#other than pissing off the userbase | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

haxxy · 1 year

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just submitted a feedback thing to tumblr for the first time in my like... 10 years on this site, which feels crazy

it's wild to think that i've been here through so many changes, the yahoo acquisition, the porn ban, etc, but the shit that they've been doing lately was the final straw to get me to reach out directly

if you want to see my shitty text dump of a feedback submission, it's below the cut. I'm sure it'll probably just get ignored by staff, but I encourage everyone else who's pissed off about the stuff that's been happening to vocalize it in a way that's more direct than just pinging staff. They can't ignore all of us.

I'm generally not the type to send in feedback like this, but I've heard that this is the best way to reach out to staff, so I'm giving it a shot.

The changes being made on tumblr's mobile app are detrimental to the user experience. Altering the way photos and videos are formatted/viewed is unnecessary, and removing the ability to pinch to zoom will negatively impact accessibility.

Changing the mobile layout to have the tumblr mart icon replace the user icon is also a frustrating addition. It is fine to have tumblr mart and to make it accessible on mobile, but putting it in the bottom lineup and moving blog access into the upper corner comes across as an obnoxious advertising attempt. Tumblr mart should be displayed in the upper corner if it's displayed anywhere at all. In its current location, it just feels like an attempt to get people to misclick on it due to muscle memory. I have purchased things from tumblr mart before (blaze, crabs), but the more that it is pushed on users (first the "new" banner, then the sparkles, now the sparkling GIF and the icon being moved on mobile), the less I feel like I want to use it. I'm sure that others feel the same way.

Also, please either get rid of tumblr live or add a way to disable it permanently. I have not seen a single person talk about wanting this feature and it is a huge hassle to snooze it every week.

Tumblr is a website that people enjoy because of its differences. Trying to replicate the features of other social media sites comes across as an unoriginal cash grab at worst and a failure to listen to the userbase at best. Surely there's a way to implement interest checks on these features before rolling them out large scale, especially now that polls exist?

I've been on tumblr since 2012, so I've seen a lot of changes over the years, but the ones taking place recently have stood out as especially questionable. Generally, when major changes have occurred, there has at least been an effort to explain why they are taking place. Even if nothing is reversed from the current setup, could we at least get more announcements stating the reasoning for these decisions being made?

Thank you

#haxxy stop #it feels so stupid to get this worked up abt social media but idk #tumblr is pretty much THE ONLY social media site that I use. I am a tumblr monogamist #I like a lot of the changes they've made in recent history but it seems like they're on a bit of a downward spiral with this shit lately #i'm not sure if they're trying to be more marketable to people from other social media or what #but it really does feel like staff has just stopped listening whenever they were doing a pretty good job at it before #the shop thing is something that's really frustrating to me ngl #i don't care if they do stuff to make money. as said i've bought shit from the shop before and i'm sure i'll do it again #but i'm NOT a fan of having it shoved into my face + them taking advantage of muscle memory to make people click on it #which i'm sure was also the plan with tumblr live going where the fucking search bar was

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4thmagicwielder · 11 months

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I'm genuinely wondering which shareholders and developers with their heads up their asses think this website is going to make any money being yet another indistinguishable shitty twitter wannabe that's been popping up as of late that is coded worse, pisses off its loyal userbase that does in fact have their limits, is significantly smaller and less relevant no matter how hard they try, and doesn't even have porn outside of heavily restricted perimeters and is actively made a pain in the ass to find far moreso than again twitter. Litterally no appeal to this, I genuinely don't see some idiot buying this website again this time thinking they can make any money off it even with these changes. Also I know it's easy to forget nowadays with puritan developers, advertisers, and shareholders wanting you to forget, but porn cannot ever be underestimated with its significance to the internet and various other things and again was in fact and still is responsible for the site's largest exodus in its history when it was removed. To think they can make money by making twitter but without that is laughable.

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dashiellqvverty · 11 months

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there’s stuff i’m actually mad about re: tumblr rn and the MAIN one that pisses me off is the prev tags chain thing. like even before ‘prev tags’ took off and became a hot topic it was still common to just click back through to see other people’s tags. and while there is now a way to click back through to OPs post or the previous post by clicking the right part of the post, you can’t then go back to the blog BEFORE that one. which fucking sucks (actually i haven’t updated the app since this started and i’m using xkit on desktop so idek what state this is all in rn)

but anyway i don’t even hate it as much as other things it just makes me the angriest bc there is NO reason for it, and no reason not to listen to the userbase and switch it back. and it frustrates me when i see complaints about it on staff posts right next to complaints about tumblr live bc like… you know that’s never gonna change right?? obviously no one uses tumblr live, everyone wants to be able to turn it off permanently and not have to snooze it every week - but given all of that, i think it’s pretty clear that it’s executive-level decisions that tumblr is being made to implement?? like, the fact that there is a “snooze” option at all, to ME, says “we know none of you want this so this is how we compromised”

and similarly the fucking new viewer for pictures/gifs (why anyone thought it was a good idea to include images and gifs in this rather than just videos, i don’t know). that’s probably what i hate the most but i can see why there is pressure to do something like this and i don’t think feedback is going to make a difference. the reblog chains thing just fucking baffles me and i hate that they haven’t listened on that one - they did with the marketplace icon!!!

