Old woman yells at cloud

[sholio]

Reading Tumblr's post on upcoming changes (kinda long and very vague in specifics, there's a reblog addition in which they claim nothing is changing in the core product but WE'LL SEE) made me think about changes to the general style of social media over the last decade or so, especially this part:

The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience.

[...] Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content.

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content.

I hadn't really thought about this before, but the whole experience of looking for things used to be the basic experience of getting on a new social media platform. You have to go find stuff - accounts to follow, tags to search. Ideally you can search without an account and just read the content on the site for a while before you get on, and you can spend lots of time lurking and searching before you join in, but *you* fill up your feed with the things that you want to see.

But this trend toward having the social media platform itself fill your feed/timeline/reading page with a ton of content it thinks you want rather than leaving it up to you to find things on your own is just ... I feel like it's actively antithetical to the social media experience I want to have. And it's recent, not the suggesting stuff per se (lots of sites do this in a sidebar, all the way back to the mid-2000s or earlier for places like Yahoo News) but the expectation that what's going to happen when you go on a social media site, you'll have a cascade of random crap thrown at you - that's new, it didn't used to be like that, it's completely ridiculous to say that it's the only experience users want when it's literally only the last few years that any site has done that.

In Tumblr's specific case, if they want to show off the contents of the site to new users, maybe they could try focusing on building a search function that isn't total donkey crap.

(This is more like musing and gripey nitpicking rather than me being hugely annoyed at any of this, but it's fascinating how the above quotes, and some other parts of the linked post, made me consider how there's been this general turnaround from having a slow ramping up on a new social media, where you start out with a somewhat barren experience and spend some time having to seek out content to engage with, vs having it firehosed at you - it's *new*, it's not inevitable, and I don't even think it's inevitable that every new content platform is going to be like that; there's still plenty of interest in Medium-style, Reddit-style websites, where there might be a What's New section or suggestions offered to you, but mostly you go there because you want to see specific things and have at least a minimal, Google-assisted-if-necessary ability to search for them.)

(I also just kind of resent the above-quoted bit where "curating your experience" is equated to "picking blogs you want to follow" - because *that's not how that's used,* it refers more specifically to blocking blogs, muting tags, and generally cherry-picking from the available content on your dash for a better experience, not the basic underlying mechanism that you choose what blogs you want to follow vs having the site pick for you.)

Comments

[thawrecka]

It's also bananapants because social media sites are, in my experience, very bad at recommending to me things I might like based on an algorithm. For years the twitter account under my legal name constantly recommended me tweets about Criminal Minds, a show I do not watch! I looked in the settings to see what else it assumed I was interested in, and apparently I had been profiled as someone interested in sports. And instagram constantly tries to show me reels on things I could not be less interested in.

I think it's a move in general towards targeting the kind of users who are very intensely addicted to a service and what it serves to them and away from casual users, as well. Which seems ill-advised from a serving ads point of view.

[sholio]

That too - I think the only site I've been on that actually did a decent job with this was Tiktok, and it manages it by collecting *tons* of data about every aspect of how users use the site. (I don't know much about recommendation algorithm design, but I do feel like one thing about all these sites jumping on algorithm-based site design is that you have to have really good software or really invasive privacy policies or both, and I feel as if a terribly implemented algorithm would be considerably worse than none ...)

But yeah, that's a good point about catering to the addict-style users, as well.

[fiachairecht]

I'm trying to wrap my head around 'choosing who to follow' being something that introduces friction to the user experience rather than just being. The user experience. Like okay maybe I am just Too Old For This or SOMETHING, idk.

Way too many sites/products are pivoting to a 'we need as many users as possible who cares who they are' deal rather than a 'let's listen to the users who have been here a long time and have invested time and money into this place because they like it' and it's just so depressing and makes the internet so much less fun :|

[sholio]

I KNOW RIGHT, that was part of what I felt such a disconnect about, that what they're talking about as "friction" is just what I think of as a fundamental aspect of how you use the internet - but clearly it isn't anymore.

[philomytha]

I will wave my walking stick at the cloud right along with you!

I am struggling with the fact that when Cub wants to watch a video on Youtube, he watches the one it recommends him rather than typing in the search engine to find something he wants. There are many conversations about this topic in my future ... (also in the generational divide: it would never occur to him to find written instructions online for anything, he wants a video only. It is so weird.)

[sholio]

*waves walking stick*

That is so fascinatingly weird about Cub, so completely alien not only to how I use the internet, but how I feel the internet is supposed to be used! Generational differences. Help.

