How Did Tumblr Ads Get So Weird? (ft. An Ex-Employee)

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Outro Song: "Driving in The Rain" by Timecrawler 82
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[@STRANGEONS]

Thank you Helix Sleep for sponsoring! Click here helixsleep.com... to get 25% off your Helix mattress during their Labor Day Sale. If you miss this limited-time offer, you can still get 20% off using my link! Offers subject to change. #helixsleep

[@sillystring2121]

this is so goofy but i've been too nervous to get a firm mattress *because* i have scoliosis and had it corrected (this might be why i've preferred soft mattresses), and i've never actually seen someone recommend a firm mattress who also actually had scoliosis until now so i'm kinda tempted ...

[@aether6947]

sometimes i see ads on tumblr mobile and i just think its a shitpost 😭

[@TricksterModeEngaged]

ideal advertisement-to-environment matching

[@clouddd8053]

No fr, I doesn’t help that the formatting (white bordr) make it harder to tell even outside of the shitpost adjacent image.

[@DeathnoteBB]

@@TricksterModeEngagedNot really, it’s gotten to the point the shitpost level is not even shitpost, it’s just nonsense. What is a photo of a frog with the words “Today is the day of your life” trying to sell me

[@ShyDigi]

@@DeathnoteBBcongrats, you now know what a shitpost is - utter nonsense

[@kerryis2col]

Finding out McDonald’s advertisers were subjected to Ronald McDonald porn is the best thing to come out of tumblr thank you so much for this video.

[@AnUmbreonNamedRaire]

I was cackling over that bit I swear

[@zaprowsdower204]

"As you can see, our users are VERY excited about your brand."

[@GalvanizedArt]

What Tumblr really needs is to be added to the national registry of historic places so it can't be torn down

[@ccvv1119]

I agree

[@TofuDinoNugs]

UNICEF heritage site!

[@whoatemychocolate]

Somebody get on that, now!

[@Cyberwar101]

Unfortunately, that still leaves; who is going to pay for it? It is hugely expensive. Even if officially taking it down isn't legal, they can just limit bandwidth into unusability.

[@SpecialInterestShow]

​@@Cyberwar101the government? Idk I'm mostly joking. I do think that we need some sort of government-run youtube alternative or a forum just so that there's a big public internet spot for free speech. It'd be a mess but it'd be publicly owned

[@ic5889]

tumblr ads may be trying really really hard to get me into astrology for some reason but only youtube shorts has hit me with "POV: you are the only virgin at the alpha's party" so yknow. ill take astrology over that

[@ic5889]

want to clarify that it was an ad. that was not just my algorithm calling me out someone paid to have that grace my eyeballs

[@corinneeaglebridge]

@@ic5889KZbin kept giving me this ad for a game and the ad had the 💩 emoji passing gas aggressively. With aggressive noise too. I would take tumblr ads over that any day of the week

[@HappyMan0203]

At least when I'm being told about the future from my star sign I'm having fun lol.

[@neonradius]

I keep getting youtube ads for vampire visual novels and like… really bad vampire visual novels

[@AeonKnigh432]

What, you think you're too good to be the only virgin at the alpha's party? Someone's pretentious /j

[@kaiseayaandruis1597]

recently I am haunted by a magenta square ad, no text, just magenta square, it's incredible

[@aeddiefarmer]

Clearly an enigmatic tease for a magenta themed music festival of some sort.

[@elliotsutton8014]

That was Rothko bro

[@ChinaTawrey]

I do marketing for a small museum and lemme tell you the jumpscare I had when the Facebook ad I designed appeared to me on tumblr. Horrifying.

[@SPofSaturnProduction]

Oh gosh i am terrified of this. I did voice work for an ad and am scared that it will just jump scare me one day.

[@DijiEva]

I did voiceover for a local radio ad for the place I worked in college. That shit would sneak up on me in the wildest places.

[@cherryblossompossum3566]

I had an ad from my brother in laws workplace show up and his brother is very right wing and I sent a screenshot like "y'all advertising on the gay website?"

[@designersheets]

One of my old roommates was photographed for a college ad years ago and we still randomly get jumpscared by his face now and then lmao

[@BaddeGrasse]

New date asked if i "know strange aeons" as if strange werent personally my father. Pff

[@semogecarg]

but what you don't know is that his real name is strange aeons

[@Anon26535]

You're a bingus cat?

[@rosegoldhiips]

The last time I was on Tumblr, I was getting ads for microdosing ketamine. I was VERY confused.

[@livinglikeananimal]

that seems like a great and/or horrifying way to experience tumblr tbf

[@bubbletractor]

I've been getting ads for that on youtube

[@pheonixrises11]

ketamine should ONLY be administered by a doctor! (if used as an antidepressant. if recreational, go wild on your own time, baby)

[@neckspike4554]

@@pheonixrises11 it's proving to be effective for some wild stuff. Apparently sometimes your body needs to be turned off and turned on again and then it'll work properly.

[@pheonixrises11]

@@neckspike4554 the future of psychiatry will be asking patients if they tried turning it off and back on again before trying anything else

[@asioflammeus4846]

The concept of Tumblr getting shut down goes from sad to horrifying once you think about just how much artwork, knowledge, and internet history will get lost forever with it.

[@averagegamingplayer]

So many recent start up social medias I was hopeful for have risen and fell in the past 5 years, tumblr would be like those times 10 thousand

[@paper_maiden]

It would be like Myspace accidentally deleting their servers, but orders of magnitude worse

[@TeeklGrey]

I would hope (and assume) we would get some sort of advance warning, allowing users time to document and archive as much as possible before the servers went down

[@honkhonk275]

At the very least we have channels like Strange’s, people who read out tumblr posts in quirky little voices, screenshots on Pinterest, and other little specks of lore pasted all across the internet. I doubt important tumblr knowledge will be quickly forgotten within nerd spaces, but yes, especially when regarding fandom and artwork it will be a tremendous loss.

