#getting started

[stevetown]

A Tumblr Quick Start Guide

A year ago, I realized that every time I logged onto Twitter, I felt my blood pressure rise. It's a platform that runs on anger and outrage, and I wanted someplace better to spend my screen time. In my almost-year on Tumblr, I now realize I log on here and get one or two good laughs every time I check my dashboard.

Tumblr has given me a lot lately, but it is a bit different than other platforms. I'd like to give back a little and provide a quick-start guide on how being new to Tumblr worked for me.

Finding Things to Follow

The biggest thing I had to get used to was realizing that on Tumblr, you don't necessarily follow people or celebrities or politicians. You follow your interests. In fact, it's pretty common to follow only strangers that post things you like. That can make your empty dash daunting to fill! Let's fill it with things you love and make you happy.

Make a list, mental or otherwise, of things you're interested in. Be both broad and specific! Board Games. Magic The Gathering. Supernatural. Marvel. Video Games. 8-Bit. Urban planning. Any and all things that you like!

Pick one of your interests and search for that tag. Flip between "Latest" and "Top" and browse around to see what kind of content is in that tag. You'll notice images, art, gif sets, TikToks, videos, essays - all sorts of things!

If you see a lot of things you like, cool! Click the button to Follow that tag if you want to keep up to date on it and find things later (we'll come back to this).

If you see a post you love, check out who posted or reblogged it. Scroll around on their blog. Do they post similar stuff? Are there other things you like here? Are they posting often? If you like what they post, follow the blog! Congrats, you've followed your first blog!

Take some time and check out some other tags and follow the same process - follow tags you like and blogs you might be interested in. It's not possible to over-follow! You can always curate your list later. This isn't Twitter - no one cares if you unfollow someone. Find what makes you happy.

Go back to your main dashboard - how are things looking? Filled with things you're interested in? Excellent. If things don't work for you, don't be afraid to unfollow blogs.

Want to follow more blogs? New episode of Andor drop? Go to the "Your Tags" header and scroll around to find some more juicy content. Check out blogs you like, follow 'em if you like em, rinse and repeat! That's curating your dash!

Your Blog is Your House

Okay, so you have a dashboard of content that you like - but what do you do with it all? Someone once described a Tumblr blog to me like your little house that you can fill with all the things you like. There is no rhyme or reason, and you don't need an excuse to reblog something other than the fact that you liked it!

If you see something you like, reblog it! To me, I reblog things when I say "I like this and I want it to live in my house so other people can see it when they come visit"

Reblogging is like passing a message along to other people. You can just reblog it on its own to amplify it, or you can add your own tags, or if you have a funny reaction gif/thought/video/thousand-word-essay, add to it when you reblog!

Use tags. People actually find posts through tags here. Use them to help people discover that really cool reblog you found! You can also search for tags on specific blogs. This makes them great for categorizing posts on your own blog. For example, I use #2022 Game Journal when I blog about whatever game I'm playing so I can do a year-end review later and find all the posts later.

Like things too. Likes don't amplify posts, but they're nice to let a poster know you appreciated it! I also use likes a bookmark. Sometimes I don't have time to watch that TikTok, so I'll like it as a reminder to come back to it later.

Be Weird. You can have sideblogs to hold more specific content, but don't be afraid to just scoop up anything you like and put it in your house! Reblogging is how content gets passed around.

Random Blog Tips

Wow nice job, your blog's looking great! Before you know it, someone will find it, check out your posts, and maybe give you a follow if they like what you've made or what your reblog! The last thing I'll touch on here are some nitty-gritty tips that can help you think about all the meta stuff about Tumblr:

Tumblr is the most anonymous social media platform. No one has to know who you are. Take advantage of all the privacy options.

You can also hide likes and who you follow from public view - that's no one else's business! Turn off asks too if you want.

Play around with your settings in general - there are lots of customization options and other dash tabs that you can use to find new content. You can also turn on timestamps so you know if a post you see is a "heritage post," as they say. Content is evergreen here and I personally like to see that in action.

You can filter and hide tags that you don't want to see.

Just block people liberally, it's cool.

You can pay to remove ads (nice), but you can also leave the option to see Blazed posts on. Blazed posts are ones that people pay for impressions for - and any post can be Blazed. The kicker is, there's no ad targeting. It can be quite funny or quite annoying depending on what you want.

