I am unbelievably sad today. It's December 17th, the day Verizon decided Tumblr should be as safe as Disneyland locked down two of my blogs. I can't even download the content. That's not permitted.
This reminds me far too much of the death of Usenet, and both died for the same reason: advertising. Usenet's "adult" forums got swamped with uncontrolled advertising, which killed it off faster than would have hoped. Verizon couldn't entice advertisers onto Tumblr until it got rid of the adult material.
I'm a sexy person. I'm a creative person. I'm a fan person. My Tumblrs reflected that: one was a pure photograph porn reblog site, another an adult illustration site, and the third was the supposedly "safe for work" site. My feed was full of fandom, artists, and beautiful naked people, both male and female. It was just a part of me, a very important part of me. I discovered whole new decorative preferences I never knew I had before, kinks like knee-high socks and naked people riding bicycles.
At first, Tumblr was just a porn site. But I discovered artists I loved. I eventually had porn buddies, other people whose taste in naked people I admired, and who often checked and affirmed my taste by reblogging what I admired from the 27 or so people I regularly followed and who posted almost daily for six years, as well as the 40 or so others I followed off-and-on who posted only intermittently. My taste in naked people was fairly broad but innocuous, and I really did like almost everything: twinks & bears, twenty-something fresh young ladies and fifty-something, heavyset lingere models. I liked elegant photography, tried hard only to reblog people who looked happy to be in front of the camera, and avoided posting anything hard-core or nasty.
Tumblr still deleted it. It was absolutely hilarious, in a grim way, watching Tumblr try hard to find just the right wording. At first it was "community standards," but that quickly went away after a howl reminded Tumblr that they were literally deleting the community. Then it was just "adult material." Today it was "sensitive material."
Well, fuck yes, Tumblr, I'm a sensitive guy, and I want to be sensetized further. But no, that's not to be.
All that is gone today. My porn buddies disappear into the ether. The artists I've admired I have started to follow on Twitter, the ones that I can, but it's not the same. There's no give-and-take among fans, there's no joy, and no sexiness. Twitter is the hellsite, the place where we watch armageddon come on. Facebook makes me deal with people I have to, Twitter lets me participate in the political zeitgeist, Instagram just makes me hate myself.
Tumblr let me like myself. My stories got positive feedback. My taste in naked people was affirmed and even admired by nearly a thousand people! My happy, cheerful, sex-educated, sex-positive self was fully on display on Tumblr, and fully fed by the community there.
And now it's gone. Because some asshole CEO at Verizon heard from some asshole CEO at an advertising agency that he could get more money if he just got rid of the happy, horny people.
But you know what? The angry, hateful, violent people are still there. You can still find white supremacists because they don't have "female presenting nipples." You can still find the racists. You can still find pro-ISIS blogs there. You can find pro-Nazi blogs there.
I will never not be angry that it easier to find movies of people being violent and killing one another than it is to find ones of people being nice to each other. It's the one true curse of humanity, that we can kill each other in an instant, but it takes time to win each other's trust just for a kiss and a snuggle.
Fuck you, Verison, for now and into the darkness.
This reminds me far too much of the death of Usenet, and both died for the same reason: advertising. Usenet's "adult" forums got swamped with uncontrolled advertising, which killed it off faster than would have hoped. Verizon couldn't entice advertisers onto Tumblr until it got rid of the adult material.
I'm a sexy person. I'm a creative person. I'm a fan person. My Tumblrs reflected that: one was a pure photograph porn reblog site, another an adult illustration site, and the third was the supposedly "safe for work" site. My feed was full of fandom, artists, and beautiful naked people, both male and female. It was just a part of me, a very important part of me. I discovered whole new decorative preferences I never knew I had before, kinks like knee-high socks and naked people riding bicycles.
At first, Tumblr was just a porn site. But I discovered artists I loved. I eventually had porn buddies, other people whose taste in naked people I admired, and who often checked and affirmed my taste by reblogging what I admired from the 27 or so people I regularly followed and who posted almost daily for six years, as well as the 40 or so others I followed off-and-on who posted only intermittently. My taste in naked people was fairly broad but innocuous, and I really did like almost everything: twinks & bears, twenty-something fresh young ladies and fifty-something, heavyset lingere models. I liked elegant photography, tried hard only to reblog people who looked happy to be in front of the camera, and avoided posting anything hard-core or nasty.
Tumblr still deleted it. It was absolutely hilarious, in a grim way, watching Tumblr try hard to find just the right wording. At first it was "community standards," but that quickly went away after a howl reminded Tumblr that they were literally deleting the community. Then it was just "adult material." Today it was "sensitive material."
Well, fuck yes, Tumblr, I'm a sensitive guy, and I want to be sensetized further. But no, that's not to be.
All that is gone today. My porn buddies disappear into the ether. The artists I've admired I have started to follow on Twitter, the ones that I can, but it's not the same. There's no give-and-take among fans, there's no joy, and no sexiness. Twitter is the hellsite, the place where we watch armageddon come on. Facebook makes me deal with people I have to, Twitter lets me participate in the political zeitgeist, Instagram just makes me hate myself.
Tumblr let me like myself. My stories got positive feedback. My taste in naked people was affirmed and even admired by nearly a thousand people! My happy, cheerful, sex-educated, sex-positive self was fully on display on Tumblr, and fully fed by the community there.
And now it's gone. Because some asshole CEO at Verizon heard from some asshole CEO at an advertising agency that he could get more money if he just got rid of the happy, horny people.
But you know what? The angry, hateful, violent people are still there. You can still find white supremacists because they don't have "female presenting nipples." You can still find the racists. You can still find pro-ISIS blogs there. You can find pro-Nazi blogs there.
I will never not be angry that it easier to find movies of people being violent and killing one another than it is to find ones of people being nice to each other. It's the one true curse of humanity, that we can kill each other in an instant, but it takes time to win each other's trust just for a kiss and a snuggle.
Fuck you, Verison, for now and into the darkness.
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