#such mixed feelings about this stuff bc like i so hate a lot of it and want to make that clear #but at the same time it’s like. well they do need to make money #not in a kiss ass way like omg the company needs moneyyyyyy #but like a website is run by employees. who need to be paid.#we can complain about staff all we want but they’re not gonna get any better if there’s not enough money to pay them #like ‘haha the site isn’t profitable’ is a funnie joke but literally a site needs to make money to stay online.#this is NOT me being like ummmm tumblr is a good egg and you should give them your money 🥺#i’m just like well idc if this site does some annoying shit if it means they don’t go fully offline #like the marketplace thing… yes it’s annoying and the marketing blog is weird #no i would never by tumblr merch #do i care that they are selling merch??? not really!!!#however i DO care - and this always rubbed me the wrong way since they first started selling shoelaces and color of the sky stuff #- that they are selling things based on posts. like that is content by your users that you are making money off of #just sell the stupid tumblr logo stuff it’s fine #r.txt

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exlimix1a · 2 years

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so clip studio paint is bad now or something?

Hmm, well. I think it's a little more complicated than that. Most things can't be ruled as black-and-white "good" or "bad".

Many people are rightly pissed at Clip Studio's new subscription model- nobody likes subscriptions and it's a very. bad decision on CSP's part. It reminds me of Robots (2005) 😭 If you don't consistently pay for Updates you'll eventually be outmoded and left behind by the team/there will no longer be support for old versions. and that's just. so so bad. Trying to force your userbase who Already Purchased the program (sometimes for hundreds of dollars) to give you MORE money on top of that is so :/ to me. Especially as a poor artist.

On the other hand, Clip Studio Paint itself is a wonderful program and I'll keep using it because I DO like the program as it stands right now and I'll be content without updates, and if all else fails it can either be pirated or we can switch to a new program (maybe going back to SAI?)

I can't say what CSP's finances look like and if the 1-payment model was unsustainable, but this model rightfully pissed off Everyone. I often view things like this as inevitable under a capitalistic system where you need to constantly be making More Money for stockholders or else they'll leave and drop you and you'll crash. but I also don't want to treat it as inevitable or else things'll never change

Overall, it's something you can decide your own feelings on. I'll likely still use it because I've spent a lot of money on it, and I don't know how much the update pass will be to begin with (though I don't plan on buying it). It's a bad decision on CSPs part, but the program itself is still pretty nice

#Exli speaks #Clip Studio Paint

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sheryl-lee · 2 years

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changes*tumblr*com/post/692141171135447040/ -- so apparently, even after all of the negative feedback, tumblr will still be going through with the mp4 change. they really don't care about gifmakers or our feedback, i'm pretty sure they've never even bothered to acknowledge our complaints in the first place.

yup i'm honestly not surprised, just pissed off. it's very typical of st*ff to ignore any valid concerns that its userbase has and go forward with implementing changes that are unnecessary and wildly harmful to a large percentage of said userbase. like... the quality of the conversions don't matter to us - the fact that our gifs are being converted at all is what we're upset about. the decision on st*ff's part to be so obtuse about that is just frustrating. we've repeatedly outlined the specifics of why this whole idea is bullshit and they still don't seem to be willing to listen.

st*ff basically saying "look see the mp4 quality is minimally better now so stfu" is so condescending and emphasizes to me that they truly don't give a shit about their users, and that they are deliberately ignoring the fact that this change will fundamentally alter the gifmaking process.

the fucking quality doesn't matter if the gifs aren't gifs anymore. there's no point in using ps to make a gif and export it as such when the entire gif is rendered into a 2 second video that alters the medium of the image, and i'm sure that there will be plenty of bugs and glitches and other additional issues that content creators will have to deal with once the change is fully implemented, because it's tumblr dot com. we can barely put up with the various issues we have to deal with as is - no one is going to stay on this site if we have to navigate this on top of everything else. and i'm sure that any workarounds that exist to avoid the mp4 conversion will have their own glitches, or tumblr will crack down on them over time until it can't be avoided. it's truly so fucking dumb and quite honestly i don't have the capacity to deal with it.

i love gifmaking and creating but i've never felt as discouraged and honestly disinterested in gifmaking as i do right now. i've been giffing on here for about 4-5 years and i've put up with a lot of bullshit, but this may be enough to make me quit, if not for a little bit than possibly for good. and i hate that, but i have enough going on in my personal life as is and i don't think i have the energy or mental capacity to create with so many obstacles. gifmaking should be fun and a way to communicate with others, but when all i see is a lack of interaction, people stealing/reposting my content, persistent negativity, and additional problems forced on me by the website i create for, there's little to no enjoyment remaining for me.