When viewing the notes on a post, you'll see comments, reblogs, and likes. For the reblogs section, I like to filter by "Comments only" to find what people have added to the post.

Like all social media sites, there are dark corners here. I think Tumblr more than most puts you in control to curate your Dashboard to only see what you want. Block a user, hide a post, and move on.

That should be quite enough to get started! Tumblr can take a little more time to "get" compared to other social media platforms (and get in on the long-running jokes!), but trust me, after a week, you'll notice the difference between checking your Tumblr dashboard and checking your Twitter timeline.

Your blood pressure will thank you.

#tumblr #twitter #twitter refugees #tips #getting started

[thismommyisforreal]

My dears I wish you a weekend full with Fun and Joy 🤩

#desire #passionate #weekend vibes #firstprince #affection #mommyandme #romcom #beautiful mature #lifestyle #self love #hourglass #cougar #goddess #sumblr #getting started

[pkmnirlevents]

Please remember to be respectful of your fellow roleplayers! It doesn't matter if you personally do not like the muse they are playing, you should never send harassing asks to another person out of character. Always ask for clarification before sending upsetting in character messages in their inbox. Communicate with members of your community.

Often many of the roleplayers you see are talking extensively behind the scenes before making higher stakes posts, only the tip of the iceberg may appear on blog. These are rarely spontaneous, unplanned things, and if they are the person will often say as much on their profile. Never assume someone is automatically okay with this kind of behavior. Remember these blogs are run by real people.

Be kind to one another.

#mod sneasel #general psa #getting started

[exitwound]

I love beer woman and death . But i eat veggie burgers if that’s ok with you

#z #k #getting started

[queersatanic]

heyo! what can i, a teen in a really boring wealthy neighborhood with no queer community, do to combat fascism/make people aware of how wasteful and bigoted they are/generally fuck things up?

thanks so much!!

Before we get into the meat of your question, one thing we're hearing from this ask that you're going to want to keep an eye on is the idea that you know more than other people and need to educate people from a place of superiority over them. This is something that liberals do quite a lot, and while there's not a lot of reason to be sympathetic to reactionaries, something they are justified in responding negatively to is the patronizing idea that they just lack awareness of how wasteful or bigoted they are (in reality, they have a different set of values, and those values lead them to reasonable, but harmful, ends).

That is not the main point of your ask or this answer, but just watch in yourself the urge to view your self as better than others, speaking down to them.

OK, to the main point of your ask: A really important first step is going to be honestly evaluating the level of risk you're willing to take.

If you are a teenager in a wealthy family, this is probably the time when you are least likely to be meaningfully punished for, for example, breaking laws. However, there will may still be consequences for you that you don't like. Do you have parental support? Do you rely on them for your finances, or do you have some independent income? What is your support network like in general in case you make some of your peers or authority figures upset with you? Etc.

So that's the first thing: think about what sort of consequences you are currently prepared to deal with, with the understanding that may change later for you.

To give you one example: graffiti is great. The one that will probably get you in the most trouble but has some of the highest utility is spraypainting. Of course, if you don't already have artistic hobbies, it may be obvious if you go out and buy a bunch of spraypaint cans then tags start showing up all over your neighborhood, and this might be something you want to keep in mind. But there's also slap stickers, mop markers, wheatpasting. Actually, @crimethinc has a few guides on this already.

That's one example of an area that you can start doing things in with minimal resources and without needing a large group of people. It allows you to get started, which is the important thing. You are transformed by your practices much more than your plans for future practices, and you'll learn lots of things with real understanding that you only learned about from reading or hearing someone else talk about it.

But you do probably want to do things with other people, and most of them will be initially constrained by legality, so start talking to your peers if you aren't already. Don't lead with, "Hey, do you want to do illegal things together?" (and again, that may not be what you're ready for now, anyway). However, you do need to find other people who are interested in the same sorts of things that you are, and face-to-face conversations are the best way to go about this whenever possible.

You said you're a teen, so the assumption is that you're in school. If so, is there an issue on your campus that lots of your fellow students have a grievance against? Can you organize against that?

For example, is there a tardy policy that people feel is unfair? Can you work toward a collective protest by making everyone be tardy to class for a period, a whole day, a whole week, to overwhelm the system? Does the school have rules that are queerphobic? Is there a perhaps smaller group of people who care about that who can organize a walkout?

