Tumblr is trying to teach new users how the site works

Tumblr has recently been vocal about going all-in on Gen Z, but wooing a fresh new set of users to a 15-year-old platform has its hiccups.

Endemic Tumblr creators have reported recent drops in engagement they think are due to an influx of young users from TikTok. As a platform, Tumblr thrives on reblogging, but TikTok users have been taught to simply like — not share — highly relevant content fed to them by the app. And while Tumblr does suggest posts and blogs it thinks will be relevant to you, it does not yet work the same magic as TikTok’s industry-leading algorithm.

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This is nothing new; learning to use Tumblr has always required more manual labor than almost any other social platform. Site features like tags and asks are steeped in more than a decade of user-driven repurposing that can make them confusing to newcomers.

On Friday, April 15, Tumblr employees addressed these concerns by promoting a recent series of posts on a tips blog they’ve christened “Hellsite High.” The title is a play on users’ affectionate nickname for the platform, and the site breaks Tumblr down with endearingly useful back-to-basics etiquette. Topics like “Shitposting for Newbs” and “Saying Hi — From Super Public To Super Private” walk readers through the most common community uses for Tumblr features (as opposed to, say, their intended use).

It probably won’t entice the casual user, but it’s a treasure trove of cheat codes for curious newcomers who are slightly more invested in making Tumblr a new home on the internet.

The only confusing part is the site’s clunky throwback design. Nineties nostalgia is in, especially amongst Gen-Zers who are reclaiming it for themselves. But Hellsite High’s earnest attempt at the concept is a strange, dull mix of fonts, colors, and low-res clip art that, ironically, make the most important information harder to read. It’s an unusual misstep for Tumblr team, who usually deliver top-of-the-line visuals, even as they scramble to satisfy their community. They haven’t learned to speak fluent Gen Z quite yet.

According to Cyle Gage, a Senior Principal Backend Product Engineer at Tumblr, Hellsite High is just the beginning of a long line of accommodations the platform plans to provide. In a post to their personal blog, they noted that “a revamped Tour Guide for new users to nudge them towards liking and reblogging (to start)” is in the works. Further down the road, they’ll be “rebuilding the whole onboarding flow to encourage following blogs and selecting meaningful tags to follow.”