#sorry to rant but i'm just :///#💌 answered 💌

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papirouge · 2 years

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My problem with the Karen meme is that it's given people a way to immediately discredit and mock any woman who stands up for herself. It's a rebranding of calling a woman hysterical or over emotional. I totally get where you're coming from and the origin of it but cheesy white men are coming in and gleefully applying it to any woman who has an opinion or expresses displeasure with anything. I can't even have a woman call in with a complaint about the services our company provides without a gaggle of scrotes laughing and saying "oooo, we've got a Karen on the line!"

It's just stupid and we don't need to give men any more ammunition than they already have.

This narrative would made sense if Black twitter (who popularized the Karen meme) didn't do so to specifically "mock and discredit" WHITE women, and White women know that, that's why they're so pissed about it. That's also why you'll hardly see Black or Brown women whine about it bc they know that in most case, they aren't targetted by this meme, which started trending to call out entitled White women bothering (low wage) workers.

It has nothing to do with the stigma around hysterical women because those Karen are actually harming other people and sometimes threatening their life (when they call cops onto them).

I wish White feminist at least had the honesty to acknowledge it and be like "the Blacks are annoying to stigmatize White women like that" instead of trying to make it EVERY WOMAN's problem when it's not lol White just have this pathological incapability to take accountability without trying to paint themselves as victims somehow. And I'm also sure they are scared to sound off racist by calling off Black twitter (and by extension Black people) for making it popular...👀

If corny White men are now abusing this term is another story though As usual, these leeches are without proper humor and innovativeness and that's why they always rehash Black comedy and funny slang But White feminists better stop to try to tone police people (who aren't male or White) to say how Karen is aKtchUlLy mIsogYnist. We all know the scrote who 'invented' the Karen meme to diss his wife would have NEVER made that meme popular. Black twitter did, and for a whole other purpose than to clown a (White) women for simply being women. Sorry but that's the internet™ and you can't control whatever people do with meme or slang so those feminists sound ridiculous & desperate to obsessively remind in what context the Karen meme happened. We👏🏾don't👏🏾care👏🏾. It's as much stupid as saying whoever used a pepe the frog is a rightoid edgelord just bc 4chan made it popular….

Black twitter doesn't care, so does the whole internet, bc what made it so relevant and funny were those post clowing annoying White female customer calling them as such, not White scrotes.

PLUS weren't the same Whitefem screeching at the Karen meme defending not long agl in the name of freedom of speech & "iNteRnet CultUre" to defend Kiwifarm which is infamous for his retarded userbase respectively calling Blacks Jews and Arabs, Niggers, Glowies and sand Nigger?🤔 .....But the Karen meme is where they draw the line? "nigger" is freedom of speech/iNterNet cUltuRe but calling Karen annoying White women isn't? ...give me a break.🙄

Where's the so called freedom of speech of netizens to clown whoever they want with whatever funny slang they want? Meme culture is PEAK internet culture, but somehow now it's a problem? not actual racial slurs routinely spouted on a forum they got reaal quick to defend (just bc a trans got it taken down)....? See? that's precisely bc of this clownery that I will NEVER trust White feminist - they don't care about anyone but themselves and will never shut up about being victims of literally anything.

#they're just cranky for being called out on their crap lol #answered #whitefem be whitefeming

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sixthhokage1 · 7 months

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my thoughts on one of the automattic ceo's posts, crossposted from my mastodon account

"Out of the 11.5M monthly active users of Tumblr, only about 27k have subscribed, or about 0.2%. If that were 10 or 20% we could run the site forever."

yeah, but you know that's completely and utterly unrealistic, mullenweg

especially when your other attempts at making the site slightly less of a money sink and your moderation decisions keep pissing off your userbase

~why don't people subscribe~

i dunno, maybe they already pay for a bunch of other shit where the subscription offers more of a value-add than what uBlock Origin does for free and even then said other shit keeps actively getting worse For Growth™, they look at the history and current state of tumblr and what the subscription options offer, and decide it's not fucking worth it????