[@lVlegabyte]

⁠@@TeeklGreydon’t wait start now.

[@idvsmartiae]

i love the idea that tumblr was never in it's history profitable but has at one point been "on the trajectory of being profitable." 😂😂😂 it's giving "i have concepts of profitability"

[@pharoahcaraboo9610]

honestly we underestimate, especially in the world of tech startups, the sheer amount of businesses which shamble on as unprofitable zombies for decades upon decades.

[@trakiul5556]

honestly Twitter was the same way, even before Elon bought it. i think it's been profitable like one or two years the whole time it's been around lol

[@TiredTimeTraveler]

I would say I can't believe that the NSFW ban happened because of Ronald McDonald smut, but that is very in character for Tumblr

[@matildas3177]

I'm just surprised it wasn't Sans smut, or superwholock

[@MikiMomo-g9o]

My favorite weird tumblr ad I ever got was a picture of a sassy baby with the quote “can’t talk. but you know what he is thingking”

[@Jacob-Sophia]

Did you know what he was thinking?

[@ryanisverycool]

@@Jacob-Sophia*thjinking

[@Anon26535]

The baby, lying meek and quiet Upon the customary rug Is dreaming of rampage and riot He will grow up to be a thug

[@Khotetsu]

Tumblr's motto of "become unmarketable" is a double-edged sword in this modern age of late-stage capitalism.

[@wilderulz]

so essentially tumblr needs a sugar daddy or we're fucked

[@Moho_braccatus_]

Imagine if the Greens end up buying it!

[@edarddragon]

@@Moho_braccatus_ the green brothers? like hang green?

[@Moho_braccatus_]

@@edarddragon Yes!

[@craggolly]

isn't that literally matt though? if he had any sense he would've pulled the plug 6 years ago

[@blarg2429]

@@craggolly The problem is exactly that though: he doesn't have _any_ sense. He's an Elon Musk type. We need a sugar daddy who isn't like that, someone crazy enough to pay but sane enough not to throw a fit when the site's userbase don't suddenly become fonts of uncritical praise of whoever owns Tumblr at a given time.

[@TeratophileX]

We also dont talk too much about how, when making tumblr 'advertiser friendly' they began to blacklist, ban, and delete ANY LGBT content because it 'might not suit advertisers'.

[@foxesofautumn]

See, the thing about Tumblr is, it exists to be queer nerd friendly. If it can’t be that what’s the point of it?

[@meevins]

we also need to talk about how trans women have been hit the hardest by these unspoken rules being put into motion alongside queer people of colour, most noticeably black users. people don't like to hear this but banning nsfw content quickly leads to queer people being censored just for existing and being open about their identities. like people moved on way too fast from the literal ceo cyberstalking, mass harassing and taunting a trans women even to the point of following her offsite and threatening to doxx her. why? because she rightfully kicked up a fuss about her completely sfw selfies being marked as sexual content only for her then to get wrongly banned for "harassment" for calling it out

[@user74027nh]

The need for everything to be "advertiser friendly" will be the downfall of social media and is probably my biggest grievance with it.

[@dragong33k]

the tumblr userbase likes to make the site unsuitable for profit, what else can I say

[@LaPrincipessaNuova]

and to this day completely sfw blogs by trans people are constantly getting deactivated

[@eliotsholmes]

tumblr might be giving me the weirdest goddamn ads ever but ill take weird ads over insane political ads on youtube

[@omekapo]

OMG YEAH in the middle of this video i started complaining out loud about how insane the political ads i was getting were

[@dirtbagdeacon]

Ugh yes. The jumpscare I get when a Trump ad comes on is awful. 🤮

[@twotruckslyrics]

⁠@@dirtbagdeacon😭they’re always such a jumpscare. hate getting those ads when im listening to silly music

[@supermoneyball420]

Start saying yayyy repeatedly when u get a different ad on KZbin maybe they’re just bajillionaires but I kept saying yayy out loud and giggling whenever I got a California psychics ad and now I get them as like half of my ads ☠️☠️

[@Senkhara]

What’s ironic about the way Tumblr ads work, is that not only do they ruin their users experience, but if I was an advertiser I would be PISSED to learn that the ads for John Deer tires I paid to have displayed to farmers was being shown to a twenty something year old art student living in queens

[@heavvymetalqueen]

i think taking money from advertisers and throwing it into a large hole (our blogs) is a form of resistance in a way

[@localcrypt]

Had a Tumblr ad the other day that said "don't forget me. remembering isn't about not forgetting" with a picture that looked like a black handprint surrounded by orange fire. it was a weird one!

[@sleepingcircus]

I GOT THAT ONE AS WELL!!!!

[@jamesrule1338]

Very David Lynch.

[@danielkeys8974]

That's just Bane, trying to tell us that his son Xvim has stolen his identity.

[@trashgremlin9055]

Well you didn't forget it now did you?

[@DijiEva]

That’s not an ad it’s the Dark Brotherhood warning you. This was deemed the best method of contact

[@thetypingdragon2239]

Weird tumblr ads are strangely one of my favorite parts of tumblr. But also I desperately want Tumblr to find a way to stay afloat.

[@BrokenDarkFire]

I am genuinely delighted by how weird the ads are. If I’m gonna get advertised too I will take the laugh, please! If tumblr ads were a fandom, I’m in it.

