@iCad Thanks! Do you which is the proper download for Firefox? When I searched it up, I saw a few places (something about old versus new Xkit?) and I'm uncertain which one would be the best. (Sorry for so many questions, I'm always extra cautious when downloading something new.)

Caution is a good idea. You'll definitely want the new Xkit, since the original one is no longer updated. I'm not sure where you get it for Firefox; for Chrome (which is what I use when using Tumblr), you can download it via the Chrome app store thing. Perhaps if there's another Firefox user lurking around, they'll know.

I actually don't have Xkit, just an adblocker. Sometimes I look up in the corner and see that it's blocking over 400 ads! So if you want to use it at all, you have to block ads one way or another. Which method you use depends on how much trouble you want to go to and what specifically you find annoying.

One thing I've seen happening - people who are thoughtless jackasses, learn not to be jackasses on the social media of their choice because of the cross-section of people posting their points of view. And people who have never been able to get their point of view out there, or even been able to find their own community, because of whatever their particular issues are - only queer in the town of 600; five different health issues keeping them home and sapping their strength; even just members of obscure fandoms - have a large presence on social media because they can reach out through it and talk to people who listen and meet people with similar issues and/or interests. For the first time ever, they look out into the world and find a welcoming place.

And there are, in fact, roving gangs of bullies who sometimes call out to bullies that it's time to target this or that group or individual, to spam their inboxes with hate or stealth porn or false complaints or whatever. But not going on social media because such people exist is like not driving anywhere because people who ignore safety laws are out there. It doesn't get anything done.

It's just that Tumblr seems a good breeding-ground for this kind of nastiness. My best friend (one of them, anyways) got called a rapist and nearly doxxed for....disagreeing with a feminist about the meaning of song lyrics. Plus the way the whole reblogging system works you end up with a nasty groupthink situation where any opinions that aren't the majority kinda get drowned out.

Dunno, maybe I'm just more sensitive to this kind of stuff, but it's not conductive at all to my fragile mental health.

Well, yeah, if you know that something has the potential to upset you, then you shouldn't deliberately expose yourself to it. That only make sense. Personally I think the entire internet in general is a breeding ground for nastiness, precisely because of the level of anonymity it offers. Social media is probably the worst for that so, yeah, Tumblr and the like are especially fertile grounds.

But generally speaking, when it comes to Tumblr it's still a matter of who you follow as well as what you say on your own blog, if you use it, and what you say to other people if you reblog/comment. My Tumblr is probably 95% sim-related and 5% other stuff, mostly personal, and although I have on occasion discussed potentially controversial issues on it, I don't make a habit of doing so. I try to keep it to inoffensive Simming. And unless I'm feeling argue-y (which I sometimes do because I'm that way, but I usually go elsewhere to fill that want), I will avoid engaging with people who feel a need to crusade about things on Tumblr. That way, I avoid arguments that I don't want to have, and it's really not much different from participating in the forum here. If you never actually use your blog and truly only use your account to follow people you want to follow and don't leave any comments, just likes, then you'll never run into a situation where anyone would want to dox you. (And if you ARE the sort of person who might want to comment and such -- however innocuous you think you're going to be because sometimes people will take what you say the wrong way; sometimes they'll willfully misinterpret you in order to be a jerk -- then set up your account with an anonymous email that you don't use anywhere else, don't associate the account with other screen name(s) you use or with your real name, don't mention any details about your real life, and use a VPN/proxy so that your IP is anonymous. Then you can argue and comment away as much as you like without fear of doxxing.)

Not that I'm saying you HAVE to use Tumblr, of course. I'm just saying that there's no reason anyone should be afraid of it if they want to use it. The kind of experience a person will have on it and their level of participation are pretty much entirely in their own hands because they can be selective in who they follow and they can completely control what they do and say when using it.

My opinion is that this situation is anything but limited to Tumblr. What you described above is life in general. You'll quickly find that out if you think at all differently to most of society. People are sheep-like in nature, and that can be dangerous.

I'm thinking I may try out Tumblr for a personal storybook type purpose, since I've just restarted my hood and would like to have images saved of all sims throughout their lifestages. I have a hard time letting sims die, but with something to document their lives, it may not feel so pointless.

Most social networks are up to you.
Your Facebook page depends on privacy settings and who you decide to add as friends. You can unfriend them too. If only your added friends can post on your page, it should be a happy place.
Your twitter - well, you decide who to follow. And you can block anyone following you who gets on your nerves.
(Twitter also has the hashtag thing which is quite enjoyable when you want to follow something happening live. I followed the election of new mayors in the metros here on Twitter, and it was fun. Interesting to see the tweets from both sides too. Still a couple to go )

Hm, no matter what I try, the XKit extension throws back an error about being unable to reach the XKit servers. I grabbed the latest edition for Chrome and tried turning off all anti-viruses as recommended in the FAQs. My husband also suspected it could be a port issue and so changed some modem settings, but still no luck. He usually has the answer to this stuff, but even he's stumped.

If anyone else has had this problem let me know what fixed it.

EDIT - Seems the original guy no longer supports the original XKit but they've made a new one. I'll try that.

Yay, worked like a charm. So nice to see a clean organised dashboard - that was probably my main turn off the last time I tried it. Now for this old hipster to get to grips with all the confusing functions.

The groupthink thing on the reblogging is...the opposite of what I've seen. I see a lot of posts in which there's a lot of back-and-forth discussion and someone with facts lays stuff out and someone with experience lays other stuff out and you can see people change their minds or modify their positions. I've done it myself. It's only since getting on tumblr that I've realized that those four people sitting around a restaurant table apparently interacting with their phones may be people with hearing impairments using text to communicate without dealing with the problem of ambient noise; or they may all be playing the same game together while they eat.

At least among the people I follow, diverse voices are highlighted, not drowned out.

All righty, thanks iCad =)