If you're out of school and at a job, do you have a union there? Do you have a groupchat that excludes management in order to complain about scheduling or unsafe duties or wage theft? Since it sounds like you still live at home, you're probably more willing to take risks at work than people who rely on jobs to pay rent and avoid eviction, but you likely share some concerns in common you can act on.

You're going to best know the issues local to you, but it's a place to start and get people in the practice of self-organizing and acting directly against hierarchical power.

In doing that, you're going to find other people who are perhaps willing to do illegal acts like graffiti with you. Or who have completely different skills and interests, for example cooking. Meals are a good way to bring people together and bond, and can also be extended to others who need it. By getting to know someone who knows how to cook, you can learn skills that help you later, like starting a local "Food Not Bombs" group for folks who would otherwise miss meals.

There's a lot of things that you can do, can do yourself, and can organize with others directly. It is not easy, but it's often very fun, and it will give you skills you can use later in life, as well as open the imagination of lots of other people about what can be done and how.

CrimethInc again has lots of other resources that you may want to become familiar with:

("Theory" and "praxis" aren't really in tension with one another. You read things other people have done to take advantage of their mistakes and experiences, but you still have to go out and do things yourself to really understand it for your situations and yourself.)

#ask me anything #ask me anons #anarchism #direct action #crimethinc #getting started

[headspacedad]

so you're ready to socialize

You've got your blog set up. You've posted or reblogged something. Your icon isn't a faceless orange shape. You're no longer in danger of being blocked on sight as a bot.

Now what?

I recently got an ask in my inbox for help with this whole 'tumblr' thing. The person that asked me had a lot of the basics down so I focused on expanding your social circle - except it took me so long to write that I saved it in my drafts to add to and only then found out that once its in your drafts you can't reply privately.

so - Imma post it here without the actual ask so if the person didn't want to be mentioned they won't. Let's go!

First off, doing what you're doing right now by sending me an ask is a great way to get the ball rolling. Reaching out to other people and engaging them is a big part of how you can build a circle on tumblr.

You can do that with inbox messages.

You can do that with DM/PMs (the box that pops up to the side where you can have real time text conversations).

You can do that by reblogging other people's posts and leaving notes in the tags commenting about the post (most posters read these, though they're more for your followers to get your thoughts on a matter, like whispering in a movie theater except without the dirty looks)

reblog their post and add your own comments in the body of the post, basically chaining a response to their post, usually used when you've got something that adds to the original post like a continuation of the joke or more facts, etc.

and you can comment on the posts via the little speech bubble next to the reblog button, which is kind of like replying personally to the post (interacting with the poster themselves).

Not everyone will automatically engage in response. Some people are just here to chill and don't want to be social (some days I know I don't have the brainpower for it). A lot of people do want to be social though and so the more you comment outward the higher your chances of finding other people you can jive with. A good way to make your chances better at finding someone that will back and forth with you is over shared interests. We're a very interest based site. So find something you're excited about - maybe its a hobby like knitting, maybe its a streaming series like Good Omens, maybe its hamsters, maybe its Elizabethan neck ruffs! Whatever it is that you're interested in punch the words that will get those kinds of results into tumblr's search bar and look at the posts that come up. I tend to search by 'newest' instead of 'most popular' because it guarantees me people that are currently interested in whatever I am, who are actively putting their posts out there for others to find. Often if you start reblogging someone's posts, they'll see it and check out your blog. If you really want interaction though, the best way to go is one of the above bullet points, especially inbox or speech bubble commenting. It shows you want to talk about something they want to talk about too. A lot of times this is a great way to get more interaction with others and widen your circle (as well as find new stuff about something you enjoy). It might be slow going, I still haven't figured out what the magic is that gets someone a blow up of followers overnight, especially not the all important holy grail of Interactive followers but slow and steady still builds a good group of people you can enjoy sharing things everyone's interested in and it keeps growing over time.

