For those wanting to get started on Tumblr, here is a summary itemised list of considerations when starting up your Tumblr account. In the end, you can of course do whatever you want with your accounts, this is just my recommendation.

• [ ] 👤 Set a profile picture, blog title, and description first-thing. Tumblr users are highly wary of bot accounts and are very inclined to pre-emptively block you if you look suspicious. Ideally, set these up before you do anything else. Access this by clicking on the 👤Account icon on the top-right and selecting Edit appearance at the bottom of the menu. Then, click the Edit appearance button at the top-right of the page to set an avatar image, blog title, and blog description.

Your blog description is similar to a bio on Twitter, without any real word limit. Write away!

A Tumblr user explaining the problem of profile picture, untitled, and bio-less accounts…seriously, please set up your blog before you do anything.

• [ ] 📌 Consider writing a pinned post explaining you’re new to the platform. I don’t think it’s necessary, but some people may like to let others know they’re still figuring how the site works to explain some otherwise weird behaviour.

• [ ] 🔞 Review your community label settings. Tumblr has relaxed certain restrictions regarding mature content recently, but by default, posts labelled as mature are hidden. Depending on your preferences you may wish to show, blur, or hide posts marked as sensitive in your account settings.

<aside> 🔞 For users under 18, these settings will be automatically set to hide mature posts, and cannot be changed.

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• [ ] 🚩 If you use an iPhone, allow mature content on iOS. For a variety of App Store reasons, if you wish to see mature content on the Tumblr iOS app you must manually turn off Hide additionally potentially mature content in your account settings from the Tumblr website (desktop or mobile). You cannot do this from within the iOS app itself; go bother Apple if you don’t like it.

Mature content is hidden by default on Tumblr, as well as specifically on the iOS app.

• [ ] ⌚ Turn on timestamps. Old posts often re-circulate many times on Tumblr, so make sure you know when what you’re looking at was made. You can find this in your dashboard settings.
• [ ] ⏬ Enable endless scrolling if you want an experience similar to other social media sites like Twitter, also in your dashboard settings.
• [ ] 🤖 Turn off dashboard algorithmic curation. Tumblr users are extremely wary of algorithmic curation, far preferring chronological presentation, and frankly you should do the same. You can do so by accessing your dashboard settings, scrolling down to the Preferences **section, and switching off Best stuff first, Include stuff in your orbit, and Include “Based On Your Likes!”.

I highly recommend endless scrolling as it makes the browsing process more fluid. Enabling timestamps, however, feels like it should be on by default—I see this as necessary.

The first three switches allow you to turn off algorithmic curation. Followed tags just allows you to see posts with certain tags you follow appear on your dash alongside normal posts too; this is user preference. Colourised tags add a splash of colour to certain kinds of tags, such as making #nonbinary a gradient of yellow, purple, white, and black.

• [ ] 🔒 Manage your privacy settings. Turn off Improved search in your privacy settings. You can also consider turning off Let others see that you’re active.
• [ ] 🔔 Manage your notification settings. You probably don’t want more junk mail, so have a peruse through your notifications settings.

“More relevant recommendations”? No thanks!

I don’t want your newsletter either! But getting emails on new asks isn’t bad in my opinion.

• [ ] 🖌️ Enable your standalone blog by switching on Enable custom theme. This will give you a standalone page at your-username.tumblr.com that you can also customise extensively, to the point where it can even be attractive to people not on Tumblr! See the relevant section of The Hellsite Manual for more details.

<aside> 🛠️ Certain useful features like the archive are not available if you do not have a standalone site enabled (turned on “enable custom theme”), hence I recommend you enable it regardless of whether you actually care to customise it or not. Note you can simply enable it without customising anything.

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Even if you don’t plan on customising it at all, I still highly recommend you at least have your standalone blog enabled to access certain features. Certain users also vastly prefer browsing your blog through the standalone site rather than in the dashboard view, and offering more options doesn’t hurt.

• [ ] 💬 Enable asks, but disable anonymous questions (”anons”). Asks act as a public inbox where people can send you messages, and you can reply to them either privately, or publicly in a post. Keeping anons off helps to curtail toxic behaviour.

Asks are off by default. Your blog customisation settings have a lot of options, so consider taking some time out of your weekend to explore your blog’s design.

• [ ] 📺 Consider searching and following tags based on your interests. Tumblr is a popular site for “fandom” activity such as making fanart, GIFs, fanfics, or just discussing the latest episode of a show. You can control the visibility of followed tags on your dashboard through your dashboard settings, where you can enable Include followed tag posts to have them show up alongside posts from blogs you follow. See the tags guide to learn more about tagging and fandom.

Luckily, unlike other social media platforms, Tumblr has a fairly significant female user demographic (about 50/50 with male users), which makes browsing Star Wars content not feel like my brain is being forcibly decayed.

• [ ] 🕒 If you are an artist, consider publishing your art backlog by using the queue. The queue allows you to draft a set of posts, and automatically publishes them with a set frequency and timeframe every day. This is different from scheduled posts, which require you to set an exact time and date. Remember that a blog without reblogs can still be viewed as suspicious—don’t just leave your blog on autopilot without promoting your fellow artists, for god’s sake.