Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Part 5: Tumblr and Reddit (The Dark Side?)

Four weeks ago, I shared my descent into social media and my guiding philosophies for interacting on the internet. Three weeks ago, I discussed the generals about creating a website and starting a blog. Two weeks ago, I discussed Facebook, Twitter, and hashtags. Last week was all about the visual social medias, Pinterest and Instagram.

Today? I’ll be discussing DARK SIDE OF THE INTERNET: Tumblr and Reddit

Or are they?

Tumblr and Reddit are given a lot of grief about being breeding grounds for social justice mobs, trolls, and dank memes (in which dank means something between dark, cynical, and cool).

For older web denizens: they’re where the teens are, and honestly? Where 90% of the Facebook content comes from. Look at where all those reshared thought experiments, story inspiration, and other screen-shots come from. A LOT of them are screenshots from Tumblr. Or made popular on Reddit. Or both.

If you wait for them to come to Facebook, you’re gonna miss a lot of content and it’s gonna be old before you see it.

Tumblr

So what IS Tumblr? Is it a blog? Is it a quote sharing site? Or is it for reblogging memes?

The quick answer is… yes.

For the longest time, I didn’t really know what I was doing with it. I reposted stuff from my Instagram since Tumblr seems to like pictures, and I reshared my blog posts from here over there. (Or over here, if you’re reading on Tumblr…)

But, it’s just as much for resharing your favorite webcomics or your not-character-count-limited mental contemplations. And GIFs are super popular.

NOTE: It’s also very popular for…um… archives of adult imagery. Luckily, safe-search is a thing. I’ve yet to end up somewhere I didn’t intend. A big advantage to its compartmentalized set-up.

It’s a social media network, like Facebook, that’s not geared towards a specific media (unlike Instagram or Twitter), which can make it more visual, but it supports anonymity–which can make it more attractive to teens (or Russian troll farms).

There’s definitely a part of it that’s socially progressive. Tumblr’s the sort of place that encourages defining your pronouns and can be very accepting of any sort of identity that doesn’t espouse hate.  That said, the admins are struggling with censorship issues around LGBT tags as well as antagonistic alt-right groups gaining a presence on the site.

Tags are important here if you want people to find you. And if you look around, you can find Tumblrs groups to join (sort of like the ‘blog hops’ of olde…). The communities are like islands, but they share resources.

If you like something, heart it. Reblogging stuff is VERY encouraged, and shows support for the original poster — and also means that the original poster gets credit — very awesome for the artists and writers and singers on here.

Note: If you add a comment to a reblog, it’s now permanently attached to that reblog.

Like most social medias, you can follow people and their posts/reblogs show up on your feed. Don’t be intimidated, most people are quite welcoming on Tumblr.

Reddit

Here, everything is a popularity contest. It’s like middle school.

No. Really.

Getting Started

You create an account, you join forums called ‘reddits’ and ‘subreddits’ (or ‘subs’), named /[whatever] that are organized by areas of interest, and then you either share text or links to content.

On your feed, you’re only shown links to reddits and subreddits that you subscribe to.

Then, as people read posts, they ‘upvote, ‘downvote’, or [do nothing]. Every upvote and downvote affects your karma.

The more upvotes you get, the more likely you’ll show up in the feed. You can check tabs of ‘Hot’, ‘Rising’, and ‘New’. And karma means a lot.

What is Karma

You earn karma for:

• posting
• commenting
• getting upvotes

Posting new content or sharing external links are typically seen as more valuable contributions, but it depends on the quality of your comments.

NOTE: When you comment, you can reply to other comments — otherwise known as nested comments.

You lose more karma for every downvote. It’s a way of trying to keep people from being jerk-faces.

Unless the forum is about being a jerk-face. Then, friendly people get downvoted.

Although there is an overlying sense of ‘Reddiquette’, each forum has its own admins, moderators, and set of acceptable behaviors.

Overall, someone with higher karma is seen as being more of a contributor and potentially someone to watch for new, quality content. The best of them have been given Reddit Gold.

Reddit Gold

You can literally buy virtual gold that is only intended for rewarding, or ‘gilding’, OTHER people with posts you find valuable.

Being gilded (or buying that status) temporarily unlocks:

• comment highlighting
• ad-blocking
• exclusive subreddits
• a personalized Snoo (known as a “snoovatar”)

WARNING: Reddit values anonymity, tends to be hands-off, and doesn’t censor. There can be really dark reddits, and subreddits with a lot of either off-color or outright offensive content.

The communities are typically well-described though, so you know what you’re getting into before you click the links.

Like most social medias, you can follow people and keep an eye on their content.

So far, I’ve shared a little in /writing, /writing-tips, and /nosleep. /AMA (Ask Me Anything) is one you’ll see on the news on occasion, with scheduled visits for politicians or celebrities, as well as normal people with unusual experiences offering to talk about them.

Feel free to explore and I find it best to wade into a Reddit, watching the expected behavior before trying to contribute.

But I’m still learning my way around.

So… that doesn’t really sound that scary, does it? A little different, but not completely unfamiliar organizational structures.

