andrewjthomas.net

(more) On tumblarity.

Ericaaaaa puts it better than I could’ve.

via ericaaaaa:

A story. Once upon a time I joined this site called consumating. I cannot link to it for it does not exist anymore. I cannot link to the wikipedia page because it was deleted. Trying to describe the feel of the site would not do it justice, but I can describe how it basically worked.

It started as a dating site but with popularity rankings. For every profile you passed by, you could click a thumb pointing up (2 points) or a thumb pointing down (-1 points), and a ranking system was created based on the points. There were questions of the week that could be answered with text and/or photos or videos that could also be thumbed. There were also photo contests, also judged. All of these points were added up, and users were assigned a popularity ranking.

Popularity wasn’t the only thing consumating was about, but it was a big element of it. And let me tell you, I did a lot of silly things for the sake of popularity. A picture of me making out with my ibook vaulted me to the top 100. I talked about baking banana bread wearing only an apron. (Ohh, my integrity!) But it was all in the name of the game - anything with thumbs attached to it, I plotted carefully to figure out what would get me points thus increasing my “popularity.” If you’re wondering, it worked. At my highest, I was the 7th most popular person on the site. (And this is so ridiculous it still floors me.) But the popularity system was flawed in a lot of ways, and I don’t really miss it.

So when I clicked on the new tumblarity link and saw myself ranked amongst all the tumblrs in existence, along with some meaningless number, I had to wonder: why do I need to know this? I don’t want tumblr to be a game, where I am overthinking what postings will get the little hearts and what won’t. I could figure out tricks to play the game if I wanted, but I don’t want to fall into that trap. I just want this place to be me, and not a me that’s fueled by my tumblarity index*. Click the heart if you want, or don’t - I’ll be fine.

(I say this now, but the truth is I am horribly obsessed with stats and analytics and this is one more thing to drive me batty.)

*A system which I am guessing is also very flawed, but since it’s only been around a day I’ll let it go for now.

Another Popularity Contest? Really?

I’m not sure I like this whole TUMBLARITY concept. I don’t need a website to tell me how unpopular I am. I already experienced that with Consu/GTI. Why should I be subjected to it on my blog? Meh. What do _you_ think?