Thread by @mon_chert

twitter is quickly spiraling into a dumpsterfire of a website, and many of your favourite ccs are now creating tumblr accounts! but what if you want to follow the migration, but have never had a tumblr account or understood how to use it?

let me explain 🧵 :

1: getting started

so! youve created a new account, and now are the proud owner of a tumblr blog! great start. but you mustn't stop there. go ahead and click on the colour palette on mobile, or the blog appearance settings on desktop. here you can customize how it looks!

its absolutely imperative that you do NOT have a default profile picture. default icons = instant block from most seasoned tumblrs, because its basically a huge sign saying "hey! im a bot!"

(this may seem obvious, but you have no idea how common it is for people to ignore that)

so make sure to give yourself a unique icon, and even better make your background, title, description, and blog background and accent colours some flair and liveliness to it too! have fun just making it pretty!

there is an ENTIRE other level of theme design and customization on your tumble site as well, which can be accessed through "[username].tumblr.com". in settings you can select from all kinds of theme templates and make it look however you like, and you can even edit the code!

its also in good sport to make a pinned post that tells a little more info about yourself, what type of posts and communities you will be interacting with, a DNI, etc, basically a small introduction to your blog that will help someone stumbling upon it understand what its about

just as long as you make it apparent that your blog is owned by a human (as bots have gotten pretty good at owning blogs), you will be just fine and will avoid getting blocked by any new tumblrs you may follow :]

2: set up your blog

in the settings for your account, there are a few more things you can customize that will make your experience on tumblr a LOT better

most of it is pretty self explanatory, and you can explore this on your own to fiddle with every nook and cranny, but i will point out a few key features that will help shape your experiences for the better

2.1: filters

in settings -> account, you will find two fields called "filtered tags" and "filtered post content." the former is where you put tags you want to blacklist, and the latter is where you put specific words you want to blacklist. but what does it mean by tags?

tags are found at the bottom of the post, with each one beginning with a #. they are similar to twitter hashtags, but the way they are used is pretty different! on tumblr, theyre used more as a sorting system, among other things.

ill get further into using tags later, but the most important function of these tags is that theyre very useful when you want to hide certain triggers of yours, as user will often put trigger warnings in tags for others to be able to blacklist!

these tags can appear in a variety of ways since not everyone tags it consistently, so you may want to be thorough with that. using the trigger for "blood," for example, it could be tagged like any of these:

blood, tw blood, cw blood, / blood, // blood, blood ment, etc.

as such, its good to block most variations of a trigger if you want to be thorough if you have any strong triggers, and go ahead and blacklist any new variations you may see if one slips by!

a lot of users will also tag posts with "ask to tag", which basically means that this post may hold triggering content but they do not tag for it, and that if this type of content triggers you, you are free to send them an ask to request that they tag such posts in the future

2.2: labels

another section in filters is "community labels." here, its pretty self explanatory. you can choose what type of content to show, hide, or blur (in case youre fine with seeing it but dont want it to suddenly jump out in public and embarrass you)

when one makes a post, you have to assign a label if the post holds one or more of these things, and if you see someones post that seems to lack the right label, you are able to mark it as missing a label

if you are under 18, posts will be automatically hidden (like this)

2.3: dashboard settings

here you can configure how you want your dashboard to function! do this to your taste, but in my personal opinion the optimal settings are to turn on "endless scrolling" and turn off "shorten long posts" (some people may prefer it of course)

i also recommend turning off "best stuff first" (similar to Home timeline), and also turning off "based on your likes" and "stuff in your orbit" cause it can recommend some really weird things, but while youre new you can keep that on till you manage to find enough cool accounts

2.4: blog settings

you can find this by opening the settings icon on mobile, or clicking "edit appearance" on your computer. here, you can customize all sorts of stuff thats pretty important!

ill let you explore this bit on your own since there really are quite a few settings that are all up to preference, but here you can basically control exactly how other accounts are able to interact with you (and no, there is no such thing as privs). i recommend giving it a look!

3: its time to fill that dash!

you made your very own blog! yay!
...so, now what? do i just go look at random blogs and like their posts?
NOPE!

the most, most, MOST important thing about tumblr etiquette, is that you really should try to reblog posts and not only like them. reblogging is what the site and all blogs thrive on, its the most important part of it all!

theres a lot more to reblogs than them being a retweet, because even if likes help posts on twitter, a like on tumblr is practically invisible, it wont help the post spread at all, its only a way to show the op (original poster) that you enjoyed the post, but thats about it

reblogs are the only way for posts to get around, and of course this doesnt mean that you have to reblog every post, but if you see one you enjoy and think "hey, others may like this" then go ahead and reblog it! even if you dont have any followers!

when people look at your blog and like the stuff you reblog, theyre likely to follow you to be able to get it as well, its really that simple! you dont have to post original posts to be followed for, reblogs are often enough :] and it also helps as empty blogs look like bots too

this goes DOUBLY for art posts, art posts have the hardest time gaining traction because so many people just put a like and move on. if you like a piece of art, don't just like, reblog!! it helps the artists so much more

