The reason why different floors of buildings are called “stories” is because each floor has a different story within its walls.
On the fifth floor is Mrs. Marigold, who lives with a cat who hates her and desperately wants to get away but doesn’t know how. The cat isn’t smart enough to figure out how to open the door and Mrs. Marigold never lets her cat out without a leash on.
On the ninth floor lives Beth and Rupert, a newlywed couple who are both jealous of each others’ job. Beth is a stock broker for a big stock exchange while Rupert is an urban gardener. Beth recently got more into gardening, while Rupert is fascinated by the nuances of the stock market. They’d both love to do each others’ job but are devastated by the fact that the companies they work for would never allow them to switch.
On the tenth floor is Old Man McDoonald, who hates his name because everyone thinks it’s McDonald, when it isn’t. It’s McDoonald. He wishes all of his neighbors, especially that no-good-troublemaker Jimmy Louis from across the hall, would stop singing that awful nursery rhyme about the animals. It’s McDoonald. He’s made himself perfectly clear.
On the fifteenth floor is Charles, a sad young man who pays the bills by streaming himself playing video games. Forced to play past the point of enjoyment, CharlieGamer93 scrapes by a meager living playing hours upon hours of the latest games, desperately hoping that he’ll gain a handful of subscribers each day. Some days he forgets to eat, but that’s actually superior to the alternative because it means less bathroom breaks and more videos for his demanding audience.
On the sixteenth floor, everyone is really happy and boring. Nothing to report there.
The plan for the 17th, when the adult content ban comes in, is to protest.
To do that, we are making as much noise either side of the 17th as possible, and using the site as normal.
On the 17th, dead silence.
People are saying log off but what they really mean is don’t open the site or the app.
But, on the 17th make as much noise as possible on every other platform. Tweet about it and post on facebook and instagram and everywhere else.
What this does is causes a massive dip in ad revenue for one single day. That does not make staff think ‘oh everyone’s gone let’s shut down.’ What it actually makes them think is ‘oh shit people aren’t happy and if people don’t keep using our site we’re out of money and out of jobs.’
A boycott reminds a company that the users (consumers) have the power to make their site (business) worthless with one single coordinated decision.
If you want to join in, here’s what to do:
Do:
Close all open instances of the app and site on all your devices before the 17th
Make posts before and after the 17th on tumblr and other platforms, talking about why this ban is bad
Make posts on other sites during the 17th. Flood the official tumblr staff twitter and facebook with your anger and your opinion
Come back on the 18th and check in
Don’t:
Delete the app from your phone (this doesn’t affect their revenue and since it’s off the store at the moment it’ll be hard to get back)
Delete your account. I mean you can if you want to, but if you keep your account and don’t use it you’re saying to staff that there’s still time to save it. If you delete it’s hard work to come back.
Open the app or website (including specific blogs)
Make any posts (turn down/off your queue and make sure nothing is scheduled)
Go quiet elsewhere. Make it clear that this is just about tumblr, not a mass move away from all social media.
Remember: the execs don’t care about anything but money. Shutting down the site means there’s $0 further income from it. That’s their last possible course of action. If we make it clear we’re not happy, they’ll have to do something or we can do more and more until it becomes too expensive.
Protests take commitment. They’re a defiant action against a business that is doing something wrong. They will try to scare you into not participating, because they’re scared. We hold all the power here, sometimes the execs just need to be reminded of that.
