Tumblr vs. Twitter-likes: Why I'll miss Tumblr
No other hellsite like it
Article published on my Dreamwidth on April 11th, 2025
←← Take me back to the writings directory!At the moment, Tumblr is dying. It's not dead yet, as I still have a Tumblr account and am able to use the website/app. However, with recent layoffs of Tumblr staff, it might be safe to say that Tumblr is on its last legs.
In preparing for the worst, I've begun trying to move to other platforms. Mastodon was a start, but I later got a Bluesky as well, as that was where the people were. I thought about Twitter, but when I had an account circa 2018 or so, all I remember is that Twitter is the angriest I've ever been on social media. So, I'm steering clear of that in 2025.
I've had my Mastodon account since October of 2024, and the experience of using it is pretty similar to Bluesky, which I imagine is pretty close to using Twitter. As someone who has had their Tumblr account since 2015, I will say that I do not like either of these places very much. My thoughts are independent of the people on these platforms. Mastodon and Bluesky folks have been nice to me, but my thoughts all have to do with how content circulates.
(Drawing by crazysodomite on Tumblr)
When you post something on a Twitter-like, everything tends to sink into obscurity over time. Past a certain point, your old posts will get no traction unless you repost/boost them, and that requires finding the old post again. On Twitter this can be virtually impossible as there doesn't seem to be any ability to search or sort a user's posts within the app/website. Mastodon and Bluesky seem slightly better in this regard.
On Mastodon, a user can feature certain tags on their profile, which allows other users to see posts they've made with that tag. For example, on Mastodon I have tagged all of my artwork with #PipPeppingArt (https://sunny.garden/@pepyo/tagged/PipPeppingArt), and using that you can see all of my previous art, similar to how having an art tag on Tumblr. Bluesky is similar, though you have to feature tags in your account biography.
Both Bluesky and Mastodon fail in trying to find posts you've shared from other users though, and that's what separates reposting on Tumblr from reposting on the Twitter-likes. The purpose is two fold. When you repost something, it has the foremost purpose of sharing that post to all of your followers, but what makes Tumblr special is that you can add tags to posts you've reposted, not just your own original posts. By adding tags to other's posts, you have a much better ability to go back and find that post again. To bring this back in terms of that drawing earlier in this post: Tumblr has better tools for circulating old posts back to the surface.
Example in the wild
Around 6 days ago (as of the time of writing) I uploaded a piece of Dandy's World fan art (pictured below) to my Tumblr, Mastodon, and Bluesky. On Bluesky the post received a small burst of attention on the first day of posting, meanwhile my post on Mastodon received no attention (and still hasn't). My post on Tumblr also got a small burst of attention on the first day of posting, but where Tumblr and Bluesky fundamentally differ is that after a few days, I noticed next to no traction on my post on Bluesky. Meanwhile on Tumblr, the post saw a slow trickle of notes with the occasional like/reblog burst. At the time of writing, my post on Tumblr has almost 500 notes while my post on Bluesky only has around 12 likes and 2 reposts.
Now, there are some differences in these scenarios. The number of followers I have on my Tumblr is higher than both my Bluesky and Mastodon, but… I really doubt that my 30 followers would net me that many notes by way of me being “popular”.
There's also the fact that my Tumblr is more dedicated to art, as opposed to my Bluesky or Mastodon, both of which are more “general” accounts. With the Twitter-like posting structure, it's likely any interested people would be swayed away from looking at my art because it's bogged down by Everything Else. Still, I have another Tumblr account, mufos-photo-album, which serves as my general account for Sky: Children of the Light. I mainly reblog things from other people and make comments about the game, but I also post my Sky art there. Although my art may get bogged down by all the other things I reblog, I think the culture on Tumblr is more accustomed to digging down into the pit and resurfacing old art. I've noticed multiple instances of people liking my older Sky art despite me not boosting the post by self-reblogging.