A year of ad-free Tumblr costs almost the same as what I pay Digital Ocean for the VPS Jubilife[*] runs on, and I'd much rather spend the $576 a year that I do on [Jubilife]

[*: The tiny Mastodon instance I run, Jubilife Global Terminal]

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captn3 · 2 years

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🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻 AHHHHH

WOOOAH SO MANY SUNFLOWERS this is just like mother 3 gonna do 2 cause u sent so many 1: as terrible and absolutely horrific as the 2b2t server's userbase is, 2b2t itself is actually quite the unique server. while i would be afraid to play it at all due to the frequent slurs thrown around constantly, and the bad things built sometimes, and just in general how unsurvivable spawn is, the server's history is fascinating to me. this little pocket of society in minecraft has whole history of wars and drama and so much happening. anarchy servers are crazy 2: what a lot of ppl dont know about splatoon is that like. the inkling/octoling hair is significant. let me explain- every inkling has 10 tentacles in their swim form. but in their kid form, they have 4 limbs and 6 hair tentacles. 6 + 4 equals 10. so basically, inklings can only have 6 hair tentacles. no less, no more. of course there's the possibility of inklings without some, similar to how some of us dont have all our limbs, and the other way around, but for the most part this is the case, and i see ocs all the time that dont reflect this. but it doesnt necessarily piss me off- i only care about it when it comes to canon designs. for octolings, its similar- but instead of the sum being 10, its 8, cause. well. they're octopus. in their swim form, they have 8 tentacles. in their kid form, they have 4 limbs, 4 hair tentacles. cutting hair is a whole other thing- inklings can cut their hair however they wish- which leads to some confusing hairstyles that look like they have more or less than 6 hair tentacles, but in reality, its just the way it's cut. but when octolings cut their hair, its different. when an octoling cuts their hair, the remaining cut off tentacle regrows into a different type of octarian, the ones we see in the story mode. and the octoling's hair grows back, presumably, so deceiving hair cuts like inklings have are probably harder to get. buuut this could be a bit off, cause shiver's hair is a mess to make sense out of. and theres also the afro octoling haircut which is just one huge blob.

#ask #disabledknockout

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antirepurp · 3 years

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i thought about this problem with fic sites last night and tried to like look and see what options there are but like, it really just boils down to a bunch of sites no one really uses anymore and a//o3? so either you can choose a site that (hopefully) is run by people with standards who don’t tolerate harmful content, or a cesspool where the admins boast about how inclusive they are by allowing absolutely vile bullshit to be uploaded there and effectively provide a breeding ground for freaks, and shift away any criticism that comes their way by pointing at the tag system and telling people to just filter tags instead of doing something about the p3do bait and racist bs and fics of Real Fucking People, and whatever the fuck else they have going on. and the userbase will defend to the ends of the earth and argue that removing the gross content means getting rid of all the gay stuff as well, because as we know homosexuality and p3dophilia are definitely on the same goddamn boat here /s. and thus these fine folks shovel more money to this god-awful site than necessary while there are like, actual good causes that money could go towards. but no the spicy fics featuring their favorite minors are more important.

and yet! and yet that’s seemingly the only place where your writing can get any traction whatsoever? because who fucking uses like. wattpad. ff.net. the other obscure places. it’s like how like we have 7 massive sites are drawing in everyone on the internet and things like forums and people’s own original sites just get lost for most of us. and it pisses me off because of Course i want people to read what i write, but that kind of forces me to use a site that does absolutely nothing to curate it’s content to the bare minimum you’d expect it to. and like, if the staff was willing to listen to people and maybe change their policies on some of this shit, i think i’d be more okay with that you know? because things could improve? but they clearly don’t seem to give a shit because, you know, we gotta let people upload their racist fantasies and child p0rn, because we’re Cool and Inclusive and if we put our foot down on one or two things we have to ban handholding and gays as well, because it’s all or nothing up in this bitch. funny enough it fucking reminds me of rainfurrest and how that all went to shit partially because the staff let people act like shitheads, so it became the convention where people went to act like shitheads, and you probably know how that story ends.

but yeah. this shit fucking sucks. and i don’t know if im going to be a hypocritical asshole if i try to hop on again just so i can have more people read my shit, because funny internet numbers release serotonin and make me feel nice. or if i have to give up and use the obscure sites with like 7 other fics in the same f4ndom as mine. idk man

#shut up soda #i need like a ''super shut up soda'' tag for this lmao #long post #idk if i need to trigger tag mentions of topics please please let me know if i should (and how i should also)#sorry i know no one wants to hear me rant about things but this hasn't left me alone still #at least this isn't like. me shitting on gens/colors again askdjha

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opalsiren · 3 years

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roasting the season three wedding outfits

during my ranking of every dress that rikki wears on h2o i had an epiphany: everyone at sam and don’s wedding in season three looks like crap. i would even go so far as to say that sam was the only person to look good at her own wedding. this post will mostly consist of me being petty and pointing fingers at the costume design team for squandering the opportunity to style their mains for a wedding, offering alternatives to the, ahem, choices that were made when dressing cleo, rikki, and bella. i tried to keep my selections consistent with early 2010s fashion while also in keeping with the personal style of each girl

again credit to the homies at h2o wiki for sourcing many of the below images. as always click for better views since tumblr hates its userbase. let the roast begin! we’re starting with...

