Tumblr Tells Us What Needs Fixing in Social Media

At this point, it feels like an annual ritual.

Tumblr (currently owned by Verizon’s Oath division alongside AOL and Yahoo) does something heinous to disrupt the fabric of the community it cultivated, people in fragile communities cry foul, word spreads to the rest of the Web, Pillowfort starts opening their trap again, repeat.

Last time, it was their corporate-mandated pivot away from net neutrality. This time, it’s about flagging adult content on their website.

Maybe this could be the one?

But before any other “alternatives” start piping up, let’s take a step back and look at the big picture. Because Tumblr represents the end-of-life phase of a long era in social media, and its strengths and shortcomings in that era are worth exploring.

Tumblr isn’t a typical social media site. It has the typical algorithm- and ad-infested post wall, sure, but the dynamic of its user experience (UX) is completely unique down to its core selling point.

That’s because Tumblr is a social web host. The whole idea is that anyone can launch a website (a blog in this case), and its posts are already part of the social ecosystem without needing to cross-post anywhere else.

Admittedly, the variety of posts it offers is a relic of a past time, when the activity was called microblogging instead of tweeting. (Seriously, who even uses the Quote or Chat formats anymore?)

It took a lot to get Tumblr to include private messages, if any of you remember when it finally rolled out. That’s just a small example of the walls they had to live with after maintaining Tumblr’s basic structure for so long.

The problem with Tumblr’s structure is that it doesn’t stand up to serious scrutiny.

There’s a lot more nitpicking to get into, but you get it. Tumblr is not a place for creators.

In this modern web environment, Creators of all stripes are the ones who make platforms worth visiting. It’s in their job descriptions: YouTuber, Twitch streamer, Instagrammer, social media manager.

You’re not going to be taking time out of your day to look up a new platform unless your favorite Creators have started making a home there. Certainly, those Creators aren’t going be taking time out of their day to look it up if they don’t see any value in it.

The thing about Tumblr was that for Creators in its past decade of existence…
it was just enough.

The prospect of having a modestly-sized list of social media platforms mandated for everyone to use was only just taking shape back then. Facebook and Twitter were still seen as just popular novelties. Instagram and Vine were on the front lines of the vlog scene. YouTube had only just started paying out ad revenue, and most people were happy with their MCN of choice.

Things have changed now.

People are settled in and taking these services for granted. Creators are able to make a living by sticking to existing platforms — usually a combination of relatively-specialized ones like YouTube, Tumblr, and Patreon — and they simply pray that none of them screw up spectacularly.

All the limitations, all the frustrations, all the changes… it’s not going to change people’s minds. Even the seemingly-unforgivable actions taken by these services — YouTube’s Adpocalypse, Facebook’s election scandal, Twitter’s user purges — they didn’t end up killing them.

That’s because there’s nothing out there as of yet… nothing that not only replaces them, but exceeds them in every way.

And that’s where the “alternatives” come into play.

Disclaimer: I’m two years into work on a new platform. I’ll be posting its manifesto soon, and I’ll be sending open invites for experts to join a public committee to refine the vision.

Earlier this year, we had Gab briefly shut down thanks to petitioning GoDaddy and others to ban them from mainstream services. We don’t need to do that again for any other sites that somehow manage to leak alt-right sludge into itself.

I’m inherently skeptical about any new platforms that announce themselves as “alternatives” to a site. Those kind of groups tend to consider this global problem an opportunity to prove that they can fix the flaws with one platform and solve all problems forever.

All these major sites are heading toward a convergence of features, and by addressing only the basics, so-called “alternatives” can only ever be a patch on a sinking ship and not a stable solution.

What’s the difference, you ask?

Look at Discord. It was promoted early on by being compared with not one, but two different services: Skype and TeamSpeak. Those two services are fundamentally different in features, but Discord’s approach was to see them as two of many flawed solutions to the same problem.

The difference boils down to this:

It’s a bigger problem than one site, and the alternative community needs to see it as such. Tumblr is just one visible example of a frail attempt to solve it.

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