Long form, images, links, these are the sites where content is created.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Part 4: Visual Social Media

Three weeks ago, I shared my descent into social media and my guiding philosophies for interacting with others on the internet. Two weeks ago, I discussed the generals about creating a website and starting a blog. Last week, I discussed Facebook, Twitter, and hashtags.

Today? I’ll be discussing The visual social mediums!

Instagram

On this social media, you share an image, with a short caption and some hashtags.

Once again, I recommend using the same name, profile picture, and short biography as you do on your Facebook and/or Twitter, for that all important brand consistency.

This is a good, low-intensity entrance to social media to anyone with a smartphone or iPad. Posting 1-3 times a week is a good rate of interaction.

You can also comment on and ❤ other people’s photos.

Typically, you share a photo that you’ve taken, but you can also create images or share memes here. It’s really not set up to let you add images from a computer, though, so a camera-enabled wifi/data enabled device is required.

It easily syncs with most other social medias, sharing the links for you.

• Personally? I reshare to Facebook, but I copy and repost to Twitter and Tumblr, because I want people to see the image, not a link back to Instagram. I *think* you see the image on phones/etc, but they’re hidden on

Uploading Images:

Step One:

When you go to upload an image, your current camera gallery will load on default. Whichever image you select will be cropped into a square. You can pinch the screen, to zoom in or out and try to recenter the image, but if it doesn’t fill the square, preview images will clip the edges.

You can do multiple pictures, either in a collage or as a set people can scroll sideways through.

Or! You can upload a video.

Step 2:

The app gives you a LOT of editing tools. I usually leave them alone, but you can swype to the left on the tools row for all the options.

You can change the color, saturation, brightness, focus, contrast, just for starters!

Step 3:

The app provides a LOT of filters to select from.

They’re preset configurations for all the edit options from the previous tab. You can pick one, and then customize it by selecting the EDIT tab on the bottom left.

Typically, it’s suggested to find 1-3 filters you really like and stick with them, for that all-important BRAND idea. That way, when looked at en masse, your images will mesh well together.

NOTE: You can always hit the back arrow if you want to adjust the cropping.

Step 4:

This is where you add the details:

• captions
• hashtags
• tag people (@username)
• tag locations (if Location is turned on, it can auto-sense these.
• select the social medias to which you wish to cross-post

Instagram Community: Hashtags and Photo Ideas

As with Twitter, it will show you the popularity of any hashtag you start to type and autocomplete your most commonly used ones.

Some recommended hashtags are (hat tip to Alejandras Life):

• #writersOfInstagram (selfies, or pictures of your work)
• #amWriting (pictures of your work, or you working)
• #amReading (pictures of the book your reading)
• #TBR (pictures of what you’re reading next)
• #writersLife (selfies, behind-the-scenes shots)
• #wordPorn (images of quotes– from others or from your own writing)
• #writersBlock (pictures of what’re you doing while blocked)
• #amEditing (you know, what 90% of your writing consists of…)
• #writersFollowWriters – (a recent tag, to introduce yourself to other writers and find people to follow and support!)
• #noFilter – a way to brag about a picture that turned out great, and didn’t need any help

Images Used Elsewhere

After I drafted this post, I went to look at my feed and saw that my local news channel had asked to use a photo I’d posted on Instagram, and cross-posted to Twitter today. And offered accreditation

I swear, I’d already drafted the rest of this post before she asked.

So… that’s a thing that can happen. And… she opted not to. Maybe she’ll use it later this week?

Pinterest

This is a social media where, as you browse the internet and see pretty pictures, you can click to save them to a Pinterest folder.

You can ‘follow’ people and see what images they save, and they can do the same for your boards. There’s also a direct message option, but I haven’t been bombarded with spammers, so it’s relatively safe.

Once again, you’re going to want a pretty consistent name, profile picture, and bio. Then, if you’re like me, you’re going to want to organize your “Pins”, the images you’re saving.

So, you can create different ‘boards’ to pin images to. You can have private boards, friends only, or public boards. Many people use them for consolidating remodeling ideas, wedding planning, or suggested styles for clothing subscription services.

The general theme is that you’re “pinning” the images up, as if to a bulletin ‘board’, so you can see them all at once.

The Plugin

How do you save all these images?

With the quick installation of the plugin (a bit of code that makes the Pinterest logo show up when your mouse is hovering over an image, or when you tap-and-hold an image for a touchscreen), all you have to do is select that logo and a pop-up will ask you which ‘board’ you’d like to save the image to.

Ways to Use Pinterest as a Writer

I set up boards for inspirational actors/models for my characters, locations, and clothing and left Pinterest alone for a year. These are helpful for ME when writing since I tend to be somewhat less visually focused.

I’ve recently got back into Pinterest. These days, I’m also posting and/or resharing:

• memes
• blog post images with link-backs to my posts!
• pictures of books I’m reading

You can browse Pinterest, or anywhere on the internet, look for images you like, and pin them to your own boards.

Use hashtags as before, but the visual is what really sells things.

The internet, especially on smartphones, is a very visual place. It’s far easier to ‘like’ a picture than write a comment.

As entries to social media, Instagram and Pinterest involve the least amount of time and effort on your behalf. Plus, they’re both used (especially Instagram) by young adults.

So, for those of us who write YA, it’s a good idea to establish a presence on a media that your future audience actually uses.