The ##

Dominant Trends That Control the Tumblr User Base

(Source: hopper-for-lucy)

Jump the shark?

thisneedstobefixedrightaway.tumblr.com

The Awl’s got a good round-up of this developing, Tumblr-centric media spat pretty down.

Basically the Newsweek Tumblr has served as the vehicle of retaliation against a column in the WaPo penned by Howard Kurtz. Here’s a quote from the Media Matters post Choire links to:

Editors of the online column took Howard Kurtz’s Monday piece on Newsweek and its dire future, in his view, and edited with claims of inaccuracies and poor arguments.

Pretty baller. Reminds us of another creative use of copy editing to prove a point.

Also we’ve got a definition of a Tumblr by a semi-legit source as an “online column,” potentially with multiple editors. Sounds good to us.

(photo)

Industry Olds Rolling Stone redesigned its website, which went live today. Don’t really remember what the old site looked like, but it was probably more cluttered with too many links, information and menus, and a confusion of the word “blog.” 

RS’s menus don’t drop down, there’s only one vertical list of “top stories” (above the “fold”) and there are no ads above the fold. Lower down on the homepage, big, lively pictures take up the space that other sites fill with more text and, at most, there are three boxes of single articles going across. Ads don’t move much, and if they do they stay within their borders. There are no content slideshows, either.

The CJS report we covered last month found, among other things, that the eye reads vertically much smoother than it does horizontally. But the simple change that Rolling Stone made effectively was a spring cleaning.

Here at The ## we have a segment called Tumblrviews where we interview authors of popular Tumblrs. Today’s is with both Suicide Blonde and Bohemea.

First of all, I’ll make a confession. I did not know you two were girlfriends until I was actually deciding which of the two of you I would interview next! What’s that dynamic like, between the two blogs? Do you ever fight over photos?

I’m going to quote The Dude here & say that we answered these questions as ‘The Royal We, you know, the editorial.’  We’re not surprised that you didn’t realize we were girlfriends. We recently realized that we never actually mentioned each other in our bios on our Tumblr main pages, so we fixed that. We mention each other often in posts, but until recently didn’t answer questions about our relationship publicly. It’s fun though, to talk about how much fun we have together.

We’ve been blogging together for nearly as long as we’ve been sleeping together, so we’ve got it down to a fine art. We used to post separately on one blog, but wanted to separate further just to have our own sense of self represented on our blogs. That’s why the reblog is so great, because we can still pick bits from each other’s Tumblrs to share on our own.

We do have many sexy lesbian fights involving biting & scratching & hair pulling, but never over photos. We each have preferred actresses, models, films, etc & if a set of photos crops up that we’re both very excited about, after gasping & moaning & clutching each other, we split the posting of the photos half & half. We’re very diplomatic. Also, posting pictures is a form of foreplay for one another. When Suicideblonde posts a photo of Naomi Watts, Bohemea can barely control herself. We enjoy sharing interests & also turning the other on to new artists.



On That Obscure Object (Bohemea) it says you’ve both been collecting images for over 20 years. Was this for another project? Where have you gotten them?

We’ve both been image collectors since we were young girls. Our eyes grow glassy with nostalgia when we reminisce about our first Vogue or issue of Seventeen. Picture books, teen pin-up magazines, fashion magazines, art books, we love & collect them all. Before the internet, our collections existed in scrap books & on our bedroom walls. Bohemea’s early collections were of New Kids On the Block, Mariah Carey, Alyssa Milano, Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Beverly Hills 90210, En Vogue, Niki & Kristy Taylor, Cindy Crawford & Claudia Schiffer. Suicideblonde’s earliest collections were more fashion based: issues of Vogue, Steven Meisel & Ellen Von Unwerth editorials, very early Kate Moss, all the Supermodels. Also Nicole Kidman & Tom Cruise, Jodie Foster, Gillian Anderson & Lucy Lawless. We were both huge Milla Jovovich fans from the start of her career as well. A fun game we like to play is to place a Vogue from the 80s or 90s in front of Suicideblonde & watch her identify all the models & the photographer.

We started collecting images on the internet in the late 90s. It was hard to find photos back then! We found them via very early versions of fansites & by trading with fellow collectors via newsgroups. We recently scoured our harddrives for our earliest image & found tiny scans of some of our favourite ladies from as early as 1997. One thing that thrills us is to find an HQ (high quality) digital version of an image that previously only existed on paper or as a small scan. It fills our hearts with joy!


Do either of you do any conscious promotion of the blogs, or did they become popular solely through tumblr? Basically, how did you get so popular?