This also works in reverse. A good chunk of my followers (friends honestly) come from my days in the Voltron fandom. I was VERY active making posts while the show was airing. Lots of fanfiction, lots of meta, lots of speculation, just lots of being loud and excited (and then loud and not excited). A lot of other people were interested in VLD too at the time and they found me and bounced off my ideas with ideas of their own and things really ballooned. To this day, a huge hard core of my social group are ex-VLD fans who have moved on to other things (mostly) but still hang around because we built that core and we enjoy seeing what the others in the group have moved onto and found to share with the team. So, again, find your interests and make posts about them so that other people with the same interests can find you. The more popular something is the more attention its going to get - but also the easier it is to get lost in the shuffle of everyone talking about a thing. Not every post is going to get responses. Sometimes I'll post something I think people will enjoy and get crickets. Sometimes everyone and their cousin jumps onboard. Don't get discouraged. DO use the tags. tumblr sucks when it comes to finding things in the tags but its still worth doing because sometimes, randomly and with no pattern, it doesn't suck. The first five tags are the really important ones. Make sure you put the biggest details there. For instance if you're making a post about the One Piece live action from Netflix your first five tags should be something like: one piece, opla, netflix, zoro, swords are cool. You want people looking for One Piece posts about Zoro and his swords to be able to find you easily. And, once they find you, hopefully to engage you about Zoro and his swords.

There are a lot of ways to find other people to interact with on tumblr. One of the pleasures of the site is you get to take things, for the most part, at your own pace and level of comfort. Just remember, the more active you are interacting with other people and their posts, the wider your circle will grow. Its not a 100% success rate, like I said, a lot of people are just here to vibe after a long day of having to be socially 'on' all day, but a lot of people are happy to find other people to get to natter about interests with. Do what you're comfortable with and before you know it, you'll have a group of people that interact with your posts, and you, regularly!

#tumblr #how to tumblr #getting started #lets get socializing! #answering asks #let's tumblr #finding friends #okay to reblog #feel free to add tips #and any help #or things that worked for you

[olszewskisworld]

Portrait

#mature mom #beautiful #following tags #dashboard #tumblr dashboard #ontario #regina #hourglass #getting started #let’s be friends #hozier #illustration #nature core #law of attraction #simblr #be good

[caitlynlynch]

hello! i would love to become a narrator for audiobooks one day but I have no idea how one would start. do you maybe have some tips or a video/book/website that could help me? It's less about how to record stuff and more how to find people to record for.

This is the absolute best resource I can point any aspiring narrator to. Loads of information there about how to get started AND how to find places to audition. As a practical note, ACX is where most folks start off booking work. You can usually also do volunteer work with LearningAlly or other orgs that seek to provide audio content for the blind, and sometimes you need to do that in order to get SOMETHING on your resume! I was fortunate in that I had my own body of writing out there already and was able to use that to practice on, and then was quickly approached by some fellow authors who knew I had a good reputation as an author, and trusted me to narrate their work well. But if you don't have that, you may have to do some work pro bono to start building a portfolio. It can even be fanfic - approach a favourite fanfic author and ask if they'd be willing to let you narrate their work and put it out there!

#audiobook narration #getting started

[istandonsnowpiles]

I've been inspired (in no small part due to your photos) to get a camera and start doing some photography. Do you have any tips for a beginner? Good cameras to get, things you wish you had known, that kind of thing? Your photos look so good!

Heyo! Welcome to the photography world! I'd glad I could inspire you a bit.

A few tips I've learned recently:

For buying gear, the actual camera doesn't really matter for beginners. Any camera will take good photos, even old ones.

If you're feeling sociable, go to a local camera store and try out some used camera. Pick one that feels good and fits your budget. Brand doesn't matter.

Last, if you get a camera with interchangeable lenses, spend more on a lens than the body. High quality lenses will continue to be great on newer, better camera bodies & make cheap bodies take amazing photos.

I've got two posts for more tips, check 'em out!

Okay, we've made it to the bottom of the post. My starter camera recommendation has always been a Panasonic G or GX body (GX1, GX7, G7, GX85, or even a G9 or GX9 if you're feeling very spendy) + a Panasonic 25mm f/1.7 lens, which is still one of my favorite lenses of all time.

Prefer a mirrorless camera over a DSLR. DSLRs are cheaper, but harder to learn. You can adapt DSLR lenses to mirrorless if you like using cheaper DSLR lenses.

#answered #photography #getting started

[rose9875]

#filter #snapshot #tattoed girls #jelly roll #lost #healthy living #self love #sexy content #first post #new blog #first time #new things #coming soon #stay tuned #getting started #im so excited #exciting #bunnies #church #country music #country #countyside #rock music #rapper #rap #inked #tattoos #book #mackup #delicious

[serenityquest]

#motivation #getting started #getting ahead

[iconsfinder]

#sam fender #sam fender icons #icons sam fender #sam icons #icons #males icons #boys #boys icons #male icon #twitter stuff #twitter icons #without psd #seventeen going under #hypersonic missiles #dead boys #spit of you #getting started #will we talk #play god #better of me #listen on spotify #two people #rock

[exitwound]

Waking up from roar of the crowd surgery Where’s frankie? inside my lungs I hear a tiny voice. Who do you think gave you the heartache to sing

#z #getting started #fav #I will favourite my own post because it is not about the post it is about something that happened to me that was beautiful.

