A Bear of Very Little Brain

1.5M ratings
277k ratings

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
redstonedust
redstonedust

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So i just got tagged in this post that immidiately jumped out as a red flag, esp with mentions of ''banning all internet access for all children worldwide'' (literally how would they enforce that?) and encouraging people to click through to a tiktok link to find out more. So I did what any sensible person would do and did my own research:

The KOSA bill, as far as I can tell, is a bill that intends to make tech companies more liable for protecting children on their platforms. The people proposing it generally point at content that encourages eating disorders, suicide, etc. as their points of interest. While this sounds positive in theory, critics have pointed out that giving lawmakers the power to decide what counts as harmful content is too much. In the words of one opponent: "If an attorney general wants to argue that trans kids talking about going to a protest is making other kids depressed, they can do that."

There's more to it than that, but I'm not about to make this an essay. Here's a couple of news articles about the bill, all from May of 2023, and a link to the current bill itself. I can't find any reputable petitions against it, but considering it's being opposed by multiple sources, it's likely something the general public don't have to take immidiate action against yet. It's good to be aware of, tho, and if you're really concerned you can absolutely call your state congressmen about it.

Anyways why am I making a post about this? Because y'all have GOT to stop fearmongering every time a bill like this comes into play. It makes it a lot harder to find information and sends people into a panic because they think big bad government wants to take away their wattpad account.

No, they don't want to ban the internet. But they do want to be able to enforce the content viewable on internet, and that's the problem.

And also stop tagging every random user you can think of about it.

talvenhenki
alagaisia

Hey. Why isn’t the moon landing a national holiday in the US. Isn’t that fucked up? Does anyone else think that’s absurd?

alagaisia

It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! That’s a big deal! I’ve never thought about it before but now that I have, it’s ridiculous to me that that’s not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why don’t we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!

alagaisia

It’s July 20th. That’s the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. I’m ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and I’m going to have a goddamn potluck. You’re all invited.

watermelon-converse

Hey. Hey. Tumblr. Ides of March ppl. We can do this

emi--rose

Hell yeah moon holiday

thepandafangirl
deadsprout

At first Netflix said, come write for us. We’ll save your cancelled shows and write about whatever niche story you want. Our algorithm says people will watch it!

Then a few years later they said, regardless of our promises or contract obligations we are cancelling shows after two seasons without telling anyone. Turns out no matter how loved a show is, we get less subscriptions after the second season.

How many subscriptions did we bring you? Netflix won’t say.

So writers started writing two season shows. Just give us two seasons, Netflix. Like you promised.

Then Netflix said, oops sorry! Turns out your show didn’t premiere at #1 and the views in the first day weren’t what we wanted so we’re cancelling your second season.

What were the numbers? How many people watched our show? Netflix doesn’t say.

Then, they did something extra special. They started taking shows and splitting their first season into two halves. Inside Job was not two seasons. It was one season split in half.

Oops! Sorry! The second half of your first season didn’t do as well as the first half, so now your show is cancelled!

Why? How many people? How much money? These companies are making cash hand over fist and they refuse to tell people the truth: people loved your show. Loved it. But some corpo exec wanted an infinite money making machine. Do you know how long shows are in production for before you watch them? Years. Like, 5+, even 10+ years. And Netflix gives it less than a week before they decide whether you’re getting cancelled.

Support #WGA Support #SAGAFTRA

scarletwellyboot
magnusbae

To illustrate this post by @mayahawkse I would like to visualize to you the difference:

A post in 2023:

image

A post in 2014:

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A zoom out of the same post:

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This is what a community looks like.

See how in 2023 almost all of the reblogs come from the OP, from their few hours/days in the tag search. Meanwhile in 2014 the % of reblogs from OP is insignificant, because most of the reblogs come from the reblogs within the fandom, within the micro-communities formed there. You didn't need to rely on tags, or search, or being featured. Because the community took care of you, made sure to pass the work between themselves and onto their blog and exposed their followers to it. It kept works alive for years.

It's not JUST the reblog/like ratio that causing this issue, it's the type of interaction people have. They're content with scrolling and liking the search engine, instead of actually having a reblogging relationship with other blogs in their community.

Anyways, if you want to see more content you like, the only true way to make it happen is to reblog it. Likes do not forward content in no way but making OP feel nice. Reblogs on the other hand make content eternal. They make it relevant, they make it exist outside of a fickle tumblr search that hardly works on the best of days.

If you want more of something, reblog it.

magnusbae

Something I see mentioned often is "I don't have many followers, my reblog won't matter" which is untrue.

First of all, reblogging, commenting and interacting is how you start gathering your own micro community, second of all— you literally do not know how far a single reblog from you could go in the long run.

