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The Decline and Fall of the Tumblr RPC
Dec. 5th, 2018 09:30 amIn 2011, I first started roleplaying on the tumblr platform. At that time, I really didn't know anything about it apart from the fact that it was a writing game where people could impersonate different characters. So, I joined a roleplaying group. That first encounter didn't go very well, so I left and switched to another one where I stayed for the next few months. I learned a great deal there about writing and developing characters while being surrounded by supportive and creative people. When that group closed, however, it was not the end of my adventures in roleplaying. Instead, it was the beginning.
On tumblr, there is an independent roleplaying community where people can write with each other without having to be members of a group. They can build blogs for characters from any fandom or original characters that they create on their own. I believe that this is a truly wonderful idea. However, it had many problems and it is those problems that are going to be the subject of my post.
One of the independent community's many problems is that it is a popularity contest. If you have good graphics and great icons, other people will follow you like nobody's business. If you have a theme on your blog that fits a certain kind of aesthetic, you will also gain many followers. If you are a social justice warrior and call other people out on their bullshit, then you will be extremely popular. If you are none of these things, however, you might as well not exist at all.
In the tumblr rpc, appearances are much more important than what a person actually does. It doesn't really matter if someone writes a character well or if they have spent a lot of time researching that character. The things that matter are whether or not they have the appropriate aesthetics and the correct political views.
I did achieve a measure of popularity on tumblr at one point in time when I was writing Superman, but the reason why I achieved this had absolutely nothing to do with my political views or my aesthetics. I was a good writer, I had good icons, and a good theme and people were willing to write with me. However, I also kept my head down and never really commented on anything that other people were doing or saying. I stayed out of the politics altogether. After the 2016 election when everyone lost their collective shit and became radicalized, I could no longer go on that blog without feeling like I was being beaten up and abused by a bunch of know nothings because I didn't follow the party line and so I left and made other blogs that were not as popular for minor characters that most people had heard of or popular characters that existed on Earth 616 in Marvel such as Jessica Jones or Magneto (very different from their movie and TV incarnations, I assure you).
Popularity, however, is only the tip of the iceberg. I would say that the other major problem with the tumblr roleplaying community is its politics. Most of the people in the community tend to be leftists or social justice warriors. Many of them are transgender or gay or lesbian or whatever. Due to this, it is very difficult for straight people to exist on that site without feeling that they are being constantly and consistently put down by things that people are saying about them as a group. For example, there was a Jaime Lannister roleplayer who labeled every person on the site who didn't agree with him as "Trump supporter, pedophile, Republican, etc." when there wasn't any evidence to the contrary that those people were any of those things.
SJWs being what they are, there were many discussions about things like Nazis in Star Wars and whether or not people could use certain face claims for their characters without acknowledging that face claim's identity. Personally, I do not think that using Jon Bernthal for Frank Castle makes me an anti-Semite. As far as I know from my extensive reading of his comics, The Punisher is Italian. There is absolutely nothing about him that is Jewish and there is no reason for me to bend over backwards and try to make him something that he never was to begin with. Of course, the SJWs on tumblr do not understand this kind of logic. To them, it's either do what I say or get the hell out.
It goes without saying that there was a great deal of anti-intellectualism in the tumblr rpc as well. Most people didn't really care about things like fine art or classical music unless theyh were somehow integrated into the character or they were spoon fed these things. Obviously, this speaks to the poverty of their educational backgrounds and the way that subjects such as literature and music are taught in the public schools. Indeed, all texts had to be written for the lowest common denominator. Any frisson of intellectualism was looked down as elitism and so on.
While all of the above were contributing factors to the decline of the rpc, the main reason why so many people left and migrated elsewhere was because of the constant drama. Yes, there is drama in every day life and we all have to live with some controversy or another from time to time. However, the drama on tumblr was endemic. Sometimes, it would result from the fact that someone somewhere wrote something that anotehr person didn't agree with. Due to the public nature of the tumblr blogging platform, someone else would read it, get upset, and then vagueblog about them or they would stalk their blog, gather evidence, and then post a massive call out post detailing absolutely everything that this person had done wrong.
Although there were some call outs that were justified, there were some that weren't. I watched many friends being spammed with hateful anonymous messages becuase they had siad something that might only have been slightly controversial. I have seen other people being bullied and stalked because they didn't want to be a part of that status quo. The tumblr rpc hemorrhaged people until it was a shadow of its former self and where the only people that were writing were the SJWs.
