With the ease of posting provided by Tumblr it seems like everyone is tumbling now a-days. I’d venture a reason for their success- aside from ease of use- is how Tumblr is marketed. “I don’t blog. I have a Tumblr.”
Though I have hundreds of nice things to say about Tumblr I also have a few gripes. One of the biggest interface flaws I see are the lack of comments on posts. Of course you can enable commenting on posts in the settings but the fact that the features is disabled by default is a bit disappointing.
We get it. Tumblr is not Livejournal.
It is great that people don’t use it to whine about their personal lives and start long threads along the lines of “It really wasn’t your fault. He was just being an asshole.” But what makes blogging so interesting as a medium is the conversational tone that online scrapbooks and random shout-outs can take. Having a blog without comments is the equivalent of mass text-messaging a bunch of blocked phone numbers.
We can comment on posted items on Facebook and it doesn’t turn into long, drawn-out threads. In fact it’s welcoming to get the occasional one line kudos like “wow” or “awesome” after uploading a pic or linking to a long-form story from a blog or news site.
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In retaliation here are a few Tumblog posts I felt inclined to comment on but was barred from doing so:
correct bandaging of feline stigmata
Awesome title.
welcome to your destiny
Welcome to puberty.
60 Christmas Photoshop Tutorials
Way to exploit the goyim.
Actually on second thought maybe it’s better they don’t have comments enabled. It’s not their fault. I’m just being an asshole.
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Photo by flickr: thivierr modified under GNU Free Documentation license as follows: cropped and renamed file.
