I’d bet a lot of us stop and reread those posts again, even if we know the content (or we’re looking to see if there’s been an addition). We turn cool posts into running jokes, like with color theory and Ea Nasir.

It slots together with my occasional “I want to go rewatch that scene from S1 again for the 1000th time” impulses to revisit things I love.

I don’t know I just saw the “blood is seawater” post and reread the whole thing again and it got me thinking about how seeing old posts cross my dash doesn’t feel annoying (unless every single person I follow is doing it) and it’s more like seeing an old friend.

Also I’d like Tumblr to stop hiding long posts, I can scroll, it’s annoying to have to click back and forth.