Why reblogging in Tumblr matters?
I have seen lately a lot of post of people being offended, angry, disappointed etc. about reblogs. The attitude has been “If you ask me to reblog, then I won’t do it and as a protest, I won’t even like your posts >:( ”
Why reblogging in Tumblr matters isn’t because creative people are bricks (some are). Did you see something cool and nice on your dash which you liked? Great! It was there because someone you follow manually reblogged it to their blog and for you to see.
Tumblr doesn’t bring you stuff through algorithm to see. Tumblr is what I would call an organic scrapbook, where the users create each and everyone’s dashes with whatever content they reblog. This is a manual labor work site lol.
Liking does not make the post visible to anyone following you, which means that less and less people get to enjoy of the same thing you enjoyed of. Like equals a bookmark on your web browser. It’s as visible and influential to outsiders (your followers and the post’s creator) as a browser bookmark.
Does this mean that you have to reblog every fucking thing and squeeze the living shit out of yourself for reblogs’ manual work? No. Of course not. Keep liking posts and saving them for your own private collection for whatever reason but please, always reblog whatever you can and want.
I’ve been in Tumblr since 2011. We reblogged freely whatever the hell we wanted and no one wasn’t that concerned of if they knew the fandom, the series, the character, the person etc. Many had side blogs for specific content, whether their own art, fics, their newest fandom blorbo, aesthetic posts, personal rants etc. This is how Tumblr is made to function. No, you’re not “stealing” anything by reblogging. No, you’re not bothering your followers with reblogs (and if you are, it’s their job to curate their own internet experience and either unfollow you or mute your tag, if you tag your posts). No, you’re not doing anything wrong by reblogging stuff from series you know nothing about but which seems interesting (perhaps someone following you knows about it and can show you the way to a new fandom!)
With this new trend of excessive liking and shy reblogging - and after the Tumblr purge - my dash is very quiet. I miss so many awesome art work and posts unless I go to manually search them and HOPE that the search function even works properly ( it doesn’t. It shows only a limited amount of posts of the said tag or containing the word I’m using for the search). I miss discovering new blogs to follow through reblogs, new people, new artists and authors, new intriguing art styles, new fandoms…
Please, feed me and my dash with reblogs whenever you can! I want to see what’s out there, what did you discover today? What was wonderful or interesting on your dash? Who had reblogged it or created it? What series and characters are out there I don’t know yet but which could become my next favorite thing because you know about them? Do you know my next blorbo? ლ(╹◡╹ლ)
If we stop reblogging, Tumblr dashes stop operating, too (outside adds and blazes). We, and only we, keep them alive and running. Show me what you have found! <3 I can’t wait to see!