[sheron]

That really is a generational divide because I hate video instructions so much, they're so SLOW.

[sovay]

Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience.

This language is a terrible way to think.

[sholio]

I do not like!

[trobadora]

Seriously, it utterly boggles my mind that the conventional wisdom nowadays is that it's more "seamless" to show me random things I don't want to see (and it's always things I don't want to see!), rather than the things I actually told it to show me. It's actively offputting and I won't use any site that forces it on me.

(Hell, I don't even like it when it recs me things, even if they're totally avoidable. Even if these algorithms were good at reccing, which they're not, who has the time for all that stuff?!)

[sholio]

Yeah, I try to turn off the recommendations anywhere that I can (e.g. installing a plugin to make Twitter stop showing you random stuff in the sidebar) because I already have plenty of things competing for my attention; I don't need to add more. Let alone having that as my entire user experience! Like you said, who has time for that!

[rheanna]

I don’t have anything insightful to add, except to say I, too, hate this business of having random content shoved at me.

[sholio]

Thank you; I appreciate that I am clearly among my people here. :D

[anna_wing]

Perhaps they will introduce the algorithm, and then offer to turn it off for a fee.

[sholio]

This seems tragically plausible. I mean, as a paid tier, it *is* something I would probably pay for if I wanted to continue using the site.

[snowynight]

'Choosing who to follow' used to be a feature, not a bug for social media, but how can it shove ads to you if you can choose what to see/connect on your own?/s

[ambyr]

I don’t have any particularly coherent thoughts to add, only: this, this.

My Facebook experience these days is almost entirely group-focused, because if I go directly to my groups I get the content I want and only the content I want. If I try looking at my main feed...oy.

[castiron]

If my main FB feed were the people I choose to follow with posts in chronological order, I'd be on FB all the time. But as a way to follow specific people whose posts I want to keep up with, it's terrible.

[queenslayerbee]

I guess this seems like a good entry to first comment in ^^U

Long story short, I'd been thinking for a while about making a dw account to try to have that ~blogging experience that tumblr has failed to give me for a while, and I have to say all of the recent changes have been the final push towards it.

(I found your blog through some common interests that make me want to subscribe, and I thought I'd comment and maybe commiserate about how annoying these recent trends in social media are getting LOL. At this point I know I won't stop using tumblr unless it hypothetically collapses on its own, because My People are there. But damn if it isn't getting on my nerves lately, even as a mainly-desktop user...)

[sholio]

Hello! Welcome! I hope you'll find it a good experience, and I'm glad you stopped by to chat. :D I don't always answer all the comments I get, but you're always welcome to comment on anything you see that you find interesting and have something to say. I definitely read them all!

But yeah, Tumblr is just ... it's really the only thing that does what Tumblr does, and I appreciate it for that! For one thing, it's really the only site I can think of where gifs are really a thing, not just as a one-off but as an actual primary art form. And they're such a great way to re-experience scenes from canon; I would miss them so much if they were gone. There's no other site I've ever been on that's quite like it.

(The fact that Tumblr got polls and immediately did something completely unique with them was absolutely fascinating to me, because there are many sites with polls, but the combination of polls + Tumblr's basically-unique-to-blogging-sites ability to totally divorce the polls from their original blog and context led to a whole bunch of polls being used in ways I have never seen polls used on Twitter or any other site, like the "design a recipe" or "build a dinosaur" polls. If Tumblr ever goes away, it will take something completely unique with it ...)

[conuly]

Friction is not a bad thing.

[leesa_perrie]

I only do FB, LJ and DW. Of these, FB annoys me by messing up my feed, hiding things that people have posted and generally just being crap at letting me read what I want to read without their algorithm getting in the way. I use FB to keep up with people I'd otherwise lose contact with, otherwise I might be tempted to drop it. I've tried Tumblr and Twitter, but they just don't interest me enough *shrugs*.

And yeah, I don't like them snooping and recommending me things. YouTube does this too, and it can be annoying. I'd rather go looking. It makes me wonder if the younger generations are used to being fed things rather than being taught how to look for things? I truly hope not because that could be very dangerous. If all you see are things that you agree with, how will you ever learn about other people's POV, whether you agree with them or not?

[sholio]

Yeah, I'm mainly on FB to keep in touch with people who aren't anywhere else. (And also for professional purposes, as it's a book discussion hub and a place to talk to readers.) I do have a Twitter and keep thinking I should use it more, but then I go there and I'm like, but what if I didn't actually.

