The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve. 

Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.

If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.

Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.

As this rolls out over the next few days and you explore it, we’ll keep reading your replies and reblogs, so please keep sharing your questions, concerns, and ideas.

Your creativity has always been the heart of Tumblr, whether you’re the original poster or adding something brilliant in the reblogs, and nothing about this change is meant to limit that.

I haven't posted much at ALL lately. I've got some stuff in the works, 2026 is going to be my comeback year I think.

Anyway, I am going to be completely serious for just a few minutes here.

On November 9 of this year, the house my niece lived in with her mom and stepdad burned down. (My niece was staying with her dad - my brother - at the time). Her mom and stepdad weren't home. But her grandmother and four-year-old half-brother sadly didn't make it out. Neither did their four indoor cats.

The fire inspector said the fire was most likely caused by a faulty surge protector. I did not know this until the fire, but: surge protectors break down after 3-5 years. So now Marcy (my niece's mom) has made it her life's mission to educate people on this. I am going to do my best to help.

You should replace your surge protectors if:

You know for a fact that you've had them longer than five years

You actually don't know how long you've had it ("A while" is not going to cut it, i'm afraid)

It feels warm to the touch

If it's dusty, loose, cracked, or discolored

If you have it plugged into one (or more) other surge protectors

If you have a high-draw appliance (space heater, refrigerator, etc.) plugged into it

My advice:

Replace any surge protector you've had longer than 3 years. You can replace them all to be safe, but if you aren't in a position to do that just replace the oldest one and go from there.

Use only surge protectors that are UL-listed

Don't plug a bunch of high-draw appliances into them. I try to play it safe and plug big appliances directly into a wall outlet, but if that's not an option try to do so as safely as you can.

Margie and Sawyer were my niece's entire world. Please, please, please do me a favor and check your surge protectors.

So by now most of you have probably heard that my account was suddenly terminated (aka banned) on Saturday afternoon. I’m back now, and since I had to do some digging into this on my own, I figured I’d make a post for others to reference. 

How to tell if you’ve been wrongfully terminated

You will find yourself suddenly locked out of your account. For me, I had just made a post when I got kicked to the login screen. My password wouldn’t work, so I tried to reset it, at which point I got this screen:

Now, if Tumblr legitimately terminated your account - meaning, you broke a rule and they banned you for it - they should send you an email telling you why. So, immediately check your email. If you don’t get anything, it was probably a glitch. These happen shockingly often, so there’s a whole process to it. 

How to get your account back

First, submit a support ticket. Tumblr’s support email does NOT work, you MUST go through their site. Select ‘Terminated account’. Write a POLITE message explaining the situation. Describe what you were doing when you suddenly got kicked off, and state that to the best of your knowledge, you haven’t broken any rules, or that if you did, you would be willing to delete the offending posts. Include your url and email.

Check your email. You should immediately get an automatic message saying they’re looking into the problem. If you don’t that means that Tumblr marked your email as spam (because they banned you). If you need to, resend the ticket using a different email address at the bottom. Explain that your account email doesn’t seem to be going through and that’s why you’re using a different one. 

Wait. Tumblr Support’s hours of operation are 9-5 EST, Monday through Friday. If, like me, you submitted your ticket on a weekend, you may be in for a wait. If you don’t get a response within 24 hours, DO NOT SEND ANOTHER TICKET, but instead reply to the email they sent you. I’ve seen it advised that you should send another ticket only if the problem isn’t fixed within the week. 

Check you url often. Tumblr will likely never respond to your email letting you know what happened or that you’ve been reinstated. Check your url every so often, and if it finally loads as your blog (instead of the ‘There’s nothing here’ screen) you are free to log back in. 

Okay, so, in the years since writing this guide, I’ve both seen some discussion as well as made my own observations that lead me to believe this is not just a glitch with Tumblr’s code.

More likely, if you’re reading this because you got termed, your blog was caught up in a bot dragnet.

Tumblr, like all social media, has bots. And Tumblr also does regular bot purges. It’s strikingly clear to me when these purges happen, because this post will gain a ton of notes in the span of a day. Occasionally, but not always, this will happen shortly after I notice an influx of bot followers.

That means that, for most people experiencing this problem, you are doing something that triggers Tumblr’s automated bot removal process. I cannot say what it is. Social media tends to keep their bot removal criteria vague, so that people scripting bots can’t evade capture.

Which sucks for the innocent human bloggers caught up in the purges, but it also means that if you can get someone to double check your blog, you should be reinstated pretty swiftly.