I've been checking out the OC tags for a little while, and I can say the state of OC sharing on tumblr is in absolute misery.
We've all discussed how bad the ratio of reblogs has become, how the amount of them have been dwindling those last couple of years, but I think an extra important emphasis has to be made on original creation. Though everything is hit by the lack of sharing, fanarts at least have a tag people will look for, improving their visibility - fandom OCs are sadly shared less than fanarts, in general, but they still enjoy that same visibility.
But what of the purely original? People who have OCs belonging solely to their own world, with a tag nobody will look for? I've been seeing awesome OC art that has been sitting for days and weeks with 0 or 1 notes, sometimes 5 or 6 with luck (though most of the time only likes)... And though there are exceptions, overall, it's a frankly saddening sight.
The way for someone to get attention on their OCs is to already be a well established blog or to produce fanart on the side to build a following. Blogs solely creating original content sit at the bottom of the note pool with no escape in sight.
As much as we praise tumblr for its tagging system and the fact it doesn't kill old posts the way other social media does, it still does fail in the way of uplifting creation that isn't fandom-based.
I don't have a solution to this. It is merely a sad observation. It's only natural that people would look for what they already know and love. But in a world where all of our interactions are linked to consumerism, in a world where automation replaces human imagination, I'd love to see a community of people willing to actively search for, and uplift, the creatives that are trying to peek out of the water.
One reblog may lead to another may lead to a follow, may lead to a creator feeling like their work matters.
So I'm doing it, one reblog at a time.
