Before You Follow (BYF) -

[ChurchOfGodBear]

Can someone explain this concept to me, a tumblr non-user? I understand that it's intended to make sure the special snowflakes are able to surround themselves only with other special snowflakes, but my question is, is this an integral part of the tumblr system, or wishful thinking on thier part? I know other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter let you follow people, but there's no stipulations on it. You like someone, you can follow them. Doesn't matter if you agree with them or not. Does tumblr have some sort of special feature that allows you to only be followed by like-minded people? Is following someone outside their BYF comfort zone seen as rude or disrespectful? Can it get you banned?

tl;dr- What do non-batshit people think of BYF lists?

 

[Payday]

You can't get banned for it, they'll most likely just block you for not following their rules. Some may find it as being rude but honestly I don't think anyone outside of the circle would give a shit if you oh so dared to follow their strict code.

 

[YI 457]

tl;dr- What do non-batshit people think of BYF lists?

 

[Meowthkip]

Can someone explain this concept to me, a tumblr non-user? I understand that it's intended to make sure the special snowflakes are able to surround themselves only with other special snowflakes, but my question is, is this an integral part of the tumblr system, or wishful thinking on thier part? I know other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter let you follow people, but there's no stipulations on it. You like someone, you can follow them. Doesn't matter if you agree with them or not. Does tumblr have some sort of special feature that allows you to only be followed by like-minded people? Is following someone outside their BYF comfort zone seen as rude or disrespectful? Can it get you banned?

tl;dr- What do non-batshit people think of BYF lists?

Tumblr users apparently trust other users to use an honor system, and just be like "oh, I won't follow this person, 'cause I'm cis scum."

It doesn't work that way because they're public blogs. Anybody with a Tumblr account can follow, and blocking won't stop them from accessing your blog or seeing your posts.

When somebody with a BYF list does get followed by somebody they don't approve of, there are a few things that can happen. One is that they get into a very public exchange of words with the follower as opposed to keeping the conversation private. This is not only a display for their followers to demonstrate how zero-tolerance they are for somebody who's "problematic," but also to alert followers that this person is violating their rules. The follower may find themselves bombarded with anon hate, calls to kill themselves, or having their tag flooded with accusations, often exaggerated. Sometimes the blogger might just make a callout post out of nowhere, just because they were going through their follower list and didn't like what they saw.

I feel like it's some kind of holdover from the Live Journal culture, since a lot of the Tumblr brand SJW shit came from there.

 

[seagull]

As far as I've ever been able to tell, it's only the batshit tumblr users that use byf lists. No one I ever followed ever had one.

It's pretty similar to the idea that people can dictate who reblogs their posts. I've never seen anyone sane do that either.

 

[Ravenor]

Tumblr users apparently trust other users to use an honor system, and just be like "oh, I won't follow this person, 'cause I'm cis scum."

It doesn't work that way because they're public blogs. Anybody with a Tumblr account can follow, and blocking won't stop them from accessing your blog or seeing your posts.

When somebody with a BYF list does get followed by somebody they don't approve of, there are a few things that can happen. One is that they get into a very public exchange of words with the follower as opposed to keeping the conversation private. This is not only a display for their followers to demonstrate how zero-tolerance they are for somebody who's "problematic," but also to alert followers that this person is violating their rules. The follower may find themselves bombarded with anon hate, calls to kill themselves, or having their tag flooded with accusations, often exaggerated. Sometimes the blogger might just make a callout post out of nowhere, just because they were going through their follower list and didn't like what they saw.

I feel like it's some kind of holdover from the Live Journal culture, since a lot of the Tumblr brand SJW shit came from there.

So essentially it's everything that's wrong with tumblr and SJW's in a microcosm?

 

[Meowthkip]

So essentially it's everything that's wrong with tumblr and SJW's in a microcosm?

Pretty much, on top of a complete obliviousness towards the nature of the internet.

 

[Ravenor]

Pretty much, on top of a complete obliviousness towards the nature of the internet.

That just prodded a thought, in 20 / 30 years down the road some of these people are grown adults with responsibility I wonder how much of this is going to come an bite them in the arse. The old internet adage once it's out there it's out there is going to get quite interesting, seriously imagine if a current SJW Tumblrina run's for office and some one raking the muck for dirt comes across a awful lot of this stuff.

 

[Avocado]

When I was on tumblr I'd usually have a little warning somewhere that I reblog some borderline nsfw stuff and gory artwork (things that I figured someone could reasonably be upset to see if they followed me thinking I just post Pokemon or whatever). I think that sort of a warning was pretty common when I was there; this BYF shit is either a recent tumblrina fad or I was just fortunate enough to not ever associate with people who used them. I remember a popular text post that said something to the effect of "your tumblr is your safe space so don't feel bad about savioring things or unfollowing/blocking people who make you feel bad!"; I'm guessing BYF's are a result of this idea snowballing out of control (as everything on tumblr eventually does).

Something that I do remember seeing a lot were lists of "tags for mutuals", where kids would list any and every little thing that they don't particularly want to see on their dashboard (anything from phobias, to fandoms/characters/pairings they don't like, to tumblr users they don't like, to even dumber things) along with specific tags for their mutual followers to use for each one so they can tumblr savior it.

