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First, how hard it is to follow a simple discussion with more than two participants. (I know, not what Tumblr is built for, but people still use it for that.) I mean, even if you ignore the unfortunate formatting, that makes it so hard to attribute what is quote and who said what, as soon as a conversation branches, you are never going to see all threads in a single of the reblogs, and if you go to the notes of the original post you can see all the responses and reblogs (i.e. the "A reblogged from B and added" bits) but there they are cut off and shortened, so you have to click and end up with a gazillion tabs to read one post with three comment threads. It's maddening. Unless there is some other reading method I missed to find and display responses? *nurses futile hope*
Second, a more subjective dissonance for me, is how Tumblr is one of the places where publicly celebrating popularity numbers is done by some (on dA it also happens, there with page view milestones mostly). I mean, from what I can tell you can't see the follower numbers like you can on LJ-clone platforms as default with friend-of/subscriber lists, so maybe that's why some people make posts going "yay over 4000 followers!" or the like instead. But of course only the ridiculously popular people do this as far as I can tell, and I can't help feeling kind of crushed in comparison. Though perhaps I wouldn't take notice so much if on Tumblr you weren't seeing "reblog/like" numbers all the time, that draw attention to the audience size constantly, even without extra action.
Which on the one hand I know is silly, because it's not like without these kinds of follower-numbers squee posts I would be unaware that someone else is very popular and has cool content, but still. I mean, with the LJ/DW model that moment of comparison is there whenever you subscribe, but you become aware of a range of numbers, and also then it fades somewhat from awareness for me. However on Tumblr you (or at least I) mostly notice the really popular numbers. For example I'm hardly going to celebrate my next Tumblr milestone which would be if ever the number of followers inched up to a round ten instead of currently eight. And I assume most other people with non-popular Tumblrs feel the same, so the impression gets distorted.
It's of course a completely irrational response to feel bad to have less audience than cool Tumblr X, but at the same time not even do anything to attract more people. If I wanted non-embarrassing follower milestone posts to happen, I would probably need to switch my topics from "mostly crappy doodles" to something with popularity potential, like say "James McAvoy with baby sloths" or something (as a side note, does that already exist? it should, I'd probably follow that), and post consistently and do all the other things that make a Tumblr attractive.
Second, a more subjective dissonance for me, is how Tumblr is one of the places where publicly celebrating popularity numbers is done by some (on dA it also happens, there with page view milestones mostly). I mean, from what I can tell you can't see the follower numbers like you can on LJ-clone platforms as default with friend-of/subscriber lists, so maybe that's why some people make posts going "yay over 4000 followers!" or the like instead. But of course only the ridiculously popular people do this as far as I can tell, and I can't help feeling kind of crushed in comparison. Though perhaps I wouldn't take notice so much if on Tumblr you weren't seeing "reblog/like" numbers all the time, that draw attention to the audience size constantly, even without extra action.
Which on the one hand I know is silly, because it's not like without these kinds of follower-numbers squee posts I would be unaware that someone else is very popular and has cool content, but still. I mean, with the LJ/DW model that moment of comparison is there whenever you subscribe, but you become aware of a range of numbers, and also then it fades somewhat from awareness for me. However on Tumblr you (or at least I) mostly notice the really popular numbers. For example I'm hardly going to celebrate my next Tumblr milestone which would be if ever the number of followers inched up to a round ten instead of currently eight. And I assume most other people with non-popular Tumblrs feel the same, so the impression gets distorted.
It's of course a completely irrational response to feel bad to have less audience than cool Tumblr X, but at the same time not even do anything to attract more people. If I wanted non-embarrassing follower milestone posts to happen, I would probably need to switch my topics from "mostly crappy doodles" to something with popularity potential, like say "James McAvoy with baby sloths" or something (as a side note, does that already exist? it should, I'd probably follow that), and post consistently and do all the other things that make a Tumblr attractive.