[@toribees327]

Another factor to the ban that I rarely see people talking about is that random innocent things got flagged as inappropriate and many people got frustrated and left

[@onewingedangeal]

that's why i left - all the sfw artists i followed had half their posts suddenly flagged and removed. cue mass exodus (mostly to twitter)

[@contortionyx]

I still remember the post of someone trying to figure out how sensitive the NSFW screening thing was by posting a photo of their elbow and instantly got flagged. But then posting a screenshot of the flagged elbow pic was fine?

[@amoureux6502]

And it didn't even seem to reduce the number of pornbots either so you were getting none of the stuff people wanted and all of the stuff everyone has been complaining about for years.

[@Shythalia]

​@@contortionyx I had a picture of my knees get flagged LOL

[@Anopano3000]

@@contortionyx i reblogged a Viktuuri fanart inspired by Rapunzel and that got flagged, and yet the pornbots persist

[@SailorEddy]

I encountered a blazed post advertising for an AI story telling site that shipped Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen with Taylor Swift.

[@thebadcan]

Well, now I know what I’m going to do tonight 👀

[@systemrestart120]

I also got that ad 💀 "Gojo and Taylor sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G" Unreal

[@fxiryjxmin155]

this is so funny whatt 😭

[@mimosa5174]

I mean that would be a great downgrade for Gojo. Geto is so much better, don’t act like you don’t know it! /j

[@WishGender]

i got one from the teacher crush community a couple weeks ago

[@marianaamorim6000]

as much as I love tumblr (as someone who has been using it since 2014), the hellsite rn is mostly trying to dodge bots and weirdly sponsored hockey posts

[@GenderedMess]

I legit cannot escape the bots, I'll go and try to look at art under a hashtag and suddenly get flashed because a bot tagged everything known to man.

[@angrypersoninthecomments3050]

Lmao I play hockey and haven’t gotten the hockey posts, they cannot target adds for the life of them

[@toribees327]

The bots have gotten so bad I kinda hope strange will do a video on them someday. Last year a post I made got over 100,000 notes and I ended up getting hundreds of thousands of bots. I went from 2,000 real users following me to 400,000 mostly bots following me. Then I got tagged in a post of somebody saying sorry about the bots because they bought the bots to commit voting fraud in a poll?? The poll ended for them but the bots still havent left me alone.

[@paranormeow]

bots, hockey and transphobia/islamophobia

[@asterisk5054]

THE HOCKEY POSTS ARE INESCAPABLE and also yeah neonazis are there too

[@caffinatedsparrow8542]

once got a tumblr ad for abandoned houses in canada.

[@PersonalRobotJesus]

that's where I post from

[@voidaspects9173]

I've used blaze twice now, to show my art a bit, and I don't think anything is more reflective of how that feature is perceived than the notes I get on those posts. The general vibe of them is basically... "holy shit there's content? In this blaze post? Is this an actual good blaze post?! Theres something here i actually want to see? Oh my god?!" Which is very flattering but also does not bode well for the feature lmao Edit: also at least one person who anon'd me specifically to tell me they blocked me for using the feature. People treat it like a sin, its wild

[@sarahmellinger3335]

I guess it's like a blue check in that your throwing money at tumbler to win tumbler and people don't like that

[@voidaspects9173]

@sarahmellinger3335 yeah that's fair lmao. Though I think part of the hate towards that one is just... every detail about how it was implemented and also Elon musk as a person. Granted, we know Matt sucks now but this was pre Matt temper tantrum. I do think you're onto something there though, yeah. Honestly I can respect the dislike for it. What fascinated me infinitely more was how the other reactions were, like... genuine shock that they were being shown something they actually wanted to see. Like it was such a consistent and sincere reaction, like the people who saw the post were experiencing a positive emotion towards a blaze post for the first time in their lives, without exaggeration.

[@sarahmellinger3335]

@@voidaspects9173 I guess that makes sense cause blazes are a glorified ads system. I've only seen 4 ads that I liked 3 were music vids and 1 was the entire lego movie. It seems the only way to make enjoyable ads is to make it the kind of media you like + product. So it makes sense finding entertainment in the poorly crafted ads of other blazes suprises them.

[@m.ivyluna4632]

My partner and I blaze our webcomic updates every couple of months - some of the post got us reads and one of our more avid readers found us that way. But yeah it’s not exactly pushing you to the correct audience. Honestly my partners Tim drake (Robin) art gets us more readers lmao

[@karlneff]

People hate when you pay for their eyeballs to look at something they don't want to see and are more likely to tell you that when you seem like a real human rather than a corporation or bot. My 2 cents.

[@1874WL]

As someone who doesn't use Tumblr, I'd be devastated if it stopped existing.

[@zows4]

i've been trying to mentally prepare for the end of tumblr for years but i know i will still be incredibly devastated when it happens. it's the one place online where i have fun hanging out...

[@ragcat3732]

Tumblr is like a tardigrade, it never seems to die, even when its body clock stops ticking.

[@emma_tm]

me with twitter lol. tumblr being my backup has me... worried...

[@strangeaelurus]

No same

[@fallencyano9015]

i might not go on there as much anymore but ill definitely still feel that loss

[@sophiejones3554]

Nah, tumblr has benefitted from the twitter exodus.

[@theforgottencompanion]

I remember the tumblr porn purge so vividly because I was pretty involved in simblr (sims tumblr) around that time, and there were so many posts that were removed for no reason. There was one content creator who pretty much got all her posts deleted “for being nsfw” despite the posts being recolours of in game assets, or screenshots of completely unmodded gameplay. I think my personal “favourite” was when one of my posts consisting of a sim playing with her toddler was flagged for nsfw content, so I made a post about that only to have the second post flagged for nsfw content as well. But hey, at least the purge gave us the “send dunes” meme

[@careless_daughter]

i wasn't on tumblr at the time so i wasn't really paying attention to the purge in general but I did use it for sims cc and witnessing that was wild. honestly very sad bc simmers put SO much work into their content and simblr is one of the very few non-garbage places to find it

[@Speederzzz]

I posted my first nude on tumblr 😢

[@mdkmen]

it's so upsetting as a simmer who mostly plays older games because so many pieces of cc and mods are already lost to time. just recently garden of shadows (a site for goth/alt sims 2 cc) was down for a few weeks and people were worried it was gone forever.