[sheron]

In the end the reason they want to serve you things is to that they can get better at serving you ads to click on. Google has gotten pretty insidious about how it serves basically adds "Galaxy XX is on sale this week" between the world news. If you can't curate your own content, you just get it served to you, it's much easier to advertise. I think that's the underlying reason, if one of several.

[yhlee]

This. I'm pretty sure they PREFER to train viewers/readers into, for lack of a better term, learned helplessness: if "search for thing I want instead of thing algo has decided to show me because XYZ company has paid $$$$$ to place it" doesn't even OCCUR to users, it's better for them if not for us. Sort of like old-school network TV. Sure, you can change the channel, but if there are only like five channels...

[oracne]

But this trend toward having the social media platform itself fill your feed/timeline/reading page with a ton of content it thinks you want rather than leaving it up to you to find things on your own is just ... I feel like it's actively antithetical to the social media experience I want to have.

SO MUCH THIS. But feeding you content is intended to sell you things.

[viridian5]

I started spending much less time on Instagram when instead of showing me posts by accounts I follow, it started firehosing me with a ton of stuff by randos, some of them business accounts trying to sell me things. That's not what I was there for.

[xparrot]

Oh wow I'm so out of sync with the modern "experience" that I 100% did not realize from what you posted that "curate your feed" just meant following people -- no. That's not what that means?? Like you said, curating takes more work than that (and Tumblr was never great at actual curation tools...)

Most sites at least still have some kind of "following" page, even if it's increasingly hidden, so hopefully Tumblr will continue to? But. Wow.

"Immersion" is the name of the game, for sure -- drown you in what the algorithm wants to show you, making sure no one's feed is ever empty, that you can never catch up, so you never stop scrolling and never stop viewing ads. It makes complete sense from a commercial point of view, but it's an actual legit nightmare as a way to socialize -- or is that just me from an introvert's POV?

[sholio]

OH HI!! So just for accountability purposes I got your email and will answer it whenever my innate tendency to procrastinate on these things decides that it's aged sufficiently ;__; ... but it's always really nice to hear from you! <3

Oh wow I'm so out of sync with the modern "experience" that I 100% did not realize from what you posted that "curate your feed" just meant following people -- no. That's not what that means?? Like you said, curating takes more work than that (and Tumblr was never great at actual curation tools...)

Right??? I think the thing is, it actually *doesn't* mean that except according to whatever corporate person wrote this post - I mean, literally everyone I know who talks about it means it the way we mean it, where it's about filtering/blocking/tag-sorting. If the people running Tumblr think that it actually means following people, I think we have a problem, because ... no. That being said, I don't think the "following" feed is going away, it just might eventually get harder to find and more cluttered.

(Scuttlebutt currently is that people signing up for Tumblr are default-opted into the "for you" feed and while they can still access the Following tab, they can't make it default, which is FUCKING INSANE and I'm tempted to sign up for a burner account just to test this.)

It makes complete sense from a commercial point of view, but it's an actual legit nightmare as a way to socialize -- or is that just me from an introvert's POV?

It's definitely not just you! Actually, this is closely related to the epiphany that the above-quoted post gave me about modern social media - because somehow social media has stopped being about socializing and turned into a way of firehosing content at you, but it was always supposed to be about having social interactions with people, and for me it still is! I really don't like the idea of it turning into something completely different.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I will join you in yelling at clouds! I'm still here on DW because I want to be able to choose what I see. And because I barely got Twitter and never even tried a Tumblr account, and once I finally felt I got Twitter, EM bought it and is doing his best to ruin it.

Now that I think about it, I think I didn't try opening a Tumblr account in part because I couldn't see how I could get from a specific link that someone supplied on DW or Twitter to see more of the same kind of content without a lot of work.

It's an interesting distinction that I had only begun thinking about myself recently, as it feels like tumbleweeds are blowing around DW (I'm so glad you're still here! And a few others I love to read!), and I'm starting to notice how many people I followed have left Twitter. Some of the latter have gone to Mastodon, and some to Threads, and some to a few other things, but I don't want to open several new accounts because I can't even manage to keep up on the few I do have.

[sholio]

I'm glad you're still on DW, too! <3 So many people I've lost touch with over the years. Luckily, I *do* think there's still a fairly active community of people who talk on DW, it's just that it's much smaller and more insular than it used to be.