fun fact!! it turns out that now when u make a new blog, tumblr forces you to follow 3-4 people before you can change your icon or modify your blog in any way!! this, of course, means that, yes, some of the “potential bots” many of us have been automatically blocking could have possibly been genuine new users who were only just seconds in to having an account!!! tumblr is literally screwing new users over!!!!
OK, SO!
Just to confirm for myself that this was true, I went and made a new account and took some screenshots.
After the usual inputting of email, username and birthday (which, I don’t remember if tumblr used to require you to enter your birthday? I feel like it didn’t??) it takes you to this page:
it requires you to follow five tags from a selection of categories (I didn’t count the exact number of categories, but there’s a lot. The right section of the screen scrolls down). I followed some very neutral tags:
The “Next” button doesn’t become click-able until you pick all five.
After that, it took me to this page:
it suggests 10 different users for each tag that you selected in the previous page (the right side of the page scrolls down to all five tags). As far as I could tell, there wasn’t a way to ask for more users in each tag.
Again, the “Next” button doesn’t become clickable until you follow three people.
And finally after that it took me to the dashboard:
There wasn’t any way to change my icon before this point. So long story short, seems like the og post is true y’all :/
That being said, this only applies to blogs that still have the standard tumblr-generated icons, which is pretty easy to distinguish from the pretty-lady-icon porn bots 🤷🏻
even if tumblr didn’t have this requirement, actually seeing the posts suggesting that people change their icons would most likely require some time of following a number of people to see them share those posts in the first place
blocking blank blogs with default icons was always a horrid idea. no wonder tumblr is having a hard time retaining new users and panicking over trying to find a way to help them stick around
oh no
How to Unblock
In the Apps
Tap the account icon (the little human) and select the correct blog at the top left corner. After that, tap the gear icon and look for “Blocked Tumblrs”.
You can also go straight to a specific blog to unblock it. For that, type the name of that blog in the search box, tap on the blog name, then tap the little human icon at the upper right corner, which will reveal the “Unblock" button.
On the Web
On the web, go to your blog settings, scroll to the bottom, and click on the pencil icon next to “Blocked Tumblrs.” From there, you can click the Unblock button next to any blocked user.
In case you didn’t know, I had the honor of designing Tumblr’s spooky new app logo
We can hit 100k notes for an icon.
Hi @staff could we get the archive page functionality applied to likes as well, with the like date as the primary sort? I like stuff often to tuck it away for later and it’d be neat to use that effectively instead of scrolling for hours to find that one thing I saw once three years ago.
It’s fascinating that a dashboard can transform to reflect current interests in such a short amount of time. When I returned to the platform last year I began by following van, vehicle, and travel blogs. I wanted ideas on how to make a vehicle livable and enjoy that kind of life. I obsessed over the idea for a year and made little changes to the Jeep. Tinted windows, curtains, a mattress. I eventually spent four months sleeping in my Jeep part-time (the rest of the time at the office or motels). It reminded me of my time living aboard and a sailboat except more freeing. It must have been a transformative experience but I could not say just how. I do know that I now feel strongly about housing. Costs, suburban culture, movements such as van life and tiny houses. Homelessness and the difference an enclosed space–even just a car–can make. The absurdity of not allowing people to sleep in their vehicles when it’s their property and their only option. When I think ahead to retirement I don’t think of a house or property, but a properly built and maintained van. Now I have some knowledge about it when I get there.
The first half of this year was also a tumultuous time as I helped ship some projects and tried (and failed) to save money. My ultimate solution was to move to a low cost/high pay situation, at which point I stopped sleeping in the car and found a more standard dwelling. This allowed me to return to indoor interests such as video games more intensely and it gave me the opportunity to pursue something I’d left behind a decade ago: illustration and design.
So with one experience complete and another beginning, it all changed. I followed illustrators and other visual artists en masse and unfollowed many of those travel and van life blogs that I found so interesting in 2014. My dashboard is the wall of art I’ve never managed to put together. I still sadly peruse blogs rich with great writing and feel overwhelmed, thinking perhaps I’ll follow them someday. What once felt like an absolute truth–writing is the way–now withers on the vine. Will I return to literature and writing again in another decade on some new, more refined platform? What will I have lost by not actively maintaining the interest?
For now, I’ll learn something new and see what comes of it. I just feel lucky to have options for absorbing so much creativity, both online and out there in the world.
It’s fascinating that a dashboard can transform to reflect current interests in such a short amount of time. When I returned to the platform last year I began by following van, vehicle, and travel blogs. I wanted ideas on how to make a vehicle livable and enjoy that kind of life. I obsessed over the idea for a year and made little changes to the Jeep. Tinted windows, curtains, a mattress. I eventually spent four months sleeping in my Jeep part-time (the rest of the time at the office or motels). It reminded me of my time living aboard and a sailboat except more freeing. It must have been a transformative experience but I could not say just how. I do know that I now feel strongly about housing. Costs, suburban culture, movements such as van life and tiny houses. Homelessness and the difference an enclosed space–even just a car–can make. The absurdity of not allowing people to sleep in their vehicles when it’s their property and their only option. When I think ahead to retirement I don’t think of a house or property, but a properly built and maintained van. Now I have some knowledge about it when I get there.
The first half of this year was also a tumultuous time as I helped ship some projects and tried (and failed) to save money. My ultimate solution was to move to a low cost/high pay situation, at which point I stopped sleeping in the car and found a more standard dwelling. This allowed me to return to indoor interests such as video games more intensely and it gave me the opportunity to pursue something I’d left behind a decade ago: illustration and design.
So with one experience complete and another beginning, it all changed. I followed illustrators and other visual artists en masse and unfollowed many of those travel and van life blogs that I found so interesting in 2014. My dashboard is the wall of art I’ve never managed to put together. I still sadly peruse blogs rich with great writing and feel overwhelmed, thinking perhaps I’ll follow them someday. What once felt like an absolute truth–writing is the way–now withers on the vine. Will I return to literature and writing again in another decade on some new, more refined platform? What will I have lost by not actively maintaining the interest?
For now, I’ll learn something new and see what comes of it. I just feel lucky to have options for absorbing so much creativity, both online and out there in the world.