[@jamie1602]

There was a Tumblr bot that flagged a light switch as a nipple in a screenshot of a tv show. It was infuriating. I think I would have tolerated it better if it was actual humans moderating things. Otherwise? Hate to say it but I LIKED the porn ban. I am queer and while people rejoice over the alternative and queer things that helped educate them, I never saw it. I saw people spamming generic cishet porn and it got so old so fast. For everyone on that other side, there were those of us trying to get through to that other side being drowned out and trying to find them.

[@Apollo9898LP]

When Tumblr does get deleted, I hope you still post the occasional kale growing tutorial here on youtube, just so we can get a quarterly check in from our collective uncle Strange Aeons

[@Dizzintegration]

We went 3 minutes without Harry Potter fanfiction. 3 minutes.

[@jamesrule1338]

Reset the clock!

[@Luna04567]

Tumblr ads are one of the best parts of the site. If they started having normal ads it wouldn’t feel like tumblr anymore

[@windowsmediacenter6226]

i feel like tumblr is one of the few social media sites that would actually really benefit from being decentralized and letting users run their own tumblr servers if they have the ability. obviously it would be a massive project but it would be cool to see a decentralized open source tumblr alternative catch a lot of the websites users after tumblr is eventually shut down or changed beyond recognition

[@kala_asi]

i agree with you in principle, but also this doesnt really get rid of the cost problem, it just moves the costs to whoever is willing to host and whoever wants to develop. its a bit like running a social media platform on donations

[@yellowhouse88]

There are now a couple Fediverse servers that offer a more Tumblry experience (vs Mastodon/Akkoma/etc having a clearly Twitter-like one)

[@Cyberwar101]

What you are describing is a blog. It existed before Tumblr. You get a domain name, and link to other pages and blogs, and there are APIs that watch for mentions and reblogs and stuff. Only problem; this still costs money, and that is generally on the host of the blog. This could be WordPress or neocities or privately hosted. Problem; historically, a lot of Tumblr users come from poorer backgrounds, or start out as teenagers without their own money. Even if they could eventually pay, it still acts as a barrier to entry that Tumblr simply doesn't have.

[@Cyberwar101]

To go further: web APIs exist for a lot of the features that exist on Tumblr. Here is a bit of conceptual framework for how that works: When you make a post, that post's information gets added to an .xml file that contains a list of all your posts, with timestamps, etc. When someone reblogs a post, it is referencing that xml document, with a link to the original post. Then you add on your commentary in your own xml document. That triggers a script that sends a message letting the original document know that it's been reblogged or liked or whatever. And bc the original can see the sender, it can verify that it was genuine, and then update it's original xml document. This would all be done behind the hood on JavaScript on the two pages. The script could be copy-pasted onto blogs with only minimal changes. This should work just like rss, just with a bit more information per item. It should also be compatible with rss readers. Which is also how your personal feed would work. You tell your script or personal rss reader to watch that blog. For discovery though, you would need public webpages that have the sole job of reposting a feed of items from submitted blogs. You then just tell your feed reader to only display items with the matching string for title or content or tags. There are some other implementations you could use, such as incorporating automatic emails to manage mentions or reblogs, but this is just a basic concept. There are websites that do limited free hosting, but if your blog gets too big, you might run into costs or have issues not getting all the reblogs or mentions. However, these are manageable. So I guess that, ultimately, you could decentralize all of Tumblrs features. Likely, this is not too different to how Tumblr runs under the hood, too, as it *is* a blogging platform.

[@4thofEleven]

Ironically, Tumblr is now one of the few sites where I don't use an adblocker because their weird-ass ads are entertaining enough to be worth keeping around.

[@epicthy]

do you remember the grandma with a sword ad? it was everywhere like a year ago I think? (I have no concept of time). anyways, if Tumblr dies, there will be no more big social media sites that I post/am active on. Tumblr is a completely unique experience compared to any other site

[@Moocow2003]

I feel like I've seen that picture for years if it's the one where the old lady is trying to sell a cursed sword

[@mariaamaideach3567]

Also Pikaman! I think these were around the same time

[@nlm2nd]

My favorite tumblr ad was Dolores with the Sword. Its also interesting that they tried to "ban corn" and yet the bots are everywhere!

[@flamingtorrent2109]

Dolores with the sword my beloved! Always the one I think of with weird tumblr ads

[@jumies4056]

agreed, i even drew her once

[@jettash0720]

For some strange reason the fact Tumblr is still around makes me think of how DeviantArt is still around (and somehow dodged a bullet with that lawsuit they found themselves in few years ago)

[@maris_molotov]

Current DeviantArt user here: It's now 50% dead internet theory. I don't see more AI art on any other website. we all miss sonic OCs

[@jettash0720]

@@maris_molotov Ah, I see. I just remember the recorded conversation they had with a user when the DreamUp thing was implemented and all that nonsense. Then I heard about the lawsuit but never what came of it, just that the website is still around lol

[@blarg2429]

@@maris_molotov Are there any ai-generated sonic OCs on there? Just curious.

[@conspiracypanda1200]

​@@blarg2429Probably. There is an AI that specifically does mobian stuff, which I only know about because of the thief on Twitter who stole their friend's Sonic art and fed it into the AI to reconstitute and sell.