The tumblr rpc is not dead yet, but it will die soon. Tumblr has released a series of new guidelines wherein it will flag all content that is not deemed safe for work and will remove it. This can include almost anything from a character referencing drugs to a gifset where a woman shows her cleavage ever so slightly. Personally, I cannot stand this kind of censorship any further than I can throw it, but I am glad that this will be the final nail in the coffin and that things in tumblrland and the rest of the interwebz will go back to being the way they were before.
On tumblr, there is an independent roleplaying community where people can write with each other without having to be members of a group. They can build blogs for characters from any fandom or original characters that they create on their own. I believe that this is a truly wonderful idea. However, it had many problems and it is those problems that are going to be the subject of my post.
One of the independent community's many problems is that it is a popularity contest. If you have good graphics and great icons, other people will follow you like nobody's business. If you have a theme on your blog that fits a certain kind of aesthetic, you will also gain many followers. If you are a social justice warrior and call other people out on their bullshit, then you will be extremely popular. If you are none of these things, however, you might as well not exist at all.
In the tumblr rpc, appearances are much more important than what a person actually does. It doesn't really matter if someone writes a character well or if they have spent a lot of time researching that character. The things that matter are whether or not they have the appropriate aesthetics and the correct political views.
I did achieve a measure of popularity on tumblr at one point in time when I was writing Superman, but the reason why I achieved this had absolutely nothing to do with my political views or my aesthetics. I was a good writer, I had good icons, and a good theme and people were willing to write with me. However, I also kept my head down and never really commented on anything that other people were doing or saying. I stayed out of the politics altogether. After the 2016 election when everyone lost their collective shit and became radicalized, I could no longer go on that blog without feeling like I was being beaten up and abused by a bunch of know nothings because I didn't follow the party line and so I left and made other blogs that were not as popular for minor characters that most people had heard of or popular characters that existed on Earth 616 in Marvel such as Jessica Jones or Magneto (very different from their movie and TV incarnations, I assure you).
Popularity, however, is only the tip of the iceberg. I would say that the other major problem with the tumblr roleplaying community is its politics. Most of the people in the community tend to be leftists or social justice warriors. Many of them are transgender or gay or lesbian or whatever. Due to this, it is very difficult for straight people to exist on that site without feeling that they are being constantly and consistently put down by things that people are saying about them as a group. For example, there was a Jaime Lannister roleplayer who labeled every person on the site who didn't agree with him as "Trump supporter, pedophile, Republican, etc." when there wasn't any evidence to the contrary that those people were any of those things.
SJWs being what they are, there were many discussions about things like Nazis in Star Wars and whether or not people could use certain face claims for their characters without acknowledging that face claim's identity. Personally, I do not think that using Jon Bernthal for Frank Castle makes me an anti-Semite. As far as I know from my extensive reading of his comics, The Punisher is Italian. There is absolutely nothing about him that is Jewish and there is no reason for me to bend over backwards and try to make him something that he never was to begin with. Of course, the SJWs on tumblr do not understand this kind of logic. To them, it's either do what I say or get the hell out.
It goes without saying that there was a great deal of anti-intellectualism in the tumblr rpc as well. Most people didn't really care about things like fine art or classical music unless theyh were somehow integrated into the character or they were spoon fed these things. Obviously, this speaks to the poverty of their educational backgrounds and the way that subjects such as literature and music are taught in the public schools. Indeed, all texts had to be written for the lowest common denominator. Any frisson of intellectualism was looked down as elitism and so on.
While all of the above were contributing factors to the decline of the rpc, the main reason why so many people left and migrated elsewhere was because of the constant drama. Yes, there is drama in every day life and we all have to live with some controversy or another from time to time. However, the drama on tumblr was endemic. Sometimes, it would result from the fact that someone somewhere wrote something that anotehr person didn't agree with. Due to the public nature of the tumblr blogging platform, someone else would read it, get upset, and then vagueblog about them or they would stalk their blog, gather evidence, and then post a massive call out post detailing absolutely everything that this person had done wrong.
Although there were some call outs that were justified, there were some that weren't. I watched many friends being spammed with hateful anonymous messages becuase they had siad something that might only have been slightly controversial. I have seen other people being bullied and stalked because they didn't want to be a part of that status quo. The tumblr rpc hemorrhaged people until it was a shadow of its former self and where the only people that were writing were the SJWs.
The tumblr rpc is not dead yet, but it will die soon. Tumblr has released a series of new guidelines wherein it will flag all content that is not deemed safe for work and will remove it. This can include almost anything from a character referencing drugs to a gifset where a woman shows her cleavage ever so slightly. Personally, I cannot stand this kind of censorship any further than I can throw it, but I am glad that this will be the final nail in the coffin and that things in tumblrland and the rest of the interwebz will go back to being the way they were before.
