YES, you promise not to screw it up, but you can't even get your tone right. Yahoo, you need to understand, the demographic that you're after is one that doesn't respond to any kind of patronising, adult-to-kid tone. And this is what you come up with?
"We promise not to screw it up." Do you understand what this sounds like? Someone awkwardly trying to get used to new lingo. Dammit, it's just so uncomfortable. It's like wearing brand new shoes.
If you'd stuck to your polite, formal, adult-like (and honestly more sincere than this) tone, I'd be more placated. By attempting a half-arsed "cool" post, all you're showing us is that the reason why you lack young users in the first place is because of your crushing inability to be on the same wavelength.
First of all, suddenly buying tumblr for a billion bucks is definitely not the way to gain more young users. You know what tumblr users are saying? Yes, the very users that you hope will make you money. They're blaming you. They're saying that yahoo sucks, David Karp sold them off, tumblr is ruined.
Yeah, the reactions are naive and stupid, but they're still reactions.
Remember why you're getting tumblr in the first place, yahoo? Because you're outdated and lack young users. What did you hope to gain by turning young users against you?
(... Add large dose of disappointment with today's society.)
You may think that every acquisition is met by such backlash, but tumblr is different. Tumblr is obsessive, offbeat, a little extreme sometimes and a little too laid-back sometimes. Dear god, tumblr calls David Karp "daddy". If you don't think there's something wrong with this website, you'd be wrong.
Sure, there's a whole bunch of users you can profit from, yahoo, and those are the "cool", "stylish" people of the era that you can show to sponsors and investors. But you forget that the other half of tumblr is frankly quite embarrassing (this includes me), and has no interest whatsoever in being profited from, unless they like the company that's making money off them.
People say a large part of tumblr's culture is made up of self-awareness, and all this self-awareness makes tumblr unique, as well as very allergic to bullshit. This means that tumblr backlash is not normal backlash, tumblr backlash extends rather far.
There will be yahoo jokes. People will blame yahoo. Users who were merely apathetic will turn against yahoo, even if it's only in minor ways. There will be tags and entire blogs dedicated to making fun of yahoo, and trust me, no one wants to be made fun of by tumblr. It can get vicious, while appearing funny on the surface.
Dear yahoo, this is all wrong. I think we all understand your desire to get more young users, and we all support that to an extent. It's only to be expected, after all, to court a demographic that you lack.
But you're going about this the wrong way.
You shouldn't have bought tumblr this suddenly, nor this completely. From a separate entity, tumblr has become a subdivision of yahoo, and all this elicits is a wave of animosity. Tumblr's users are young, and young users are proud. Pander to their pride! Treat them as equals! Have some sort of partnership instead of complete ownership, even if it's a complete sham!
Yahoo, you're just not on the same wavelength.
Your designs, your tone of voice, none of it fits with tumblr's users. The problem is that none of your sincerity gets across to the users, that that problem will ultimately drive off any young users. Youths value sincerity. If you hate them, say it to their face. Their disagreement will be quieter, more peaceful, and they will be more accepting, even if they still hate you.
Mistakes upon mistakes, yahoo. Try revamping your homepage before touching tumblr. In response to "what do you think of yahoo?" there is only "I use google", "yahoo's ugly!", and "yahoo's such a mess, they screwed up my email".
Cool acquisitions won't make you cool. Yahoo, you can be cool without tumblr, and this acquisition is actually quite a mistake. You think that one billion dollars will buy you a demographic, but this particular demographic is especially flighty and unstable. This demographic will flee from you like the previous generation of young users fled from MySpace, if you mess things up.
And unlike myspace, nostalgia won't come soon enough to save you.
Myspace no longer gets the same amount of derision it did a few years back. A cooling-off period, a complete revamp, and a change of tone - the staff understood the general opinion, and no longer tried to market myspace as cool. Instead, they admitted that myspace has lost the "cool factor", and simply said "here's the new myspace, give it a try, we put in lots of effort".
Yahoo, don't patronise. Don't presume. Don't make any more mistakes.
I hope you find success with tumblr, but you've already ruined a large part of it. Just by attaching the yahoo name to tumblr, you've taken away tumblr's individuality. The general sentiment is that tumblr's gone corporate, it's been sanitised. Even if that's not the case, that's what most people think.
And what people think is important, yahoo. Don't forget that.
Also PSA do something about your messy homepage. And don't fuck up tumblr.
To clear this up: I am definitely staying because I am addicted to tumblr like you get addicted to mornings in bed. "This acquisition sounds more like a merger" yes then just call it a merger, back to my previous point. Karp you'd better make tumblr good, or everyone will be very disappointed. Also maybe tumblr just doesn't like Mayer, I mean tumblr loves pretty boys. I am actually very sad but not angry enough to give up four years of tumblring.
Dammit yahoo I'm just not happy. Because tumblr is yahoo's now, it doesn't feel like tumblr any more even though nothing's actually changed.
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