8 reasons why substack is not (yet) the new tumblr

+ 3 ways substack is heading towards becoming a better evolution of tumblr, from someone who never really graduated tumblr.

welcome to the afternoon dispatches! these are shorter reflections compared to my usual longer musings. if you enjoy these reflections and would like to receive future installments like this in your inbox every week, please consider becoming a subscriber!

8 reasons why substack is not (yet) the new tumblr

1. tumblr is the only remaining social platform in which algorithm is opted-in, not assumed. people there are known to reject “for you” pages and will boycott the feature if it’s forced upon them instead of being something they can opt-in to. it means tumblr posts circulate organically through people who choose to reblog it to their site and feed it to other people’s dashboard. friendships and community support are formed through the act of intentional sharing and discovery, not because the algorithm decides to pick it up and shove it on user feeds.

2. if there’s one thing tumblr users fight so hard for it’s stagnancy. hardcore users who have been there since the late 00s will do whatever it takes to make tumblr the last vestige of good social media that is safe and pleasurable to use. this means: no tiktok-esque vertical video format and no giving away user data to advertisers. “monetization” is always being taken with a grant of salt so that community aspect and collaborative culture will always be the backbone of the platform, even if it means the website is not always profitable to the investors.

3. on tumblr you could gift each other crabs for $2.99. for fun.

   

4. there are no “tumblr influencers”. tumblr makes it so that your follower count is kept to private, making it impossible for anyone to brag about their popularity, unless they choose to reveal it for some reason. in general, status there is based on opinion and not numbers; and how popular you think someone is is a vibes-only calculation. this on its own has successfully eliminated the element of competition off the platform. the last thing you’ll see on tumblr is writers and artists being insecure about building their tumblr audience. they will, however, complain about building audience somewhere outside tumblr.

5. consequently, the general rules of tumblr is that you go there to hang out and scream into the void, not to sell people something. otherwise, people could smell your bullshit and will block you for good. again, tumblr also doesn’t track user clicks, making it impractical to do any traffic marketing there. thriving creators on tumblr are thriving because the amount of connection they put for their audience. they make money by giving away more free stuffs as opposed to putting them behind paywalls.

6. on tumblr you don’t use polls for research. you use it to conduct a platform-wide bug race.

   

7. on tumblr, the ability to go anonymous is a two-edged sword: on one hand, it gives you the freedom to express yourself under a pseudonym. you could have the most incredulous user handle ever graced the internet like powerbottombrucespringsteen (all love) and people would still take your opinion and views seriously. you could be pursuing doctoral degrees and running 6 figure businesses IRL and they wouldn’t even matter in the eye of the community if you don’t participate in the collaborative culture. you are seen as what you appear as, how you show up online, what you give to the community, and not for what you are behind the screen. on the other hand: it makes it easier for people to receive hate messages and hide under anonymity.

8. substack doesn’t have neil gaiman, a permanent tumblr resident.

3 ways substack is heading towards becoming a better evolution of tumblr

1. substack is the first and only platform i’ve seen outside tumblr with a really good knack for longevity and archiving. while the typical shelf life of a social media post lasts for 5-10 minutes, a tumblr post from 2012 could still circulate and be celebrated in the year of 2024, and again in the coming years. revisiting and rediscovering are important virtues that go against the way social media works, where the algorithm usually favors newer stuffs. on substack, however, you could always go down the rabbit hole without being interrupted by ads, which i think is the first step towards building a library on top of the social feature.

2. the fact that you can restack any part of a substack post is godsent. not only it gives smaller publications a chance to be discovered, it’s also a tool for interesting discussions to open up and new ideas to grow from. some of my posts here are inspired by other people’s conversations under a restacked post. on the writer’s side, it’s always good to know which part of a post resonates and what people’s takeaways are. if we could leave “serial liking” etiquette behind and encourage more people to restack instead i think we would be undefeated anywhere.

3. i’ve never seen any platform other than substack that could match the intensity of tumblr’s hatred towards generative AI and the “content”ification of writing. like they said: a community full of writers ennui towards generative AI is a warrior’s bond stronger and more meaningful than marriage.

thinking in (fake) movies

photo belongs to tumblr user endof-vanity.

did you know that back in 2022, tumblr invented a fake martin scorsese movie and gaslighted everyone on the internet into thinking that it’s real?

goncharov is a fascinating result of an entire user base bandwagoning on plot points and then mashing them up to create actual coherent story. the success of goncharov highlights tumblr as actual social media based in community effort rather than status, and that being in a community that values entertaining others leads to incredible collaborative works of creativity that don’t even feel like work to make. martin scorsese not only acknowledging the bit but also playing along with it is the most satisfying ending goncharov could have gotten.

to me, this is the ultimate beauty of tumblr: when you treat a platform as a sandbox and not a popularity contest, technically any post can be a cultural phenomenon if your friends and mutuals are dedicated to the bit enough and also just really want to cause problems.