The 'do not reblog' thing was also pretty common for deeply personal text posts, but of course having a widely-used tag for things that you don't want reblogged paved the way for ween blogs to go through the #do not reblog tag reblogging everything.

But yeah, there's really no way for them to effectively police who follows them or interacts with their blog aside from using peer pressure, and tumblr's block feature is kind of useless.

 

[Lurkingjay]

That just prodded a thought, in 20 / 30 years down the road some of these people are grown adults with responsibility I wonder how much of this is going to come an bite them in the arse. The old internet adage once it's out there it's out there is going to get quite interesting, seriously imagine if a current SJW Tumblrina run's for office and some one raking the muck for dirt comes across a awful lot of this stuff.

Man, everyone growing up in the Internet age has the same problem. Tumblr produces some pretty bad content, but do you really think dumbasses on any other social media site are going to get off any easier? I fully expect to live to see a political attack ad involve footage from a candidate's old Youtube screaming-about-video-games days, and it's gonna be amazing.

 

[Wolf Fetuses]

There are occasionally sensible BYF's, for example, warnings of explicit content or flashing gifs and such. The majority of BYF's boil down to the same few things, though:

• don't follow if you don't intend to asspat!
• don't follow if you question my self diagnosis!
• don't follow if you're fictionkin of the same characters i am!
• don't follow if you have a mental health condition that isn't as special and unique as mine!

 

[Trombonista]

I've been meaning to make a BYF post that basically boils down to "no spam/malware distribution". I think mine would actually be reasonable compared to the usual posts.

 

[scarytrees]

i was told to unfollow someone AFTER the fact one time. we'd been mutual followers for a few years, i made ONE anti-SJW post and she messaged me "unfollow me lol" and i did to be polite. you've probably seen the posts that go something along the lines of "if you post x or subscribe to x then unfollow me right now." giving people ultimatums is such a manipulative tactic. while people are going to agree with you on some things, you can't be so nitpicky and feel offended if someone who disagrees with you looks at your content on a public forum.

 

[Iamthatis]

There are occasionally sensible BYF's, for example, warnings of explicit content or flashing gifs and such. The majority of BYF's boil down to the same few things, though:

• don't follow if you don't intend to asspat!
• don't follow if you question my self diagnosis!
• don't follow if you're fictionkin of the same characters i am!
• don't follow if you have a mental health condition that isn't as special and unique as mine!

You know I've never considered it but what happens if two fictive or factives of the same person meet? Must they battle to the death? Would tumblr blink out of existence?

 

[Wolf Fetuses]

You know I've never considered it but what happens if two fictive or factives of the same person meet? Must they battle to the death? Would tumblr blink out of existence?

"i'm blocking u bc you make me dissociate ok"

 

[Laevateinn]

There are occasionally sensible BYF's, for example, warnings of explicit content or flashing gifs and such. The majority of BYF's boil down to the same few things, though:

• don't follow if you don't intend to asspat!
• don't follow if you question my self diagnosis!
• don't follow if you're fictionkin of the same characters i am!
• don't follow if you have a mental health condition that isn't as special and unique as mine!

I'm going to add something else to the list:

• don't follow if you reblog my posts and add a personal tag to it because I don't want you to have your own opinion on things!

 

[Ferls]

Tumblr's actual blocking system doesn't do much at all (just mutes people on your dashboard last I checked, instead of actually severing connections with them), so I can understand BYF pages going a bit beyond content warnings. But it's hilarious how tumblr users think they have such utter control.
And when people do unfollow them, they either throw a fit about it or inflate their own egos about how they're so much better than the problematic wuss that unfollowed them.

 

[Sunny-D]

The thing that I don't understand about this the most is...when someone follows you, that doesn't actually... DO anything on your end. Someone follows you and they disagree with you? Post stuff you don't like? Heaven fucking forbid, they're a STRAIGHT WHITE MALE or some other category of people you don't like? Doesn't mean anything, since their stuff doesn't show up on your dashboard! It only means that they can see things you post on THEIR dashboard... and since that's exactly the same as if they looked directly at your blog, followed someone who reblogged things from you, or any other of the many ways that you can view what someone posts on a public blogging site, it's basically meaningless.

Tumblr is already way too good at allowing fragile people to surround themselves with emotional bubble wrap and never encounter anything that even slightly disagrees with or goes contrary to their irrational beliefs. People trying to restrict who can look at their stuff when it... doesn't actually restrict who can look at their stuff... is particularly ridiculous.

 

[Bamboo Claw]

People sometimes get really mean followers who only follow blogs to harass the blogger, in which case BYF pages are understandable. Unfortunately they still can't completely prevent them from doing it, especially with Tumblr's ineffective block system that others mentioned. Blanket warnings against groups of people following are not the solution. We just need to get the Tumblr staff to fix their block system.

 

[fishercat]

A lot of bloggers I've seen don't seem to have a firm grasp on how the internet works. It's like they're under the impression that their followers are like their friends instead of people just interested in seeing them on their dashboard for whatever reason. And this before you follow thing is just trying to exert some control over what kinds of people they make "friends" with.