cleo’s salmon dress

cleo’s fit is not the worst offender in this category by any means. however given how drop dead gorgeous phoebe tonkin is, it’s a pity that she pissed off the costume team enough sometime prior to this episode that they chose to enact revenge on by putting her in this… whatever this is. lewis’s lovestruck expression as she walks down the stairs never fails to amuse me during rewatches. the dress is ill-fitting, sitting way too low on the bust, shapeless, and poorly styled in general; what is up with the hairdo which is more mako mermaids than mature, sophisticated young adult? seriously, no eighteen year old would be caught dead with their hair styled in such a distinctly juvenile fashion. this critique also extends to the dress itself which suits teenage kim more than her elder sister. i’m not saying that cleo should have shown more skin or worn six inch heels, but something a little more grown up wouldn’t have gone amiss. i’m not mad at the salmon pink against cleo’s colouring, but the costume team have long since established greens and purples as cleo’s soul colours. this is not to say that she shouldn’t be allowed to wear any other colour. still i would have killed to see her in some jewel tones like either one of these choices:

coral pink monstrosity aside, cleo would slay in something like the purple dress with lace and ruffle detailing pictured above. it plays into her penchant for 70s boho and would absolutely suit the beachy vibe of the wedding. a simple updo and strategic accessories would really elevate the look (plus it comes in teal green too if that’s more your thing!). alternatively she would also rock this peacock green, grecian-inspired number. it suits the understated simplicity of cleo’s style, and would play up her pretty green eyes too. next!

rikki’s royal blue dress

i won’t spend a ton of time on this one since i thoroughly eviscerated it back in my ranking all of rikki’s dresses post. the tl;dr is that the colour and shape are unflattering, and even season three rikki would absolutely refuse to wear a dress with a giant bow on the front. i offered some edgier seafoam green alternatives for rikki in the aforementioned post, but our girl has a number of absolutely iconic red dresses throughout the series so i thought i’d style her in something similar this time ‘round:

above left is an obvious callback to season one’s red dress; the ruffle feature at the bodice is almost an inverse of the detailing at the hem of its predecessor. the dress isn’t too overly ostentatious, but the traffic-stopping red just screams rikki. my other choice, a hi-lo one-shoulder dress with, you guessed it, ruffle detailing, is also inspired by the iconic season one red dress. it has just enough edge to be rikki-approved but is still feminine and elegant. last and possibly least is...

bella’s black and white dress

i once said that rikki’s blue dress was my villain origin story. at the time i was joking, but this might actually be true of bella’s dress. bella, baby, i’m so sorry they did you like this. there is just… nothing redeeming about this look whatsoever, from the weird earrings and weirder bangle to the skirt which belongs on a toddler’s dress to the pattern that belongs on that of a much older woman. while the others look quite juvenile, bella’s look is simultaneously giving immaturity AND fifty-year-old art teacher who shops exclusively at desigual. why is it so difficult to style teenagers in an age-appropriate fashion? also, wearing a white dress to another woman’s wedding is nothing short of sacrilege, even if said said dress isn’t fully white. i will say that the fit is slightly better than rikki and cleo’s dresses. still this entire look is a letdown given that bella wears some of the best dresses in h2o canon. she’s my least fave mermaid but girl does rule in the style stakes. furthermore, indiana evans is such a beauty that she could pull off almost anything, but this just ain’t it, chief. my picks are:

bella wears a number of blue dresses in the series, and the aqua blue dress above is nothing short of striking. she loves a strapless moment and the silhouette is pretty too. however it’s mostly the colour that sells me on this dress for bella. aquamarine would match her eyes and crystal necklace, as well as complement her complexion beautifully. my other selection is a chiffon maxi dress in bright coral orange, a colour that we don’t see bella in much of but which would suit her perfectly nonetheless. it’s both beach wedding- and age-appropriate too!

what did you think of my selections? did you like how the girls were styled at the wedding, or would you have made better life choices? should we have gotten a cutesy shopping montage? is sam roberts the one saving grace of season three? does cleo deserve a hug for putting together her dad’s entire wedding in her final year of school while the love of her life is strongly considering fucking off to america? sound off in the notes!

#this post was originally ranking the dresses that bella wrears and devolved into this. but like. let a bitch know if you want to see that #post i guess!#also if you like the og dresses i'm accepting constructive criticism at this time. i know i'm such a hater but it's fun to be salty #and there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a young person^tm who dresses like a young person^tm. it's just weird because for most of #h2o the teenagers dress like actual teenagers without showing too much skin. but also not being afraid to look a little edgy or experimenta #so in that regard the wedding was a totally miss. like compare the season one dance dresses to the season three wedding fits and you'll see #what i mean. but i guess it's all subjective anyway!#h2o #h2o: just add water #.txt #h2o just add water

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thewillowbends · 3 years

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Please learn with fetishization actually means and stop throwing it around when you really just mean "I don't ship that and it makes me mad others do." You only shipping het ships and thinking they are the One True And Only Superior Pairings and that everyone else is crazy and wrong and shitting on them for shipping mlm is a real bad look.