We don’t promote our blogs outside of Tumblr. We’re always posting, so our Tumblrs have become a place to go where you can always be updated with new images. We’ve also recently been promoted on Blogs outside of Tumblr, which has helped contribute hits. We might get more hits than niche blogs that have a specific subject because we do share a wide variety of images, there’s a little something for everyone & we try to pepper our pop culture posts with posts of people & artists that may not be as well known, Our only rule is that we don’t post things we do not like, even if it’s a popular subject. Hopefully by sharing images of people & artists that are less popular, we’re exposing people to new interests while also gaining popularity for the lesser known artists.

I see both of you have Twitters, one locked and one open. What do you two think of it?

It’s alright. We find the character limit difficult since we’re both wordy people, but we find it’s a nice place to be a little more personal & we enjoy reading a lot of celebrity Twitters. As a service, we like that it’s stable & constantly improving.
 

I noticed that That Obscure Object has a personal tumblr listed called Theopania. I was wondering if you could tell me how you decide what to post where, and, if That Obscure Object isn’t personal, what is it?

I originally started the Theophania journal this winter. I used to keep a personal Livejournal & I really enjoyed it & had begun to miss chronicling our daily life. I like sharing anecdotes about our days with people that I can get to know personally. Our personal life went so haywire over the past few months though that personal journal keeping became something that I wanted to keep private, so I turned to a paper journal instead, but also decided to trust my Bohemea followers with some personal information about our life by turning on the message feature & answering personal questions. Bohemea is a personal journal because it reflects my interests & inspirations, but I don’t share many details or photos about our daily life.

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Here at The ## we’re starting a new segment called Tumblrviews where we interview authors of popular Tumblrs. Our inaugural interview is with Jessica, author of Something Intellectual.

Your first post was about a year ago. What made you start tumbling?
I started Tumblr after I found myself going to different pages and just scrolling endlessly through the pages. I figured, “This isn’t so hard.”

How old are you?
I am celebrating my 20th birthday on the 15th actually!

How many followers do you have?
As of right now I have just a few shy of 17,000. (Who, let me just say, are the coolest, nicest people ever!)

Wow! Did you get all of those gradually or in big chunk(s)?
I usually have gradual spurts of followers.

Have you done any sort of conscious promotion of the blog or did it just sort of grow through Tumblr on its own?
No, I thought about designing a shirt and wearing it for shits and giggles, but I haven’t got time for such shenanigans lately.

Do you use Twitter? Is it connected to Something Intellectual or just personal?
I do, but I hardly use it. I made it with the intention of having it coincide with my tumblr, but I’m on too many networking sites to really get into Twitter. ;)

How many posts have you liked?
29,355! Wowzers…

Would you rather be reblogged or liked?
They’re both nice. I prefer reblogging, as so the content can be reached to more and more people, as well as the artist/musician.

Do you miss Tumblarity?
No. Not at all. Tumblarity was a bane to the whole site, and just created an influx of people posting worthless crap to get more and more people to be interested in them. I love being free to post however without having to be stressed out by it. My friends and I would joke about the stress it caused.

I see that every image that isn’t yours is linked to where you got it from— and of course any thing you reblog is automatically linked back to its source— but do you ever still worry about whether you’re properly crediting images that aren’t yours?
Oh, all the time. Though not as much lately as I try to find images from the original owner (makes for more interesting Internet digging). My earlier posts, perhaps, may not be properly credited. A little tick in the back of my thoughts, but I try my best these days to credit accordingly.

Do you use tags on your posts? How?
Sometimes, usually I use tags to express subtext to what I’m feeling. I contemplate going back and tagging all of my posts, but then I remember that would take too much work. ;)

How much time do you spend on Something Intellectual every day/week?
Hmm…I’d say roughly 1-3 hours a day (depending on how busy I am, and how anti-social I’m feeling that day). That’s not to say I haven’t spent an entire day riffling through my dashboard out of boredom, but on average just somewhere between 7-12 hours a week.

Do you have any other blogs?
Nope, this is my one and only. I’ve tried to have other blogs, but I’m not great at multi-blogging.

Have you edited the code of your template?
Yes. It was originally the “New Theme.” I edited most of the coding, changed some fonts, added a few homely touches, and presto!

Have you ever thought about trying to make money from Something Intellectual?
I would be an idiot if I hadn’t. Though, in the end I don’t try to, because in my mind that’s as if I went around selling other people’s things.

What does the title of your tumblr mean to you?
When I first made it, I really was only making a little thing to post random bits that may or may not make sense. So, Something Intellectual fit pretty well in my book.

Do your friends in real life know you run Something Intellectual?
I enjoy my blog, and I usually let people know about it. My friends from real life all have tumblrs, and the ones that haven’t yet usually ask me about it. If anyone really wanted to get to know me, all they would have to do is email me. I am Jessica hear me roar, I suppose…

(Both photos from Jessica’s Flickr)