[@maris_molotov]

@@blarg2429 100%. the paint bucket tool is out of a job

[@justanotherpiccplayer3511]

All the Germans making jokes that tumblr was just ads for particular blue pills, _as soon as I got off the plane in Bremen, lo and behold all of my ads changed_

[@sheepladybaa]

so that's why i got all the viagra ads last year

[@Deckenmoenchin]

I wanted to comment that all of my ads are blue viagra pills... now i know why 😂

[@SuperIcelight]

Everyone in germany needs them! Always! All the time! Get your german viagra now!

[@matildas3177]

it's not just germany, I get haunted by that man with the blue pills (THAT LOOK EXACTLY LIKE MY 8TH GRADE BIO TEACHER) or just the blue pills in sweden. is the german version with weird swedish text too? what even are those pills? I don't think the ads even say...

[@guggelguggel7491]

Im not german but I live in sweden and got those ads non stop for a While.

[@MissManicMuffin]

As someone who: has been active on Tumblr since 2011, wrote my college thesis about fangirls, became a research assistant for a college professor studying gender and fandom for a year (who also went to DashCon)... The day Tumblr gets deleted is the day I will have my freedom.

[@ericaschoenberg7782]

having also studied fandom, in grad school, I can’t believe I never considered that my professor & the writers of like all of our assignmed reading probably knew about dashcon

[@niamhs6042]

Is your thesis published? I'm super interested in fangirls and fandom and I love to read anything about them

[@MissManicMuffin]

@@niamhs6042 it is yeah! Just search for: Whovians and Directioners: Challenging the Fangirl Identity And you should find it pretty easily :)

[@MissManicMuffin]

@@niamhs6042 I do! Just search for “Whoivans and Directioners: Challenging the fan girl identity” and you’ll be able to find it.

[@wolfkitty42]

The day tumblr dies is the day a dedicated group begins the process of resurrecting it club penguin style.

[@jasper6069]

the 'helping to spread uncomfortable conversations far and wide' one still gets a chuckle out of me lmao

[@Kaileighblue]

I'm kinda surprised to hear tumblr has more than 5 staff. I thought no one was in the guard tower at the prison, we just stayed there because we wanted to.

[@thatsdisco]

The Fanopticon

[@princembat]

tumblr using your tags and the tags and blogs you look at to advertise to you makes a lot of sense... there was a several week long window where it tried harshly to get me to buy suspiciously cheap plushies for wings of fire (a book series that doesnt have merch like that), and i investigated and found out that the listing the ad was linked to had stolen pictures from someones etsy page that had the plushies much more understandably priced. the worst part about tumblr ads is that it has a button for 'i see this ad too much' or 'this ad is inappropriate' and other similar ones, and yet it does not stop it from showing you that same ad 500 more times... it almost feels like it just shows you that ad even more, in fact. the amount of times ive seen ads for those disgusting mobile games about popping pimples, and i tell it to get that stuff off my screen, and it does not

[@micahguillemette3344]

Just dont interact with them, they probably see that as interaction lol

[@EndertheDragon0922]

I’ve heard they’ve had lots of issues with ads triggering photosensitive people and the site keeps showing it to them even when they tell it to stop which is. Yikes.

[@fallencyano9015]

btw wof does have mystery keychain plushies + slap on bracelets. im not sure if they still sell them but i found some at target recently (like a month ago)

[@Myrdin90]

Tumblr used to show me these pornographic ads that were like "take this orphan from the street and groom her to become your wife, then turn her into a naked werewolf woman" and it did NOT stop showing them to me even though I told it to stop for over two months.

[@abbytrenary]

My favorite Tumblr ad is the one of the Pikachu face paint guy. Haunting

[@Bella-zp8rn]

Perfect timing. Today I got an adult toy ad on tumblr. Insane that there ads go against there TOS

[@2nd3rd1st]

but Funko Pops are not against there TOS

[@sarahmellinger3335]

blaze post porn

[@hypoelectric]

@@2nd3rd1st not that kind of adult toy...

[@ko379]

You’re so right. Once tumblr dies, I’m just moving to a seaside town and vibing. I just hope they give us enough warning that I can save my art off it first

[@Anindeterminateamountofbees]

Start saving it now, just in case

[@becauseimafan]

Honestly, start saving it now, a bit at a time when you have time. Start now, you won't regret it even if you change your organization system later!

[@becauseimafan]

Also, according to The Verge in August: "Tumblr will move all of its blogs to WordPress - and you might not even notice" - "Tumblr is migrating half a billion blogs to a new backend"

[@thatshallo37]

That last part about how advertisers basically can indirectly dictate how social media can run and not for the people who run it more rhan the people who advertise on it reminded me about how ao3 runs and how i think they managed to literally escape it. Ao3 is literally volunteer run and meant for fandoms by fandoms, and advertisers are literally useless here. They cant make posts or ads here cuz it gets in the way of the reason, its vilunteer and donation run so it doesnt have that much hassle for money since, well, youve seen them get their occaisional small optional donation goals be paid tenfold, and so you cannot advertise there because they eliminated every single need. They basically abtained freedom. And also, advertisers would probably be advertising next to stuff like “sonic x shadow angst smvt featuring oil as loob” or “bill cipher x reader and he plays mind games on you to, idk, lick your tears” or something like that.

[@foxesofautumn]

Maybe we should just crowdfund Tumblr.