(It looks like homophobia. It sounds like homophobia. Tastes like it, too. I think it might just be homophobia. And wtf are you doing, tracking all shippers down and preforming sexuality brain scans to figure out if they're straight or not? Most people shipping LGBT+ are LGBT+, closeted or out, knowing or unknowing yet. Care about how people treat real people, because that's what matters. And you seem to treat them shitty.)

I literally came in here for two minutes to log out of this account for the rest of the month for spoiler reasons, and man am I glad I did, because I would've been even more pissed to come back to this in a few weeks.

For the record, I am literally bisexual, anon, and have been in romantic relationships with adult women. "Only ship het?" If you bothered to look at my fanfiction page or even scrolled down this blog, you'd see I've written several mlm and wlw pairings, not just het ones, not that shipping primarily het content means shit one way or another considering it dominates most media.

Not all straight women fetishize mlm, but I've encountered a hell of a lot of them who do. I literally just had to deal with somebody in current fandom who did that and then pretended it lended them some insight into LGBT+ issues and their ability to judge the validity of LGBT+ representation in media. For that record, it's not acceptable for bi or lesbian women to portray it that way, either, but since we make up a significantly smaller portion of the population than straight women, I somehow doubt we're responsible for mlm dominating 50% of the AO3 archive. I do not have to sit here and put the kid gloves on for my blunt opinions about people's internalized misogyny and homophobia.

Try using some of your own logic and stop assuming people the people whose rhetoric you don't agree with are straight. Anon asking is now turned off since this is literally the second ask I've received in one week containing biphobia or outright erasure of my sexual identity in my inbox. I have had my limit of the intellectual deficit and rampant hypocrisy that makes up Tumblr's discourse userbase in my inbox.

#literally one of the stupidest fucking things I've ever gotten in my inbox

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bondsmagii · 5 years

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I mean to ask this genuinely, no hostility, but can you explain how you correlate scp to being in a cult? I dont disagree, I just cant articulate the reasoning as to why I dont disagree, and would like to see where youre coming from with this. Also, could you tag it with cults or cult discussion or something similar, please? Thanks! Have a good day.

OK [cracks knuckles] I will try and keep this as short as possible, but you have to understand I’ve been observing the wiki in the wild literally since its inception, so there is a lot of stuff to consider. anyway let’s buckle up.

[EDIT: after finishing, this is obnoxiously long. sorry. I encourage people to read it though, because yikes.]

I base this theory on a set of guidelines set out for spotting if an organisation might be a cult. generally cults are religiously based; obviously this does not apply here. as far as I’m aware, nobody sees the SCP wiki as a religion (yet). because of this a couple of the points regarding spotting a cult are irrelevant (they concern things like separation from the Church which obviously doesn’t apply) but nearly all of the others (even some religious ones) can apply if we provide context. so without further ado:

Signs You’re In A Cult and How the SCP Wiki Literally Fits Into All of Them

let’s start with the most obvious:

opposing critical thinking

something that has long pissed me off about the SCP wiki has been its complete inability to think critically. staff will literally ban people for criticising them, and the parameters of “criticism” have only grown wider and wider over the years. anything that is the “party line” is sacred; nothing can be improved upon because it’s already perfect, and Staff Knows Best. any policy changes are law, and any dissenting voices are silenced – even among younger staff members (length of service wise, not age wise). I have seen staff put on probation or demoted for arguing against pointless or pedantic policy changes; I have seen people of all levels banned for arguing with staff. if this doesn’t happen right away, arguing with staff over their decisions will absolutely get a target on your back, and they will find a way to ban or demote you as soon as they can.

any criticism on the wiki is frowned upon unless it comes from the Major Staff Members – these are people at the top of the hierarchy who can do no wrong, and as you can imagine, they’ve done some shit. staff has always had a problem with elitism, bullying, and even abusive behaviour (blah blah blah #NotAllStaff, but the ratio is quite concerning) and any criticism of their behaviour or even pointing this fact out is dangerous if you want to remain on the wiki. hell, I know many people who are aware of this who don’t speak up because they’re genuinely scared of retaliation. a lot of staff are really nasty people, and because of this attitude they are beyond criticism.

