My addiction to my Tumblr stream is so strong I had to install LeechBlock in order to get anything done. The mindless way I would just refresh my Tumblr page and not even participate in the culture of copying known as the “reblog” (where a Tumblr user just blogs someone’s post, typically with no comment of their own) , just idly reading or watching what people were posting, was making me lose it.  So, I’ve been experimenting with detoxing. It’s hard, but I’m (mostly) avoiding it.

But I bring up Tumblr because they just introduced Tumblarity, an index of your popularity on the site.  Alice Marwick posted a really smart take on it, explaining how Tumblarity is a number that stands for social status. What Tumblarity reminds me more of is when Yelp introduced a similar feature way back in 2006, a directory of Yelpers listed in order of popularity, and “useful, funny, cool” votes (you can vote on every Yelp review for its usefulness, coolness and humor). The difference was that Yelp made all of these numbers public. When Yelp introduced that feature, the site did take on a popularity contest vibe, with Yelpers competing to see who could be in the top lists for most funny or most cool (no one wants to be most “useful”).

I find it interesting that Tumblr isn’t placing these in public places, and that you still can’t see how many followers a particular Tumblr has, or even who people are following. Some of the Tumblr templates allow you to put the list of people you follow on your blog, but no one has any way of knowing what your Tumblarity is or how many followers you have unless you tell them. This weird omission fosters what I’ve always felt about Tumblr, that the way it’s structured intentionally creates lots of isolated cliques that only read and reblog each other. Unlike Yelp, which forces you to interact with people outside your friends list by logging you in to a main page every time time you go to it. Or, like Livejournal (what I consider the Tumblr of the early days), which also creates more interaction outside your main circle with its communities and by virtue of letting you see who your friends are reading.

I don’t think Tumblarity means much for now. Since no one knows your number but you (and the people immediately above and below you on the list, which is ever changing) the status it signifies only means as much as you want it to. If Tumblr were to take all these directories public, we’d see a lot more angling for followers, likes and reblogs (if that’s even possible).

This kind of article, about how one thing is “over” is so aggravating to me, especially because the writer doesn’t appear to be too well versed in the Tumblr community (which for better or worse, I am.)   People will not leave Twitter for Tumblr. And if they do, they are looking for something Twitter does not necesarily exist for. Both of the services are different and cater to different people and different needs.

Tumblr is good at the following:

1) Easy posting of videos & photos

2) Easy posting of things you like, which unfortunately has created a community of people who have entire blogs which consist solely of other peoples content and things other people found. Some people love this, others (like me) are more “purist” in their philosophy and prefer to post stuff I wrote or stuff I found. However, the community of Tumblr is found in the “reblog” and if you don’t re-blog or “like”,  you won’t get very far in terms of meeting people.

3) Its extremely easy to use. People often ask me for advice on what blog platform to use since I’ve used them all, I always tell them Tumblr because if you can’t click on a giant icon that’ll give you the kind of post you want, then .. re-consider your strategy.

Okay, now that we have that covered, let’s uncover the real reason there’s a Twitter backlash against the nerds: it’s not cool anymore. A Kardashian sister mentioned Twittering on the Bravo A-list awards. “PtwittyTV” is a real thing. It’s not our secret little clubhouse anymore. The claims that it’s jumped the shark because it’s been unreliable is ludicrous; it’s never been reliable, ever.  But now that it’s somewhat mainstream, it’s starting to lose it’s luster.

Tumblr, despite what anyone says, is not a “micro-blog.”  If I were to compare it to any other service, I would say it is a much sleeker version of Livejournal.

Twitter, with its 140 characters, and the asking of a very simple question, “what are you doing?” is a different beast altogether. One could replace the other, in terms of how people ar quick to all move on to the next new thing, but it’ll be used in a very different way.

Despite my last post, where I talked trash about “experts”, I love Twitter and I love the potential it has and the various uses: tiny diary, news feed, teller of jokes, or just learning the mundane (or not so mundane) things my friends are doing during the day. Its character limit is what makes it so unique.

Personaly, I want my Tumblr dashboard to remain pretty photos, quotes pulled from blogs, hot jams, memes, and occasional long rants. The day someone tries to quote me a listsicle on their social media expertise and 1 million reasons on why X is better than Y, I’ll pour a little bit of my bacon martini out on the floor and weep at the death of yet another great community ruined by salespeople.

[Via Tippingpoint Labs.]

I just submitted a speaker proposal to the Sex 2.0 Conference inspired by my Bravo blog. So, this Gretchen Rossi person on Real Housewives, who I always felt was annoying (that laugh!) but harmless, has had her life ripped apart by a dude posting photos of her on Myspace. I’m obsessed with the idea that things that were formerly secrets really can’t be anymore.

There is also this other trend in online porn, of people posting photos of their ex girlfriends either naked or engaged in sex. It’s a big thing now, whether or not it’s true (you can of course label any porn video anything you want on the Internet), it still speaks to the fact that this is now some kind of trend. If you break up with someone and dared to experiment in this manner, now you risk having that person put your business all over the place. And now with everyone on Facebook and tagging? Forget it. One false move and everyone’s seen your naked photos.

I’m certainly not going to recommend slut shaming. Take naked photos if you want, but I still think it’s alarming and only going to get worse with everyone now obsessed with photographing and documenting every thing that ever happens to them.

It should be an interesting discussion, especially amongst a crowd that normally puts naked photos of themselves online and blogs their sex lives.

This time tomorrow, I’ll be in Austin. When it’s done, I’ll be a SXSW speaker. That’s pretty cool. The song of the day is Lily Allen’s The Fear. I post it because she got in big trouble for beating up a paparazzi today.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-wGMlSuX_c&hl=en&fs=1]