"but rem!" you may say. "how am i supposed to reblog anything if my dash is empty??"

thats the toughest part of starting tumblr, i agree! it took me a while to enjoy it cause my dash would constantly be dry because i didnt follow enough accounts, and it was boring!

but since so many people are moving to tumblr, youre in luck! the likelihood is that some of the people you already follow here have been using tumblr, so a good start is to follow those you know over there as theyre likely to offer the same content you already enjoyed!

if you want to branch out more into the tumblr community, however, i suggest looking through tags of the things you like, and if any posts catch your eye, check out the posters account and scroll through it to see if it has anything you like! chances are you may decide to follow!

another tip is to check the accounts that those you follow reblogged a postfrom. when you get a post on your dash, it was put there by someone you follow, and you can see the account they got the post from near their username above it!

its a good idea to check out the usernames of those the posts get reblogged from, as theyre someone that a blog you are following follows, so its possible youll like their content as well! follow to your hearts desire!

3: tumblr etiquette!

would you look at that!! youve followed some people, youre getting posts reblogged on your dash, everything is so lively! now its time to do some blogging myself, right??

yes! but before you start, there are some things you need to know on the etiquette

posts, reblogs, queues, notes, tags, likes & replies

lets get into the nitty gritty of how all of these wonderful things work!

3.1: posts

this one speaks for itself, its an original post! here you can put anything you want to your hearts desire. there is no feasible text limit, you can add images, gifs, video, audio, links, so much!

you also have the ability to limit interaction on certain posts, such as turning off replies or reblogs for that one vent post you made that you dont want accidentally getting shared around! (of course, your post can still be screenshotted and shared in other ways)

and theres another little very handy thing for if you make a long post that may be annoying for others to scroll past, or if you have additional things you want to say but want to make it optional so people can open it up to read it if theyd like, use a readmore!

a readmore is basically a little line that you can add at any point of your text, which will collapse everything underneath it in a neat little button that says "Keep reading" that people can open to see the full post

you can put a readmore by typing ":readmore:" on mobile, or clicking the button with the squiggly lines on desktop! you can only use one readmore per post

now, this is the most important thing when it comes to posting or adding to posts on tumblr

DO. NOT. CENSOR. WORDS. DONT DO IT

if you spend a lot of time on tiktok or twitter, you may be used to censoring words like c0mms or ab*se to avoid getting shadowbanned or sounding too crude or whatever

if you do this on tumblr, 2 things happen:

1. youll be instantly clocked as a twitter or tiktok user and people will likely make fun of you censoring it. our hellsite allows a lot of things, and that includes talking about various bodily things or awful topics in graphic detail. thats just how it is!

2. people who are trying to avoid any of those words by blacklisting it will not be able to block the censored version, so by "softening" a harsh word by censoring it you will instead make the person who wants to avoid reading it see it anyway! just dont censor

3.2: reblogs

we already covered this one a little, but there are a few more things to share about what else you can do with reblogging!

when you reblog something, you can also add a "comment"! what this does, is basically create an addition under the original post which holds whatever it its youve decided to contribute to the conversation!

reblogs work in a vertical pattern, and there can be several variations of the same post because when people reblog a post, they also reblog the comments they have!

if you want to reblog only the original post, there is a ❌ in the corner of it you can click to delete comments, and if you like most comments but you dont like one near the bottom, you can go to the blog with the last sensible comment and reblog from them, it wont be weird!

reblogging can also be done in all kinds of ways! if you click reblog, a pop up shows up. and near the reblog button, if you click on the three dots on mobile and on the arrow on desktop, it brings up post options!

you have all kinds of choices, whether to schedule it, save it as a draft, post it privately (meaning no one will see it but you) and a few other tidbits. i do want to expand on one option however, and that is to "queue" it

3.3: queues

queueing a post is to put it in a queue! that is, to put it in a line of posts, which are all posted automatically by the website a select amount of times during a time slot, which you can all customize in the queue tab! its super useful to keep your tumblr active

3.4: notes

this little guy is located at the bottom left of a post, and you can toggle him open to view the cesspool of terrible thats probably brewing there

notes are basically any type of interaction with the post! there you can see every person who liked it, who reblogged it, and every comment, tag, and reply left under it! its basically a conglomeration of everyones opinions, but usually its best not to look for mental health sake

a lot of times people who arent native to tumblr will go there and try to make a post become super popular and get a bunch of notes! thats the point, right?

honestly? a post staying within your mutual circle or community is a lot more preferable. a post taking off is the last thing you want happening, because if it gets far, soon enough youre bound to receive a bunch of idiots in your askbox and notifs, and its just not fun

3.5: tags

heres where it gets fun! weve mentioned tags before, and were gonna delve a bit further into how to actually use them

the tags are a spot you can type anything you want underneath a post when you make or reblog one. they are separated by pressing enter or comma, and each one starts with a #

while tumblr tags do serve a similar function to hashtags, over time theyve evolved for a few different purposes! i will start of course with the most obvious which is close to how hashtags work, and how to tag properly

when you make an original post, you can use the tags like hashtags to include what the post may contain! lets say, the post is an original artwork? you may want to tag it with anything relating to the art, such as "digital art" or "original illustration" or anything similar!