isolating members and penalising them for leaving

the penalising them for leaving part isn’t strictly accurate, because as far as I know, nobody has ever been bullied or threatened into staying on the wiki. however, I do remember a while back (2011/2012-ish) when the Foundation RP community began to show up on Tumblr, and the wiki began to get a fanbase that wasn’t contained on the site itself. staff were not happy about this and to this day they still constantly try and get a monopoly on all off-site locations. they have an official Offsite Outreach Team (yes, that’s its real name) who “reach out” to communities on other platforms (YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr, etc) and set up an Official Presence there, and then they encourage everyone to use the Official Presence rather than the fan-made ones (which are often more established and better/more consistently run). there have been several off-site spats between staff and the fandom, because they arrive demanding the authority and respect they have on the wiki and get Big Mad when they don’t get it. just recently one (now ex) staff member, djkaktus, went absolutely primal on Reddit and banned a whole bunch of the community for daring to say that they didn’t like the new LGBT logo for pride month (many of these people were LGBT themselves and felt as though it was pandering/putting targets on their backs); several more years ago (2014, I believe?) I myself had a run in with the Outreach Team and it was one fucking hell of a headache that ended in a malicious smear campaign against me, so like. yeah.

as for isolating members, they do this via elitism. the above is an example of it (making everyone feel a sense of obligation or loyalty to the Official Presence), but a huge part of it has always been the elitist attitude prevalent on the wiki. the SCP wiki has high standards for writing (allegedly… I’ve seen some garbage on there tbh, same as any other website) and it uses this to bully and demean its users. criticism of writing is overly harsh but highly encouraged; anyone complaining that it was too cruel (which it often is) is ridiculed for being too sensitive. (staff have been working on this for years, but really nothing has changed; people have just gotten more between-the-lines about it.) this encourages a kind of desperation among new users to “rise up the ranks” and earn respect so they can be the ones dishing out the criticism instead; they will do so and then immediately act in accordance to their status, bullying others how they were bullied and sticking to their own “rank”. brief interruption: staff and bootlickers if you’re reading this and thinking of reblogging to defend yourself, the code word is yeet. if I do not see the word yeet in your reply I will know you have not read this thoroughly and tell me why I should then bother reading anything you have to say.staff themselves is incredibly removed and closed off from the rest of the community; they have a bunch of private chat rooms they hang out in, and inter-dating is common. they don’t tend to interact much outside the flock, and are the definition of cliquey. joining this rank is supposed to be an achievement, but really it’s probably the most dangerous place to be. I have seen so many staff members have literal, clinical mental breakdowns over the strain and treatment they suffer.

(there’s nowhere to neatly slot this in, so: I don’t know how many people have noticed this, but SCP fans, when you spot them on other platforms, are snooty. not casual fans, but those involved with the wiki? I can spot them from a mile away, because whenever the Foundation is mentioned, there they are, acting like they’re part of some cool club. some of these people are innocent (they’re just mimicking the behaviour of other members) but some of them really do seem to think that their site is somehow better than whatever site they’re on, and it’s really creepy to see.)

emphasising special doctrines outside of scripture

obviously this is religion-specific, but with context it can fit. if we take scripture to mean SCP lore, and special doctrines to mean differing headcanons, ideas, writing styles, etc… oh boy.

there’s something that’s often said on the wiki: there is no canon. buddy, there is. yes, you can write whatever you want technically, and you can disregard headcanons you don’t like and you can build on different things and theoretically people can just ignore your shit if they don’t like it, but that is not what happens. there is absolutely a canon, and deviating from it will get you downvoted into oblivion and even personally attacked. people will accuse you of the most ridiculous shit, like desecrating the wiki or betraying the universe or whatever. so where does the emphasising part of this come in?

why, it’s simple! if one of these special doctrines (headcanons or whatever) comes from staff or an Approved Member, it’s fine. go nuts. even if it’s something that anybody else would be absolutely slaughtered for, it’s fine if staff approves. there is no creative freedom on that wiki, and anyone attempting to carve a piece out for themselves will suffer for it. one of my close friends still gets hate for an SCP he wrote featuring heavy headcanons and building on existing lore about a well-known character, and some of this hate is because he didn’t set the fucking article out “how it should be”.

seeking inappropriate loyalty to their leaders

oh boy. staff are god on that website. they’ll deny it, but they know it’s true. many of them are arrogant and, in my opinion, some of them are pathologically narcissistic. they think they are hot shit, and they encourage people on the site to believe the same. a huge majority of users on the wiki are high school students, so 15-18 years old. the next huge group are college-aged, so 19-22 or so. several staff members are in their mid-20s up to 30s, maybe even coming 40s or early 40s now. when you’re in your mid-20s, it’s very easy to look cool to a 15-year-old. it’s very easy to look at a young userbase and convince them that you’re hot shit, and that’s what staff do. they act like it; most users respond to it, and if anyone dissents? see point one.

staff have always had double standards. from the very beginning of staff, they have gotten away with a lot more than the average user. staff have been allowed to bully, ridicule, harass, dismiss, shit upon, and target people with reckless abandon, usually only meeting punishment when other staff members feel too inconvenienced by them. a lot of the time when they’re punished, it’s a lot lighter than it would have been for an average user (a month ban rather than a permaban, for example). this is seen as almost a point of hilarity for a lot of people, who think it’s cool and just a right you get when you’re staff. you know best, you’ve seen some shit – who can blame you for slamdunking a 15-year-old’s first SCP?

