Speaking of things I don't want to bring up on Tumblr...

[soc_puppet]

Is there a way to turn off my ability to "like" posts? Or can I petition New Xkit to make one or something? I mean. I can't imagine Tumblr itself turning off the ability ever, or it going well if they did (especially since a lot of people apparently use it as a sort of "storage" or marking ability), but I just.

I keep seeing posts that tell me that "liking" is effectively useless, with the implied (or sometimes even stated) "and you should feel bad for doing it, especially if you don't also reblog". And I would like to stop feeling frustrated and put-down by those posts. The problem is, as long as "liking" is an option for me, I'm not going to stop doing it! I'm going to see the "like" button and want to communicate to OP or the person who put the post on my dash that I liked that post, or what they had to say about it.

Tumblr turning off the "like" feature seems like a non-starter, as stated above. And getting people to stop making those posts is a losing battle if I ever saw one. If I can turn off the ability to "like" posts from my end, I will at least be able to ignore those posts, on the basis that they no longer apply to me. I wouldn't "like" instead of reblogging, because I wouldn't be able to "like" posts at all!

It's not completely ruining my enjoyment of Tumblr yet, but the guilt trips certainly aren't making it more fun.

Edit: Taking some advice and unfollowing the person I see most of that from. This should have the added benefit of halving the number of new posts I see on my dash after work or when I get up on days off, allowing me more free brain time! I'll definitely miss some of their posts and reblogs, but not enough to put up with both regular "not-reblogging" shaming and the sheer volume of material on my dash.

Comments

[vriddy]

When I was more active on Tumblr, I unfollowed the people who reblogged this kind of things. I think it's the loudest people doing that, but plenty of others do enjoy likes and the acknowledgement that someone somewhere did see and enjoy what they shared. We're here to chill, not to be someone's PR team 🤷 I hope you can step back enough not to let the guilt trips get to you too much, and not feel bad about using the platform the way it's designed to be used. Hugs if you want them!

[soc_puppet]

...You know what, you're right. I think I really do see them reblogged by mostly the one person. And it's someone I've been contemplating unfollowing anyway, because they just put so much stuff on my dash! I even enjoy a lot of it, but it turns out I skip about half of it, and even then it was just making my habit of "trying to at least look at every post since the last time I logged on" take waaaaaay too much time. Over half of those posts should disappear this way.

Thank you, this was just the kick in the pants I needed!

[vriddy]

Delighted you found a good solution for yourself, that sounds way nicer :D :D

[sabcatt]

seconding that the first/best move to make is to unfollow the people who are putting these posts on your dash. you could also maybe blacklist the word “reblog” and/or its variations, because the discussion on “liking posts is Literally Evil” tends to compare it to reblogging, and “reblog” is a less common word and therefore would be less likely to catch other posts up in the filter if you do blacklist it.

that said, I don’t know of any extensions that do this that currently exist, but the currently-supported version of xkit is “xkit rewritten” by tumblr user april and I believe that she has a suggestion box for “things people want to see in xkit” available somewhere, i think on the project’s github.

[soc_puppet]

I'm taking the "unfollow" advice from both of you, since it's really mostly the one person I keep seeing put this on my dash, and it's someone I've been going back and forth about unfollowing anyway. Thank you for the encouragement and the excellent suggestion!

[finch]

I'm glad you found a solution! I've been trying really hard to engage more this year with creators, so I've been working my likes and kudos when I don't have the energy to reblog and add comments and all the things I'd LIKE to do more, and honestly I don't have the energy to follow someone who's going to be that prescriptive about how I'm allowed to engage with their public content. I think you picked the best option.

[soc_puppet]

Honestly I'm not sure they put as much thought into reblogging stuff as I do 😂 I like this person generally, but it's just been a bit too much!

There's probably also more I'd reblog if I didn't try to have image descriptions on as much as possible. With that person unfollowed, I should have more spoons to describe things, or even just to sort through notes to see if there's a description already that I can reblog, but yeah. A lot of tab buildup I have comes from not having the energy to write a description right that moment, or even not having the energy to tag at exactly that moment, and I rely heavily on my tags for organizational reasons.

This is one I feel strongly about, lol

[mistressofmuses]

I think unfollowing the biggest culprit is the right move.

