happily-curly

Why do you like but not reblog?

It feels like the bare minimum in fandom to reblog stuff you like. It’s the easiest way to support artists/writers and guarantee they do more of that same kind of thing.

I thought of some reasons people might not want to reblog and I’m going to debunk them:

Reblog = repost and reposts are evil!!!

Reblogs are different than reposts. As long as the original post came from the artist, the artist gets the credit for it and that’s what they want. REPOSTS are when you find a piece of art you like, save it to your computer, and later make your own post with it, and that’s not cool

Reblogging is too much effort!!

It really, really isn’t. On mobile? Press and hold the reblog button. The post has now been reblogged. On desktop? Hold the alt key and then click the reblog button. Off it goes, letting more people enjoy the beauty of the post you just enjoyed yourself!

I don’t want to tag things though

So then…don’t? Just reblog it with no tags. You want to tag it later, you can. You never want to tag things? Cool, neither do I most times!

I DO want to tag things but I feel like I’m bothering people

I guarantee you, 90% of the time, artists love tags. Even the keyboard smash tags. The ones they don’t love are the ones demanding more art/for the artist to do things in a specific way/to change the art to suit one specific viewer’s preferences.

If I reblog things a lot, it’ll annoy people!

If people are following you, it’s for your content. If it annoys them, they can unfollow you. That’s on them. If you mean it’ll annoy the ARTIST if you go in and reblog their whole art tag…wrong, false, no, definitely not, they might even make more art specifically for you if you do that. Especially if you tag with ‘I love this piece because…’ and then give a reason why you love it, that is the most encouraging thing.

Reblogging doesn’t fit my blog aesthetic.

Idk what to tell you here, you’re in control of your aesthetic. Make a side blog maybe, reblog there and leave your main ‘clean’. Or vice versa. No reblogs = a quickly dwindling supply of art that people are willing to post.

Reblogging is an important part of fandom/tumblr community in general. It encourages more people to make more content which means more things for you to do/see/read.

It’s part of the fandom ecosystem; we have content makers and we have content viewers. Without makers, we have no art. Without viewers, there’s no reason to post it online. If viewers are limited, people start reconsidering whether to bother posting their art online or just share it with their friends they know will give feedback.

And you know what? They're allowed to their own opinion.

It's sad, yeah, I do wish my stuff was reblogged more often, and a post educating people on why a reblog is so much more appreciated than just a like is really important for us artists, but I feel this post is too black and white, like there is no way a post could fall into a catrgory between "i like it" and "i really like it, I wanna show this". Like people aren't allowed to have nuanced opinions on your art. Perhaps your art needs improvement, and although support is important in every step of growing as an artist, it really is normal that you don't get as much reblogs as a more experienced artist. And I say that, but I am aware I need A LOT of improvement myself.