[@becauseimafan]

​@@foxesofautumn isn't that like pillowfort or something? I think that one is open now, and runs on donations. (I'm not very familiar with it)

[@Anopano3000]

The big reason there cannot be ads on ao3 is copyright infringement. Legally speaking, fanfics infringe on copyright, and the only way they can exist publicly is if they're not for profit, otherwise the whole site is in hot water

[@rossjennings4755]

​@@Anopano3000 I'm not an expert in this, but I don't think it's quite that simple. If it were accepted that fanfics always infringed on copyright, they wouldn't be allowed regardless of whether AO3 was run for profit. And I think some fanfic sites (Wattpad?) actually are, or have been. But the OTW, which runs AO3, takes the position that fanfics are "transformative works" protected by fair use, and therefore fully legal.

[@howdyitsren]

i did get an ad on tumblr for wizard hats for chickens. i scrub my photos frequently but that one’s stayed up taking up memory for many years

[@brbrbrbreannad3610]

For some reason, this makes me think about earlier today in my material culture studies class when the professor was talking about how cultural heritage (as recognized by institutions, academia, organizations like UNESCO etc.) is often considered to be something that lasts over (many) generations. And at the time that struck me as rather subjective and even unfair. Being reminded of the impermanence of internet culture reminded me why that seems like such a subjective line to draw. Deep down, I really feel like intangible heritage should be preserved, even if it doesn’t share much resemblance with other forms of cultural heritage. Even if the online subculture of Tumblr doesn’t get passed down for several decades, there are still mini generations of users who learn from past users and pass down culturally specific practices, images, and habits. I know it might seem weird to say that the home of the Muppet Joker is cultural heritage, but I think it easily fits the description of subcultural heritage. A lot of modern subcultural heritage doesn’t get preserved and that just seems sad to me.

[@BrokenDarkFire]

I agree. To me, tumblr’s culture is worth preserving for the same reason niche fandom zines from the seventies are worth preserving. It’s like the cave painting that are just people’s handprints from forever ago - there’s something very “we were here and we had this place and this culture and it mattered even if it no longer exists today.”

[@ellaisplotting]

​@@BrokenDarkFire that's a beautiful way of putting it!

[@gustavedore1073]

Hi! Student of cultural heritage and digital culture here! At least in my university, we don't draw a line like that. We talk about microcultures and very specific phenomenons that are set in specific times and places. Especially in digital culture, we talk about things like memes or sites that no longer exist. Two of our professors have made big studies about "text tv." It is really fascinating. I think that humans as species are inherently interested in their roots and about perceiving very particular parts of human experience. Even if Tumbrl as a site stops existing, I think the culture and experiences of the users are not disappearing. Tho I will fucking cry if there is no longer Tumbrl, because that is loss of community and loss of community is always tragedy for people who are part of it.

[@gustavedore1073]

My whole point was to say that we and our culture are as important as any other culture in history, no matter how marginal it is in "big picture".

[@hachi4450]

Hello, student of culture studies here. First of, I feel like you're very much right about subjectivity of heritage. Second of, here's an interesting thing, in my university a lot of my professors are working at preserving internet culture and folklore! My course tutor (idk if that's the right English word but whatever) belongs to worldwide group of people who study fandoms, and even wrote 2 books about Tumblr fandoms! So I'm sad to see the state of Tumblr right now, but at least I'm happy there are people who put work in preserving this hellish culture

[@Kayari]

When Tumblr dies I shall go to Bradford Beach, keep walking east until the waves drag me under and then lake Michigan can do with me as she pleases

[@kingozymandiass]

Is this from a song please I need to know

[@becauseimafan]

This would do numbers on tumblr

[@moonagedaydream1111]

This goes hard! Is it a song???

[@pptenshi3900]

This vid reminds me of getting an ad on beekeeping once. It wasn’t rlly like most of the ones in this vid was honestly rlly cute it had a rlly nice art of some honeybees that I rlly liked!! Anyways that school year my school started its own beekeeping club and a freshman that joined had a tumblr and it turns out she made that art on the post 🥴 She was so nice to be honest I miss her

[@michaelkennedy2888]

One thing I never see people mentioning when talking about the tumblr porn ban is that it didn’t just affect porn. I ran an art blog and would occasionally have nude paintings or drawings or photos on it and all of that got affected too. It affected jokes that used nsfw images as the punchline too. It had so many effects outside of strictly sexual content.

[@ragcat3732]

The “learn more” buttons on tumblr ads are especially unappealing to click for some reason. Maybe it just reminds me too much of those scam medical ads that clutter cheap blog sites created around mid 2010s.

[@pheonixrises11]

I still see scam medical ads on various sites. I want to know who makes those images

[@merlinsgirl9311]

I remember I had three posts flagged in the early days of the detector: a picture I took with my tank top strap moved slightly to the left to show sunburn I got on my shoulders from like 2016, literally the only thing in the picture was my shoulder, neck up to my chin, and about two inches of tanktop covered chest; a picture of me holding an envelope my parents had opened without permission from 2016 with two fingers showing it was opened; and pictures of jellyfish and sharks I took at an aquarium in 2019. It wouldn't even let me post the fishies one until I determined which picture was causing the problems. Then I posted that picture in a separate post complaining about it being flagged for shark nudity.

[@edarddragon]

shark nudity?

[@a-supernova-girl]

I actually did do the tumblr ad-free for at least 1 year, maybe 2 - not positive, because I do love tumblr. It's where I live basically, it's where I engage with other people as someone who lives in the states, in a VERY red state that I can't afford to escape, and I'm in my 30s and no longer have any IRL friends. Then my rent went up significantly and my wages stayed the same, and my cats don't pay rent, so I had to drop it, and the current price is really pushing what is reasonable for a website full of people with very little disposable income.

[@maxaslagolis]

When I saw eggs in the thumbnail, I did not expect them to be the most sane and reasonable product in the whole video

[@Problematist]

In Germany all I ever get is the same ad for an online pharmacy that only has a picture of a blister pack.