[thegrapeandthefig]

I have so many books I can use to start exploring Hellenic Polytheism, but I’m honestly not sure where to start. What do you suggest?

Mandatory disclaimer that this is only my suggestions, based upon my preferences, and that for some, this might already look like a lot. Anyway, for historical information, these, in priority:

Jennifer Larson, Ancient Greek Cults: a guide, Routledge, 2007

A very good introductory book organized into 15 chapters. The first goes over the main key concepts of ancient Greek religion, while the others are all about separate deities. You will find information there about Zeus, Hera, Athena, Poseidon, Demeter & Persephone, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Hermes, Pan & nature deities, Ares & Enyalios, Ge & Helios, Hephaistos, Hestia, the Graces, Eileithyia, Hekate, the Erinyes, as well as some Hellenistic and regional deities.

Robert Parker, On Greek Religion, Cornell University Press, 2011

It completes the former recommendation nicely as it focuses more key concepts of the religion. The preface alone contains explanations about the concept of kharis (reciprocity), the importance of locality, what ancient sanctuaries were, divine justice etc. You will find information about how worship was organized, about how sacrifice and festivals were carried out as well how to understand the diversity of religious experience in Greek religion.

Jennifer Larson, Understanding Greek Religion, Routledge, 2016

While still at an introductory level, this work by Larson goes more in-depth into important theological concepts. Key chapters and topics to consider learning from this book are the difference between the representation of Hera in myth and in cult, a more complete explanation of reciprocity in Greek religion, the concept of orthopraxy, amongst other things. This work also features an introduction to Greek religious mysteries and associated concepts. Once you begin reading about historical worship, you will most likely start having questions about how the fuck most of it can even be applicable today. For an example of modern methodology, complete with:

Christos Pandion Panopoulos & Panagiotis Panagiotopoulos & Erymanthos Armyras, Hellenic Polytheism: Household Worship, Labrys (self-published), 2014

Labrys is a religious group based in Athens and founded in 2008. Their book provides a good overview of what worship in the 21st century can look like. Emphasis on can, not should. It has flaws and they have taken some liberties on historicity which are good to know about, but otherwise, the book is fairly well-cited and places itself as a solid starting point.

#hellenic paganism #hellenic reconstructionism #hellenic polytheism #book rec list #book recommendations #hellenic religion #getting started

[askagamedev]

Any advice for a beginner/amateur who wants to make a lil point-n-click adventure game?

Pick a game engine that is conducive to beginners to craft your adventure game and start doing tutorials for it. I suggest you take a look at:

[BladeCoder Adventure Game Engine]

[Adventure Game Studio]

[Escoria for the Godot Engine]

[ScummVM]

[Ren'py]

Try one at a time until you find something that you feel makes sense to you and run with that. All of these options are pretty good (and free) for crafting an adventure game. You will need to reach [minimum competence] with the engine in order to make your game.

Beyond that, the evergreen advice I give all first-timers is "Scope Down". Your first game does not have to be your dream game-to-end-all-games. It does not have to be the most amazing game ever. Because it is your first game, you are likely to make a lot of mistakes along the way. That is ok! That is expected! No one should expect perfection when learning a new set of skills. Being bad at something is the first step of being good at something. Your first game just has to be playable and you have to finish it. 

The most common cause of failure in beginner projects is being too ambitious. You will learn a lot of things while you work and you will make a lot of mistakes along the way, but this is all necessary in order to level up your skills and increase your ability to do the work. Keep the scope of what you're working on small and reasonable, because there's a lot you don't know yet. Once you're nearing that finish line, you'll look back and see how much you've learned and all the things you could have done better. That's the experience and skill you'll carry into your next game. Start by keeping the scope small and gradually expand it as you gain experience and level up.

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#getting started #getting started with game design #the very basics #amateur game design

[olszewskisworld]

Have a blessed new week my dears 😘 😊

#mommyandme #mature mom #getting started #regina #goddess #goddess energy #hourglass #lifestyle #desire #ontario #law of attraction #beautiful #let’s be friends #mommy k!nk