dancerindc

[dancerindc]

🐺

[dancerindc]

Will the last person leaving Tumblr please turn off the lights.

[dancerindc]

On the Death of Tumblr

[written 12/14/2018]

It was announced yesterday that Tumblr, under its new-ish ownership, is going to completely ban adult content (as arbitrarily decided by its poorly supported AI flagger-bot).  The community has collectively lost its shit about this and most of those I know are planning to abandon the platform.  Given the thirstiness of the circles I’ve socialized in on the site, that shouldn’t be that surprising, but, even though the ban shouldn’t directly impact my posting or even substantially change my browsing (it’s nice for porn, but that’s not been a thing I actively use it for that often), I feel obligated to join in the protest/abandonment of the platform that accompanies the action.  For one thing, most of the people I know and have normally followed are fleeing or reducing their presence.  For another, the injustice of their targeting of “female-presenting nipples” while still failing to actually address content related to nazism/white nationalism is as intolerable an act of censorship as it is a lazy one.  Beyond that, the freedom to express and expose our most vulnerable selves was what made Tumblr special.  Sure, fully adult content wasn’t necessarily required, but the general sex positivity of it was frankly vital to my growing comfort with my sexuality.  Considering the extent to which I still struggle with that at times, I can’t help but loathe this active destruction of what was a safe and optimistic sort of space for developing that comfort and for each of us to find our own weird subset of those we consider “our people.”

I’ve been resistant to diversifying into other social media formats, as I don’t really want to interact with a lot more of it than I have to, but I think I’ll have to be joining the bandwagon here, backing up my blog’s content, and jumping ship for someplace else.

It’s been a weird, hilarious, beautiful 7 years since I started here in September of 2011.  I’ve met so many great people through this site, many of whom I’ve become friends with offline, as well.  Enough that I’m reluctant to surrender it, even knowing that the statement should be made, however small and insignificant it may be, that this latest act of censorship by Tumblr’s leadership is utterly unacceptable.  May their stock crash in value and their CEO lose all credibility as a business leader. [written 12/16/2018]

I wanted to give the above a little time to simmer to see if that remained how I felt and what the apparent action of the community would be.  I’ve launched several other social media accounts under this name, including a Wordpress migration of this blog as it is today.  For now I’ll just be going inactive here, deleting the app from my phone, etc., because there doesn’t seem to be a way to shutter my page without just deleting it all.  Their model for monetizing Tumblr is traffic-based for ad revenue, so absence should sufficiently make my point.

I’m sorry to see a less free internet, but I suspect I’ll find the best of you in other, more open venues.

3926 posts, 3138 followers, 7 years and 3 months of variously lurking, chatting, thirsting, laughing, crying, and raging our way through our history of personal, cultural, and political triumphs and travails.

Tumblr hasn’t been what it was when I started for a long time, so this is just the most substantial and most seemingly final of many goodbyes, but still it’s a sad moment.  I’ve drastically expanded my social circles here, and I’m sure part of me will miss it for a long time.

Thank you all for making this a fun, welcoming space for so long.  Farewell, denizens of Tumblr, fabulous deviants that you are.

[dancerindc]

It’s never too late. Our tree is finally up and definitely has donned its gay apparel! #christmas #christmastree #ornaments #decemberdiamonds #sparkle #gay #parkwaymanor @decemberdiamonds (at Cheverly, Maryland) https://www.instagram.com/p/BrdlrRPgab9/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1rwdqoj8edg2q

#christmas #christmastree #ornaments #decemberdiamonds #sparkle #gay #parkwaymanor

[dancerindc]

[dancerindc]

Rare Candy Treatment.

#pokémon

[dancerindc]

Do you do nudes? I bet you have a big cock :)

Well that’s a big step and if you’ve not seen it on my Tumblr it’s safe to say it’s not gonna happen now that the site’s imploding.

Come off anon and talk to me one on one - you never know what happens that way. 🤷🏼‍♂️

[dancerindc]

Someone fire tumbridge please

[dancerindc]

Happy days are here again! #me #selfie #us https://www.instagram.com/p/BrJvTO1HLzz/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ce27jm9lecbu

[dancerindc]

send butt pix before the purge

[dancerindc]

Reposting. For the most part my Tumblr is going to become IG posts, as I don’t anticipate spending much time here anymore (if any).

I can be found on Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. Just ask.

RIP Tumblr

Not sure where I’ll end up and how, but DM me if you want to stay connected. 🤷🏼‍♂️

[dancerindc]

It was a good year for music. #music #me https://www.instagram.com/p/BrDjhptg4Aq/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=19m1r71jwbwul

#music #me

[dancerindc]

Real talk, though, because it needs to be said: as much as we all joke that porn was the only good thing this place had left, the reality is that it being the only place where one could regularly engage with and promote sexual content being gone is really not understanding at all what makes this place special. I mean we all joke about “horny on main” and all that, but the reality is that for a lot of the LGTBQ+ community, particularly younger members still discovering themselves and members in extremely homophobic environments where most media sites were banned (but Tumblr wasn’t even considered important enough to be), this was a bastion of information and self-expression. For a lot of artists too, this was a great place to come and post NSFW work and get traction that became Patreon pages that became honest jobs. The problem with “family friendly” social media is that more often than not, the ones hit  the most by the whole family friendly nonsense are marginalized groups that have no vehicles to express themselves. Stuff like YouTube consistently bans or flags simple content featuring something as innocuous as two men kissing as “adult” content and makes it hard for LGBTQ+ content creators to compete with their non-queer peers for a lot of those reasons. The ultimate problem isn’t even that banning of NSFW content, it’s the general mess surrounding it and unintended consequences to these groups. For MONTHS Tumblr has had a huge problem with porn spam bots and outright child pornography, and for MONTHS the majority of the userbase has been in general consensus that both of these things needed to stop. Tumblr did NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. When Apple finally removed their app from the store, SPECIFICALLY because of the child pornography, Tumblr decided to do what any rich corporation owning a social media site with zero understanding of what makes it popular would do, and decided that the best course of action was to eat itself like an Ouroboros. Rather than admit that they have done an absolutely shit job at keeping pedophiles off this website and rather than hiring the necessary staff to carefully moderate content, they decided to loose a poorly programmed bot that literally deleted perfectly SFW blogs with thousands of followers, and rather than properly handling moderation, they decided that it was best to simply go the lazy route and block anything even remotely NSFW. They run this site in the worst way possible, and I don’t understand how @support or @staff or their completely oblivious “CEO” plans to keep this sinking ship alive.

[dancerindc]

RIP Tumblr

Not sure where I’ll end up and how, but DM me if you want to stay connected. 🤷🏼‍♂️

[dancerindc]

Thankful for 19 years today with my handsome husband. The ride gets more exciting all the time and I’m so grateful to have him by my side the whole way. Love you, @scotteichinger! #gpoy #gpoys #us #bear #otter #beards #gayscruff #husbands #love #anniversary https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq7bD7LA0DG/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=jp8ebc3py56m

#gpoy #gpoys #us #bear #otter #beards #gayscruff #husbands #love #anniversary

[dancerindc]

When your cat determines you’re not allowed to get up. #cats #catsofinstagram #apollo (at Cheverly, Maryland) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq6EmDSAgXg/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=3k0jizvybtox

#cats #catsofinstagram #apollo

[dancerindc]

Had a good weekend exploring national park sites dedicated to two abolitionists - Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. Enlightening and important. #findyourpark #nationalparks #history #abolition @goparks (at Frederick Douglass National Historic Site) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq5cbQgg0ej/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=l2enkcemuug9

#findyourpark #nationalparks #history #abolition