[@michiko_nox]

you're lucky

[@Problematist]

​@@michiko_nox I had an adblock for a while because the constant blister packs were getting annoying. I guess I really am lucky because now I could only find 4 ads. First there were two for nitrile gloves and after reloading there were two for an iPhone reseller without their name, all of course with a stock photo.

[@sarahmellinger3335]

@@Problematist nitrile gloves go hard when baking

[@Catboya3ther]

Oh my GOD I’m stoned and wanted a fun vid about tumblr and this shit hit HARD. like this was DEPRESSING.

[@kingdomkey6184]

One day tumblr will die, and I would like to preemptively apologize to whatever poor social media website we end up invading

[@hatemteirelbar9510]

But what you don't know is that his real name is Strange Aeons....

[@die_sel]

Or is that just what he wants us to think…

[@hatemteirelbar9510]

@@die_sel do you truly believe Father Strange would lie to us?

[@casihamilton3773]

Halfway into the video so don't shoot me if this gets brought up later but...I feel like if they had just told us back in the day that cost was a problem...if there had been a Tumblr Patreon when the platform launched, right at the height of the pre-dashcon era...I feel liked I'd still be a top tier subscriber to this day.

[@2nd3rd1st]

I never looked up actual porn on Tumblr, but as an art major and teaching myself to become an erotic photographer I loved the curated collections of very tasteful erotic art, and there was nothing like it on the internet at the time, not even n DeviantArt. So that was a very sad day when they yanked it!

[@amoureux6502]

The way that all the NSFW content was individually curated was one of the best things about it!! I still miss it for writing.

[@snowbeast4463]

When Tumblr dies, we'll all go back to being mall goths.

[@novaverie]

except malls are dying 😭

[@sk1ttlz904]

​@novaverie have the richest person on tumblr buy a dead mall and turn it into forever dashcon I guess. Like different independent vendors in old stores, maybe a few hotel type rooms. Actual ball pit?

[@michiko_nox]

@@novaverie not in europe lol

[@snowbeast4463]

@@novaverie Not where I live.

[@novaverie]

i envy yall then 😔

[@user-kt3zv1cm5j]

BLESS this answers my exact question and explains all my weirdest tumblr ads. It doesn't explain the old people with aprons saying BIBLE IS MARK OF BEAST i kept getting advertised on youtube tho, anyone else? Or did i have a hallucinatory period

[@MC-lm7de]

OH MY GOD YOU TOO, I thought I was the only one

[@foxesofautumn]

I get these but I do watch a bit of atheist content so maybe that’s why? I don’t care for them though. They’re only mildly less annoying than ads for AI.

[@forestkid7346]

oh my god those ads still exist? i was getting those ads eons ago, like at least 5 or 6 years back!

[@chesesie]

i have an album in my gallery dedicated to weird tumblr ads from the app. thank you for once again making a video just for me.

[@nicolebee3283]

Thank you for the meal Father Strange

[@sk8rgirlo]

Honestly this video is a weirdly effective ad for tumblr premium, I’m pretty dang tempted to sling some money at tumblr as the one place that is still deeply odd, and doesn’t flash bang me with ads, they just creep by like vaguely profitable cryptids

[@lavaght]

i cant afford premium but this video made me turn off adblock on the site, whatever small useless dollar is another 2 minutes we can have in the ballpit

[@arachnidlupus7625]

DARE I SAY Tumblr ads were AI Generated before AI Generated.

[@BrokenDarkFire]

I hope when Tumblr goes down, we can all find each other again. I wouldn’t even know how to find my mutuals. We haven’t exchanged any kind of irl social media handles and I’m not sure I’d want to. The relative anonymity of tumblr is part of what I love. It’s like meeting your new best friends at a slumber party hosted by someone who goes to neither of your schools.

[@rattheww]

every time i get a tumblr ad its the same photo of a bar of soap with a bite taken out of it

[@ellaisplotting]

delicious

[@lamplol7120]

shit that was me sry /j

[@lain-or-shine]

Man, the guy you interviewed sounds so rad. I can see why I loved Tumblr back when guys like him ran the show. I know what it's like to work somewhere really cool, only for it all to fall apart because the assholes in charge keep making boneheaded moves to try and make money...

[@chaostheorii]

i love tumblr so much and i really appreciate this video! i’m going to be so sad when it inevitably closes but i’m so grateful that it’s given me such a great community for the over 10 years i’ve been on it and it really helped me accept my sexuality when i was a sad closeted teenager ❤

[@danisanerd]

I haven't seen ad's for a few years now due to ad-free, but the 2 ones that stuck in my head the most are the "put vinegar on bread and put it in garbage" and grandma with sword

[@craigusselman546]

Blasted by Ronald Mcdonald porn, is a sentence id never thought I would hear. Or want to hear again.

[@nerothething]

This makes me think back to the time that the German speaking side of Tumblr discovered that all of us collectively are getting ads for viagra for some reason?? I think it even became somewhat of an inside joke

[@abundantsolace]

I remember those and I'm not even German, I was just there for vacation around that time. I started getting them as soon as I opened tumblr in the airport. I guess that location sensor is more accurate than people think...

