#insane week

hi, anon. I appreciate that you sent this. this workaround is genuinely going to be incredibly helpful, not just for me but for my followers and mutuals who also can't stand this feature. it's a shame we have to jump through so many loopholes to escape the ever-encroaching capitalization of the site, but I suppose we adapt

to anyone reading this - if you enable tumblr labs, you can activate 'blog subs', which is the second option listed. it appears to the right of the 'your tags' tab. it looks like it's working for me so far!

to address the other part of your ask, this isn't just about improving my personal experience. I dislike the feature itself and everyone who engages in it by 1. giving money to this godawful website and 2. using a new format to create advertisements. even if I like a blazed post (rare, they are 99% of the time godawful), I don't consider it harmless at all. it's contributing to the problem no matter the content of the post itself. you can blaze almost anything, and if it’s profitable, people will continue to do it. the moderation on this site is already terrible, and supporting blaze will absolutely make it worse. a big appeal of this site is being able to choose exactly what you see. blaze ruins that. and to bring it back to a personal experience, any intrusion onto my space I do consider harmful. I will block and unfollow for many things other people might consider petty

I do get the instant gratification of telling these people off. they're being annoying to me, they paid to directly disrupt my experience in a carefully curated space, and unlike most advertisers I now have direct access to them personally to tell them what I feel about it. so yeah, I'm going to use it. they paid for access to my and my opinions, so they'll face me and my opinions. play stupid games win stupid prizes, I guess

but you're right in that being mean to users blazing posts will not, in the long run, improve my experience. I do not have the time or energy to get into slap fights on the internet. and usually I don't like being rude to people directly, and I like to think I don't do it unless they're doing something that bothers me first. after this I'll go back to simply blocking and sometimes reporting blazes, like I have been. but I still have the right to complain to people who put unwanted content on my dash, and I will support that for anyone else as well. it's about the principle of the thing, I guess