Guilt trips are almost never motivating. The likes vs. reblogs discourse is one example. Another is the perpetual "why is no one talking about [serious subject], I expect all my followers to reblog this or else". Like... hah, what a great post about this topic. I would absolutely have loved to reblog it, but that guilt trip has instead just made me block you.

(I don't so much mind the posts that are more geared toward "hey, if you're new to tumblr, you should know that reblogging is absolutely the norm, and doesn't take attention away from the OP - the opposite, actually! It's the best way of sharing things and getting more people to see it across the site!", but the ones that are really shame-y about "likes are WORTHLESS, if you can't reblog EVERYTHING then you're a bad person and you don't care about artists/writers/etc." are awful.)

Both liking and reblogging are functions of the site FOR A REASON. I DO understand that artists/writers/creators of all kinds want their work to spread. I get it! And as a general trend, I'm sure it's discouraging to see a lot of people who like something, but don't want to share it. Bummer!

Quite honestly... I follow hundreds of blogs on tumblr. A lot of them are single-topic blogs that share a lot of content for A Thing I Like. I follow ones for birds, ones for bugs, ones for frogs, ones for Halloween aesthetics... I enjoy almost all the things they post, and I will happily "like" just about every single one. But I DON'T have a blog devoted to those topics, at least not entirely, and I don't want my blog to be hundreds of posts of all of those things. My blog isn't a carefully-curated thing by any stretch, but I have no desire to reblog hundreds of posts a day just because I saw them. I DO share a lot of art and writing, but I share the ones that I WANT to share, not the ones someone tried to guilt me into sharing.

I really have no patience for fandom bullies or entitlement, and like-shaming is both of those things.

I mean, samesies

[soc_puppet]

Honestly, unfollowing them was a much better idea, and I'm ultimately glad I did it. My dash is a little quieter now, but that just means I can start following someone else! I'd trimmed things way down in order not to get overwhelmed by how much there was to read every day with that one person posting, and it still wasn't working very well. I definitely miss some content, but I'm definitely in a better position.

But yeah, I am now also super glad I didn't bring this up on Tumblr. I thought about it seriously for a bit, but wow, that would've gotten ugly in a hurry.

Re: I mean, samesies

[mistressofmuses]

I think that was definitely a good choice.

It's a shame when there's content you genuinely enjoy from someone, but they also unload with really frustrating/negative/etc. stuff. I'm a big fan of curating your own experience, and I've had to unfollow people I otherwise liked for similar reasons.

[bluedreaming]

I'm glad that you found a solution; I also agree that it's just not constructive to see that kind of negativity. Since when is being useful the payment required of us for appreciating someone? The point of a like is to express enjoyment/thanks/appreciation for something. It's not a coin-in-the-algorithm-slot machine. It's like people who post about being devasted by receiving an emoji comment.

Forgot to add: this and other things (worry about not reblogging the right things, missing reblogging something, and even more on Twitter) are why I now have a firm personal rule. I never ever ever ever reblog anything on Tumblr (and in fact don't post now anyway), and I very rarely quote retweet something on Twitter. Too much anxiety that I don't need or want, so I just cut it all out. (Maybe I'm mean? I can't find that I care. If anything, I'll share links to things in my weekly Dreamwdith post and that is it.)

[soc_puppet]

Yeah. I mean, I get that Tumblr is a content aggregation site? So it's built with sharing stuff in mind? And there are plenty of people who have been on Tumblr a really long time who remember when it was a lot more common to share everything (apparently). But the culture on Tumblr changed, and yelling at people about it isn't going to make it change back; it's only going to make people feel bad.

Those sound like stricter rules than I'd be up for, but it sounds like you gave it a lot of thought and found a system that really works for you! As you may be able to tell from this very post, I've had trouble with that myself 😅

[chemicalcain]

I tend to reblog rather than like, if it's someone outside my immediate circle, because this is kinda how Tumblr works. But if it's someone in my immediate circle and/or the post seems extremely personal, then it seems more appropriate to only like the post. I don't know, it's a weird bit of Tumblr culture. However: if you truly want to eliminate your impulse to like posts, you could selectively block the like button using an Element Picker in your adblocker. (I use uBlock Origin, but I know Adblock Plus had this feature once upon a time as well.)