Here’s how I feel about the different social media sites and
their uses:
·
Facebook, for the young, is for connecting and
gossiping and embarrassing one another.
·
Facebook, for those of us who are no longer
young, is for keeping in touch and swapping recipes and Simplicity patterns and
posting pictures from thirty years ago and embarrassing one another.
·
Twitter is about branding and advertisement and
being stupid in fifteen words or less. If you are not consistently very witty,
you shouldn't really bother posting, unless you're Katy Perry or Justin Bieber,
in which case it doesn't matter.
·
Pinterest is for those who like to post and
share pictures of fashion and decorating and jewelry and cute boys. Much though
I like all these things, I decided after a few months that Pinterest
was not for me.
·
WordPress is a nice stable blog website, full of
people with all kinds of interests. I have made some very nice Internet
friendships on WordPress.
·
Blogger / Blogspot ditto.
·
Tumblr is a friggin' zoo.
Let me expand upon
this last statement.
Tumblr is something for everyone and no mistake: lots of
beautiful photography and art, lots of underdone cheesy humor, lots of selfies.
Also lots of bizarre political thought and amateur porn. It's a more
freewheeling version of Facebook in which you don't need to friend anyone, and
in which most people use handles and aliases. Nothing comes to you
automatically on Tumblr: you have to shop around for it. Once you find something with
which you feel comfortable, those people will be reblogging from other
similarly-oriented Tumblr blogs, and you can follow those in turn, and - within
a month or two of careful tending - you will have a beautiful Tumblr garden /
dashboard full of lovely and amusing images and texts to enjoy!
Let me give you a head start. Let's say you're a mature
person, a little literary, a little artsy, with a taste for kitch and a goofy
sense of humor. You might like to look at the following Tumblr blogs, just for
entertainment's sake. (And if you’re reading this on Tumblr, look these folks
up; you won’t be sorry.)
·
Diane Duane.
Diane (who blogs under her real name) is a successful author, mostly sci-fi and
young adult. She lives in Ireland and posts wonderful pictures and texts, and
she is very responsive to her fans and readers. She is very likeable, and I
recommend her highly.
·
Devilduck.
This is the ultra-kitschy Tumblr blog of one of the guys associated with the
well-known Archie McPhee joke shop in Seattle. If you like pictures of people
wearing horse masks and Christmas trees decorated with Cthulhu tentacles, this
is the site for you.
·
Bad Postcards.
What it says. Mostly 1950s and 1960s; mostly cute, some poignantly nostalgic,
and almost all in brilliant Kodacolor.
·
1950s
Unlimited. Like Devilduck, but a little more on the sentimental side. If you
get misty-eyed over black and white photos of people using cigarette machines,
you'll feel very at home here.
·
Well,
That’s Just Great. The drily amusing / often hilarious daily chronicle of a
man named Anthony Giffen who lives in central Florida with a dog named Ducky
and a partner named Gizmo. Highly recommended.
There: I have sanitized Tumblr for you. I guarantee no porn,
no dangerous radicals, no homicidal lunatics.
Now get in there and explore Tumblr and stomp around a bit.
You might just have fun.
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