(sincere question) when you see a tumblr post* you enjoy, what makes you hit like and not reblog?
it doesn’t fit my blog aesthetic
it’s not for the fandom/ship/character i primarily blog about
it’s nice but i’m just picky about what i want on my blog
i’m new to tumblr and don’t know why reblogging is important
i like with the intention to reblog later or put it in my queue
i don’t want my followers to see that i reblogged it
i just lurk and never reblog things
other (put in the tags)
See Results
i wanted to make this poll because as a gifmaker, i’m perplexed at the way the like reblog ratio on this site has gone down significantly in the past few years and i’m really interested in getting some insight as to why that happened.
*just to clarify, this poll doesn’t apply to mutuals’ personal posts, tag games, or responses to asks you sent to people!! it’s about creative posts like fics, gifs, art, fan videos, etc etc.

because, just as you say, gifmakers and writers and artists are dependent on followers and reblogs for their recognition

and that goes both ways

and lots of us here are creating something, and therefore lots of us here are desperate for recognition (sometimes for the sake of even making a living)

and algorithms are getting worse and worse, and making it harder and harder for any of us who create anything to reach any of the people who will appreciate it

and, that is the same reason we don’t reblog every single thing we like

because, none of us can afford to have anything on our blog that might detract from the theme we’ve got going, which caused our current, meager following to follow us

because that could lead to us having fewer followers and fewer reblogs and less recognition

…I agree. It is a fucked-up system which constantly feeds into making itself worse. None of us should be struggling this hard against the algorithm to get noticed. And definitely none of us should be dependent on getting noticed on a website for our very survival.

but until we find a way to fix the problem of website algorithms, and/or the problem of people being required to “earn a living” before they can be allowed to survive, then unfortunately this is how things are going to go