the previous function is basically used like hashtags are used on twitter or tiktok. its for the purpose of sharing your post on those hashtags, so that people who are scrolling them may find it and find your blog through it! pretty simple. on the other hand, heres what not to do

DONT crosstag. for the love of god. there is nothing tumblr users hate more, than someone who uses absolutely every tag that could possibly get their post attention and does not even relate to the post. KEEP THE TAGS POST RELEVANT

even if you post a photo edit, but you want people to be able to find your blog which is focused on diy crafts, still dont tag it as crafts!! this just fills tags with unrelated things and will only end up with frustration from other blogs

(that being said, heres a small tip directed for the mcyt community specifically. DONT use the #minecraft tag when it comes to mcyt posts. that is another community entirely focused on the game itself and not youtubers or streamers, do not fill their tag)

moving on to another common use for tags! sorting systems!

when reblogging a post, you can add your own tags there as well! many users will add tags to a post that specify the content thats in it to any degree they desire. this is done to make searching for that post easier

basically, when you use the search function on a tumblr blog, a bunch of tags pop up underneath. these are the most popular tags the user uses for posts, and by searching by tag you are able to look at the posts on their blog that share it!

the most common use for this is to separate original posts from reblogs by giving those a unique tag, or for queues to mark a post as automatically posted, but its easy to look at any blog to see different examples of tagging systems. its up to preference!

and finally, the last use for tags! a little pocket to spew your silly little ideas about a post, where no one will have to reblog it! (though people can of course make a reblog with a screenshot of them or copy pasted if they want to show them to others, its out of your hands)

tags aren't directly rebloggable and not highly obvious to other users, which is why theyre now used as a "silent" alternative to write your thoughts about a post without being much of a bother to others or putting yourself out there

tags are visible to the original poster and the person you reblogged it from however, and still visible to everyone by looking through the notes, so keep that in mind! theyre not 100% private, but theyre definitely a tad more private

relating to how they can be seen by the latter, some people like to communicate through tags with whoever they reblog a post from sometimes if they want to add to what they say

this is usually prefaced with a tag that says "prev" or pasting the previous tags and putting "← prev". the arrow can be automatically inserted by typing <-

THATS ALL WITH THE TAGS! that was a lot, jeez. how are you still even reading this thread anyway? well, lets move on, we're almost done!

3.6: likes & replies

the more silent types of post support, pretty self explanatory! likes show the op that you liked the post (duh), and replies are like a tag or comment, but they are only visible to the op and anyone who checks the notes, no one else will see them otherwise

one tip about likes, i prefer to use likes to "bookmark" posts i dont want to reblog but would like to save for later to make them more easily accessible and in one place, just like the bookmarks tab on here. thats just me though!

4: the tumblr weekly schedule

this is the most important thing i could ever tell you on this thread. listen carefully

- manwhore monday
- tuesday again?
- wet beast wednesday
- out of touch thursday
- flat fuck friday
- suck her dick saturday
- fingers in his ass sunday

each of these corresponds to a specific post that we reblog each time this day of the week comes around. you better reblog that fucking alligator every friday or kanye komaeda and sans breaking it down every sunday like your life depends on it

(jokes aside, its a very fun tradition and also the best way to track the days of the week for me, im not even exaggerating)

5: tips!

and here is the final point!!! just a couple tips on how to make navigating tumblr a lot simpler

5.1: keyboard shortcuts

you see this? open up the keyboard shortcuts tab to find how to make your life SO much easier. here you can find how to quick reblog a post by holding a key and clicking the button to avoid dealing with the pop up each time. trust me, use it

5.2: xkit

this is an extension focused around simplifying and commodifying a lot of tumblr features! everyone uses it, EVERYONE, so use it as well, trust me its worth it. i wont explain what it does and all that but i trust you can look it up and decide for yourself!

5.3: advertisers and brands

DO NOT INTERACT! not at all! no ratio, no bugass, no kung pow penis, NOTHING. give them absolutely nothing. desert them and let them starve.

i dont care if its duolingo, i dont care if its taylor swift, they are all there to advertise something to you and we never take it. the ONLY celebrity we fucking respect on there is Neil Gaiman and thats because he earned his place as a certified freak who understands us

fun note to end on! and thats all for the thread! i hope this helped anyone understand our lovely hellsite a bit better, and i wish you all luck with your time there! feel free to add any other useful tips on using tumblr and i will add those tweets here :]

very sorry if theres spelling mistakes or its confusing, i wrote it up in one go o(-(

a wonderful post by a mcytblr user on how different certain things are regarded in that part of the community!! please read to understand the tumblr side of the mcyt fandom better to avoid conflict and misunderstandings :]

https://twitter.com/_Mullet_man/status/1589735451455553536?t=-S1iv1ajDlKzPu2RQEb-pA&s=19