[@michiko_nox]

i GET THOSE THINGS TOO EDIT; YES IM GERMAN

[@normalaboutpathologic]

Oh yeah. I remember those. It was like 90% of the ads I got until I started using a VPN

[@SolarpunkVince]

Somehow I didn't even realise that things like Answer Time and other such more fitting ads were gone (and had at some point been a big thing) until you pointed it out

[@thisismyaltaccount4195]

Great video. Gonna be so sad when tumblr goes down :( It's been my favorite site since I joined around 2 years ago, right before the reddit migration, and I ended up a moderator in a community! I have alts and ongoing joke blogs! I love my weird website with it's inside jokes and poetic levels of multi flavored spite. I really hope it finds a way to carry on. Can't wait for the next video. I'll look for the kale

[@catgod6531]

The day they delete Tumblr I will fall to my knees in despair this is the only website my fandom actually belongs on please don’t take it away

[@cassiopeia9187]

Tumblr ads have become indistinguishable from midtier shitposts, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been tricked into reading an ad on mobile only to get to the end and realizing they’re trying to sell me something

[@kirbybie]

'tumblr was never profitable' yipee !!! we are amazing

[@kirbybie]

nevermind i watched the whole video. i dont want tumblr to die

[@bearies472]

i got an ad for an NFT of the Mother Mary AND I GOT THAT ONE CAKE AD. IT LED TO A KPOP FAN SITE? that one had a sister ad that was a pic of ai generated happy meal that said HAVE YOU TASTED IT?

[@space_cowgrl]

I got an ad for a gojo fanfic the other day with gojo photoshopped into some sort of bedroom. I’m convinced some people are just seeing what kinda weird ads they can make LMAO.

[@whatdoyousuppose]

5:00 this one is always such a jumpscare bc my actual name is Lara (and I don’t hear my name spoken that often so in this video it was defs a jump scare lol) - for a lil bit I thought everyone got this ad on their dash personalized to their own names too lmao

[@glitch804]

Thats my moms name

[@brilliantarrow4125]

Any website that caters to advertisers will never be catering to humans, because advertisers don't *want* humans. They want people who are literally made of money, to see an ad, give all their money to that brand, and upon spending their last dollar, stop existing.

[@sleeplessstudios7626]

In mid 2020, I posted a few blog posts about my experience with anorexia and ARFID. I spoke about my experiences with extreme weight loss and other terrifying medical experiences. Then, for the next TWO YEARS, I received ONLY weight loss advertisements on Tumblr. I contacted Tumblr support about it after three months, but alas.. Google Adsense was the one doing it, not Tumblr. I finally stopped receiving weight loss ads in 2022, but good lord.. that nearly made me leave Tumblr.

[@travismueller8282]

I mean truly, the answer to any question of, "why is [x] not what we want it to be?" will always be, "because not enough people are willing to finance that future for everyone."

[@fizzydrinkuno]

I had an ad for “ADHD glasses” where they just photoshopped the shades to be a magenta galaxy. It was… something

[@mothmangotango]

seeing the “tumblr answer time” text and feeling my bones crumble into dust

[@rusteddamsel5848]

I think honestly if they brought back porn they might actually be able to get a subscription model working. I’m desperate for a place that’s not X for nsfw artists cause like… I deleted x as soon as I found out Elon was buying it

[@Lonely_Raven_666]

I guess thats why your work is inportant, it keeps tumblr alive in our memories

[@andynonymous6769]

Ok... so he said that we'd never be able to fundraise enough to keep tumblr afloat but consider: AO3 has 2.5 million users. Their most successful fundraiser raised 450k dollars. Thats like 18 cents a user. Tumblr has 135 million active users right now apparently. We'd need about 30 cents per user. If we had a fundraiser 1/3x more successful than the most successful AO3 fundraiser in terms of the $ to user ratio, it could be done!

[@Zuzu00000]

I wish every fandom site took more notes from AO3

[@LoraCoggins]

I remember seeing videos on how KZbin was barely profitable or not profitable. I'm pretty sure it's still the same, as is much of the internet in general. We're all hanging by a thread. Except the advertisers. Those are doing very well.

[@emmastanton3515]

the "never had a boyfriend one" is sadly legit, he's some guy in Adelaide (Australia) -- people have posted about it on reddit talking about how far through the girlfriend application process they got and what it was like lmao

[@eliteunicorns]

It's a miracle that we have evidence of these ads even existing. Every time I see an ad, on mobile (maybe it happens on Desktop too), it dissappears. Then I get jumped around, while looking around, because the ads are appearing and reappearing.

[@Reticulating-Splines]

I screenshotted an ad with a black dog just sitting on a porch looking into the middle distance and enjoying the breeze. The text was in swedish but it said something like *_Enjoy the sun!_* _Relax on the terrace with your favorite drink in hand. Let the sun bring energy and joy._ I really dont want the hellsite (affectionate) to end, like ever

[@lavapug]

If tumblr dies I'm going to cry. I have friends I love on there, who our relationship exists solely on reblogging each other's shit and I love that. Tumblr isn't just a weird website to me, it's the only social media site where I can actually meet people I can truly relate to and just have a good time with. There's something so special about it that can't really be recreated. I hope it doesn't die.

[@kiwilovescitrusfruit7712]

Shoutout to the broken auto parts add that is basically an all-grey Do You Love The Color Of The Sky I’ve been scrolling by recently. If I go up at all I get catapulted down my dash

[@thetypingdragon2239]

Posted 29 seconds ago. Literally as I refresh my home page. Earliest I’ve ever been for a video, amazing.

[@vanillaplanifoliae]

congrats :)

[@whatcanidooo]

I would actually not be okay if tumblr went under. Like, it is the only safe place to explore certain interests of mine. Losing all those people and those connections would quite literally be devastating

[@emilypeduto981]

brb paying to blaze a couple dozen posts so my money can keep tumblr alive for an extra five minutes

[@theepumpkin_head]

a particularly bizarre ad i’ve gotten recently was this really shitty ai collage of buff men doing arts and crafts with the caption “stay hard. unleash your creative vision. embrace the struggle and create something new.” one of the buff guys in the picture had “adrian!” written on his shirt in comic sans

[@LauraBow]

Years ago I saw an ad recommending a craft project using 42 school busses.