It’s not quite the end of Tumblr, but when management is supposedly sending memos with the Lord Tennyson quote about having “loved and lost,” it doesn’t look like there’s much of a future.
Internet statesman and Waxy.org proprietor Andy Baio posted what is “apparently an internal Automattic memo making the rounds on Tumblr” to Threads. The memo, written to employees at WordPress.com parent company Automattic, which bought Tumblr from Verizon’s media arm in 2019, is titled or subtitled “You win or you learn.” The posted memo states that a majority of the 139 employees working on product and marketing at Tumblr (in a team apparently named “Bumblr”) will “switch to other divisions.” Those working in “Happiness” (Automattic’s customer support and service division) and “T&S” (trust and safety) would remain.
It’s about aiming for the lowest common denominator to maximize user number and engagement. Autoplaying short vids in a feed that you didn’t curate - all things optimized to trick your monkey brain for one more scroll or one more click. Works on everybody from children to elderly.
Except in Tumblr’s case, no one goes to tumblr to watch videos on the first place, and the way they have it set up is awful. It’s at the top of your feed, and you have to tap any of them to watch them in anything larger than a tiny square.