For instance, let's say you only have one person reblog from you, and that person only have one person who reblogged from them also, and so on, and somewhere ten reblogs down the line a very large blog reblogs it and boom, the post is getting more and more exposure!

You see, it does not matter if you don't have a large following so long as you cultivate a micro community with the people you do enjoy interacting daily with.

As you can see in the second picture I added, most of the reblogs were between very small groups of people, and occasionally it'll lapse into a large blog that would create a bigger reblog pool. BUT STILL. Saying that you don't have many followers and so it doesn't matter if you don't reblog is UNTRUE.

Even if someone just randomly wanders into your blog one day, it's beneficial for both sides because A. Seeing you reblog content they like might be enough for them to follow you B. They would be exposed to new content creators they didn't know previously and might also follow / reblog from them!

So yes, do not underestimate what your reblogs and words mean, just because you're not 'big' or whatever. It is not how tumblr works!!

P.S IT IS NOT CRINGE TO REBLOG 10 YEARS OLD CONTENT ON TUMBLR. YOU SEE IT. YOU LIKE IT? REBLOG IT. DOESN'T MATTER IF YOU DIG IT FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL ITSELF. XOXO :'D <3

smellofsnoww
xiaq

Small Town Grocery Store Stories: LGBTQ+ friendly edition

Me: minding my own damn business in the grocery store

One of my students and a few of his teammates enter the dairy aisle. 

My student is holding hands with one of his teammates. 

My student: Oh hey, Professor X!

Me, who has both my student and his girlfriend in my class: …Hello

My student, looking at his hand-holding partner: Oh! Don’t worry. My girlfriend knows. Not that I’m cheating! I’m not cheating. I’m not gay.

Hand Holding boy: Not that being gay is a bad thing! It’s a good thing!

My student: Right! But no, listen. We aren’t together, we just hold hands in public sometimes.

Hand Holding Boy: Especially on Friday nights. And weekends. And at away games.

My student: Because sometimes people will say shit and then we can punch them! And if the fight started because someone was being homophobic, coach won’t get mad at us.

Hand Holding Boy: Always nice to punch a homophobe. And [gesturing to another boy in the group] maybe they’ll think twice about saying something to [other boy’s name] if he ever gets a boyfriend and wants to hold his hand for real.

The Gay One, resigned but smiling: I’ve decided it’s sweet and not really fucking weird.

slytherin-dropout

This is what “boys will be boys” is meant to be

chaoticevilbean

This is the best thing I’ve seen in a while.

haltiamieli
unforth

Gentle reminder that very little fandom labor is automated, because I think people forget that a lot.

That blog with a tagging system you love? A person curates those tags by hand.

That rec blog with a great organization scheme and pretty graphics? Someone designed and implemented that organization scheme and made those graphics.

That network that posts a cool variety of stuff? People track down all that variety and queue it by hand, and other people made all the individual pieces.

That post with umpteen links to helpful resources, and information about them? Someone gathered those links, researched the sources, wrote up the information about them.

That graphic about fandom statistics? Someone compiled those statistics, analyzed them, organized them, figured out a useful way to convey the information to others, and made the post.

That event that you think looks neat? Someone wrote the rules, created the blogs and Discords, designed the graphics, did their best to promo the event so it'd succeed.

None of this was done automatically. None of it just appears whole out of the internet ether.

I think everyone realizes that fic writing and fanart creation are work, and at least some folks have got it through their heads that gif creation and graphics and moodboards take effort, and meta is usually respected for the effort that goes into it, at least as far as I've seen, but I feel like a lot of people don't really get how much labor goes into curation, too.

If people are creating resources, curating content, organizing the creations of others, gathering information, and doing other fandom activities that aren't necessarily the direct action of creation, they're doing a lot of fandom labor, and it's often largely unrecognized.

Celebrate fan work!

To folks doing this kind of labor: I see you, and I thank you. You are the backbones of our fandoms and I love you.

redstonedust
redstonedust

also im growing to hate the phrase ''hold accountable'' in discourse because its always so.... empty? like you see people saying ''sure this person apologized, but we need to hold them accountable!'' like cool. what does that mean. how can you get any more accountable than a public apology. do you want them to apologize... again? more? get a tattoo explaining their crimes so everyone they meet is informed? do you want accountability or are you repeating buzzwords because you cant find a nice way to say you just want them to disappear.

redstonedust

this post is getting outta my usual circles so to be clear im not talking about heinous sh*t like groomers and rapists, because that isn't discourse, it's a crime. didn't even cross my mind but like that's on a whole different level that an apology isn't even appropriate for.