the amount of respect and adoration these people demand is ridiculous, and anybody daring to criticise them ends up on a shitlist. staff show up in other areas (Tumblr or Reddit) and expect that same amount of respect, even among people outside of the wiki who might just be casual fans. they act a lot more important than they are, and demand that everyone treats them appropriately. I’ve seen staff members throw shitfits because they didn’t get enough upvotes for their articles, and many staff members’ quality of work declines when they make staff, simply because they know that they’ll get easy upvotes as soon as people realise it’s a staff member who wrote it. downvotes are enough to get you put on a shitlist.

publicly, their word is law. you are not allowed to debate with them in the forums if they put a “stop” on the topic; the same applies in the IRC chat. if staff says “stop”, you will be punished if you mention it again. you are allowed to discuss it with them privately, but I think that’s rather insidious, as staff have been known to twist facts and withhold information before. this gives them a public persona of always being right – and something else that cults do is silence dissenting voices so nobody who might agree can see other people saying the same things and feel encouraged/emboldened.

crossing Biblical boundaries of behaviour

again, we’ll need to contextualise this. if Biblical boundaries are things like sins and all the stuff the Bible says Do Not Do, then in this context these are the wiki rules. staff (and their friends) will constantly cross the rules, as previously mentioned, and they will get away with it.

the wiki rules say “don’t be a dick”. I have caught staff bullying people countless times, and no doubt there’s more I haven’t caught. even out in the open, staff are argumentative, dismissive, rude, intimidating, and oftentimes plain nasty. the wiki rules say “don’t coldpost articles; get feedback”. staff is just out there throwing their shit onto the wiki and expecting an avalanche of upvotes in five minutes Or Else. policies are made that set parameters and staff changes them whenever convenient – for example, the long-standing rule that things that occur off-site are not the responsibility of the Disciplinary Committee (yes, its name.). unless, of course, it’s someone they don’t like. a major staff member bullies somebody on Tumblr? “sorry, it was offsite, not our problem”. someone staff doesn’t like gets into a brief spat on Reddit? banned for harassment.

there are countless examples of this, from small things to major things like bullying, harassment, and even abuse (or enabling of abuse). staff will punish people for transgressions and then turn a blind eye to a fellow staff member committing a transgression that was ten times worse. they have even protected rapists and sexual predators in the past – another kind of behaviour common in cults, because that’s what happens when you combine narcissism and entitlement with total authority.

that’s the main bulk of it

but now the context has been established, here are a few more concerning things I’ve noticed (quickfire now):

cults shit on former members

and the wiki does the same. any staff member that’s grown fed up of the groupthink and the cliquey attitude and how nasty people are or who has been mistreated by staff themselves; any regular user who feels the same and vocally quits? shat upon. lauded as a bastion of whatever is wrong with the wiki. declared an Enemy and rallied against. it is so creepy.

cults use Us vs Them mentality, especially in language

broad declarations establishing a community and a community spirit in the face of adversity are common in cults. appeals to emotion and loyalty are used in a very manipulative way. catastrophising and fearmongering is common, too. I’m seeing this in how the recent drama with the legal issues is being handled. broad appeals to “defend the wiki”, hashtags being encouraged, emotional speeches from staff about how it’s a make or break situation…

…and this is being reflected in the absolutely insane comments people are responding with.

this is a fucking writing website. the above is not a normal reaction at all.

the attitudes of regular users quickly grow concerning

people very quickly get obsessed with the wiki and it defines their lives. they seem to feel as though they owe something to it or they need to serve some kind of a purpose; many people try and “get the word out” and become voluntary spokespeople. they go around practically preaching, and I do not see the users of any other website doing this.

cults want full control over how they’re seen by outsiders

and the scp wiki does the same. as mentioned previously, when the fandom grew and spiralled off the wiki to other sites, staff debated for weeks over what to do. brief interruption the second code is shrek is life.they were not comfortable with the idea of the wiki having an independent fandom, and for years now they have been in constant struggle with offsite communities, trying to gain the same amount of control they have over the wiki. it’s impossible to do so thoroughly, and it’s clearly an annoyance for them.

cult leaders will let “lesser” members do their dirty work for them

and guess what staff does? rather than wade in there and get their hands dirty with internet arguments, they’ll sit back and let regular users dogpile on dissenters and say all the things staff shouldn’t be seen to say in public. note how even if this would violate the bullying policies, they’ll just get a warning so long as staff agrees.

in conclusion

@ everyone on the scp wiki: yall know you’re in a cult, right?

#scp shenanigans #scp foundation #cult discussion #long post #like LONG post #anon #asks

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