So I’ve been pretty quiet and I wanted to kind of say my piece. So here’s this, that no one really asked for.
I’m relatively new to Tumblr, but I’m by no means young. I was around when IRC and BBS were all the social media options. I met my first online friend on Napster. We’re still friends today.
That is to say… I didn’t go to Napster looking for friends. I was looking for a complete collection of Sailor Moon OSTs. But I made a friend. A lifelong one, based on common interests. Even though Napster is long gone I appreciate it for the part it played in my life.
I think Tumblr only needs to die if you guys let it. There’s still a community of people with common interests who came here for content but found each other. You can still have a following through Tumblr for the things you do outside it, lots of people do. Artists, Sex Workers, Survivors and the LGBTQIA+ communities, we need to help and support each other to have our own place/places on the internet. Tumblr can still be a community that supports these things if we continue to support these things, whether we can post them or not doesn’t take away our ability to support it here.
I do intend to take tomorrow as a day off Tumblr in solidarity. It is also a protest to say something very specific:
@staff I would rather see Pornography than White Supremacist Propaganda. I would rather see Nudity than Hate. It makes me more uncomfortable to see Racism than Sex.
I hope we can come back on the 18th with a new resolution to try and actually make Tumblr a better community for everyone. If that requires a ban on nsfw content, we can work together to support moving to other platforms and using Tumblr as a fanbase, but it absolutely can’t be a better community with hatred and racism rated as less harmful than nudity.
