#my intent was bc its jsut one of those things most people (including myself) never actually think about. but i read it over and was like

[foulserpent]

ok. the likes:reblogs ratio on here is never going to improve, and focusing on the likes:reblogs ratio will not help you as an artist (long post under cut)

also to be EXPLICITLY clear this is talking about broad issues applicable to every artist on the site. dont use this to shut down or ignore artists of color discussing how theyre treated compared to white artists. dont use this to shut down marginalized artists in general talking about how art addressing their identity or real world issues is ignored or tokenized. these are entirely separate issues. if youre reading this and thinking “yeah, these people should stop complaining!” fuck off and block me.

but yeah:

this is a microblogging platform that is designed around individual users curating the content of a blog and of their dashboard. what you reblog is put directly onto the dashboards of the people who follow you. the reblog function is designed as the main tool of curation, with the additional ability to be a sort of "reply" function, (though the way this is applied can be garish hence why its far more common to talk in tags)

‘likes’ on this site serve little to no algorithmic function noticeable to the average user (i dont know how they affect the search function, which is a fucking mess anyway and is barely used). the ‘like’ functionally is near-EXCLUSIVELY a method of communication, saying “i like this” “ive read this” “i agree with this”. this usage is so ubiquitous that most people will never actually look Through their likes, and may use drafts to save posts instead

with this in mind, the reason likes will always outstrip reblogs is that ‘liking’ is a very simple form of communication, while ‘reblogging’ functions as much as a tool as it does for communication. if someone likes a drawing but doesnt really want to reblog it, theyll "like" it to say "i like this". this is not someones confused attempt to provide you exposure, this is a form of communication.

additionally, reblogs on art will usually dwindle as they get farther from the source. most of your reblogs will be from followers who like Your work personally, understand Your takes on characters, etc, and unless a post "blows up" due to mass appeal reblogs will dwindle as the post spreads.

point being, the ratio will always be bad. there is no amount of demanding people change their behavior that will actually change how the site functions.

the goal of the “always reblog art you like” sentiment is usually for artists to get economic support, so im going to address it from this angle: if you arent getting reblogs on art without having to guilt trip people into it, you are not going to be getting many (if any) commissions at this time. thats just the reality. that doesnt make you a failure, or mean youll never get to that point, but it does mean you are not currently in a position where that’s going to happen.

reblogs also dont equal money, new followers, commissioners. like OF COURSE on a technical level, if every drawing you posted got lots of reblogs, youd likely net a follower or two, and that would add to potential customers. but thats just in theory. someone reblogging because they see "reblogs>likes" is substantially less likely to check you out and follow you than someone reblogging out of genuine interest. like most people on here dont have tons of money to throw around, so most commissions come from people who have followed you for a while and have a personal attachment to your art. the commissions i get that Arent from longtime followers are nigh-exclusively either niche aspects of my skillset, or p*rn lol.

if you are intending to make money off art (let alone an entire CAREER out of art) you absolutely need to find peace with this. if your self worth and ability to do art is wholly reliant on online engagement, you are going to get burned out before you ever get there. this isnt saying "pull yourself up by the bootstraps and WORK!!!!" its saying "if you dont find peace with this somehow you are going to not be able to make art". it sucks but this is not going to change anytime soon.

and like, part of this problem is just that its not peoples moral responsibility to be constantly providing ‘exposure’ to all art. like, the angle is that in this horrible capitalist system, we need to support each other. and yet youre also asking for this "support" to be purely transactional, for everyone who sees your art to be a customer or a networking opportunity. i think thats fair to ask when it comes to say, commission posts (which are literally About getting customers and networking), but not just every individual piece of art itself.

if you struggle with this and with self esteem from online engagement, id suggest reframing it- first of all understand that peoples "likes" (while being no substitute for real communication) are a compliment. liking and not reblogging isnt an insult, its saying "i like this (and dont necessarily want it on my blog)". would you really rather that people engage with you as an act of charity or pity than in earnest? will getting hollow reblogs from people only doing it because youll get mad otherwise actually help your self esteem?

and i know some people reading this rn might not want to hear all this from someone who they may perceive as a "popular artist". so please understand that i didnt come on here fully formed getting notes on my art (and also like, 'popular artist' on here usually means 'can pay a bill with art money sometimes'. im still living paycheck to paycheck). ive been posting art on the internet since ~2010 and ive only been able to get Any attention on my original stuff in the past few years. i got absolutely zero commissions the first few times i tried. even once my art started getting traction, it was only fandom content. if i based my self esteem on online engagement, i would have quit art before i left highschool.

so yeah, bottom line. there is no amount of asking people to change their behavior that will actually lead to a site not built for being an exposure vehicle to become one. ive been seeing variants of these posts pretty much my entire decade or so on this site. we need to collectively put that energy somewhere else

i really cant claim to know the solution, but i think one thing that weve lost that would help A LOT would be the return of like, curated blogs focusing on a specific topic. there used to be all these “fuck-yeah-[topic]” blogs that would just aggregate content about a topic, or a certain kind of art. like i used to follow ones that focused on ‘monster people’ art. theyd just scour tags and reblog any art related to the subject, and they were widely followed and engaged with, so they provided a lot of visibility to obscure artists. this form of curation is also fairly natural to how this site functions, hence why it Actually Worked to some degree

some of those blogs still exist, but they arent anywhere NEAR as central to the ecoystem as they used to be. i think individual communities on here producing these and working to get them noticed would be a HUGE help to a lot of artists

another behavior i think that Can be changed is just commenting more. like if you have a compliment in mind about someones art, say it! even if you dont reblog. i dont compliment everything i enjoy (bc i dont always have a specific compliment in mind and dont want to just bullshit one) but if i do have anything ill say it. what most people really want is communication and personal investment. of course, please dont turn this into that deviantart "dont fave without commenting" bs, this should be like. human interaction and not just another transaction.

the other aspect is how the tag system is fairly irrelevant and the search function is broken. in the past, browsing tags was a pretty standard thing for a lot of users. now, a lot of newer users dont even know the tag function still Exists outside of search. the tagging system was never super organized, but it used to be more of a thing that some tags functioned as loose communities. i think this could be improved through active intent to do so by the userbase, but theres little incentive to do so bc the tag and search system is broken.

and i dont know like Anything about web design, so im just gonna state what i would Like to see in theory, but some of this might be impractical. the search function needs to be fixed. every post tagged with a keyword should appear in searches for that keyword, none of the “only some of them seemingly at random” bullshit. there needs to be a clear and understandable algorithm to how searches are organized, with fully functional "sort by new" options, maybe “popular today/this month/all time” options based on both likes and reblogs. the search function needs to become a way that people can look for content in an organized capacity.

i also think that they Could introduce some degree of categorization for original posts. this would have to be very broad since this isnt just an art site, but you should at least be able to categorize your post as “art” and then be able to filter your searches to search for “art” results. this would re-incentivize use of the hypothetical improved search/tag system, and could be a great organizational tool if it was actually implemented properly.

ofc all that is something that tumblr staff would have to do and its not like theyre reading this or like they tend to Ever address user complaints, but i dont think wider demand for this sort of thing would hurt either. at this point im kind of just hoping for the near biblical level miracle of "potential art site designers see these sorts of complaints and create a new art platform that addresses these issues and it gets a huge userbase and we all have a great time" or "deviantart second coming". but i hope this is at least constructive and gives you something to think about . my final message, goodbye....

#oh also i hope the breaking down of the exact functions of the like/reblog features doesnt come off like #wildly patronizing #my intent was bc its jsut one of those things most people (including myself) never actually think about. but i read it over and was like #wait is this incredibly condescending