A Beginner’s guide to

How to sign your soul away

Getting to know your Dashboard

The top barLogo and home buttonTake you back to your dashboard or refresh the page if you are already on your dashboard

Inbox

HelpSettings

Extension that makes tumblr a bit better (you have to download this elsewhere but it’s not really important so don’t worry about it)

Log outSelf-explanatory

The Side BarShows you everything you have posted or reblogged

Shows your followers

Shows what you’ve been doing and who’s been reblogging you

Shows you your liked posts

Shows who you’re following

Self-explanatory

The Post BarAll are pretty self-explanatory

Except this one – this one formats your post so that it looks more like a script rather than a solid block of text, which allows you to post about conversations. You can’t actually chat to people. This isn’t Facebook.

Making a postFor this post I clicked on the ‘Text’ button

I wrote a heading

And the main post

And added some tags so that others could find it

Then I published it

But if you decide you don’t want to make a post, you can change your mind

Here is your published post

Here’s the reblog buttonHere’s the settings button for if you want to edit it

Shares the post on other websites

And here’s where the notes, that tell you how many people liked or reblogged it , would be if you actually get any

Common types ofposts and blogs on Tumblr

Blogs on tumblr

Hipster• Usually pretty pictures of dip-dyed hair, a sunset or a cup

of Starbucks. Often hijacked by fandoms

Fandom• If you are a fan of a tv series , band or film or anything, you are a part of its fandom. Most members of

fandoms tend to become extremely emotionally invested in characters, events and shipping (supporting a romance between characters, canon or non-canon, commonly homosexual pairings), often to the point of being extremely over-the-top. There are also a large amount of crossovers, the main being SuperWhoLock – the crossover between the three most prominent fandoms on tumblr, Supernatural, Doctor Who and Sherlock. Fan art and humorous photoshopped screenshots are an extremely popular medium amongst these communities. Also crosses over with celebrity worship.

PR0N!• Can be fan art (often extremely graphic) from

the fandom side of tumblr, classy stuff from the Hipster side of tumblr, or just outright porn. There is no escaping it.

All the pictures I could find were either too tame or too explicit so here’s a kitten

Other

• Hipster and Fandom are generally regarded as the two most prominent communities on tumblr although there are many people who blog about feminism, politics, LGBTQ right and other social issues surrounding equal rights.

• There are also bloggers who tell humorous or strange stories or jokes, or just reblog other posts.

• Other bloggers come to tumblr seeking emotional support or an escape from their offline life and use their blog as an outlet to express themselves and their emotions.

Finally

• Source any art, videos or anything else you post that you don’t own

• Don’t send anonymous hate messages… or any hate messages at all

• Try to tag anything you post or reblog that may be distressing or contain a spoiler as some people have triggers or haven’t seen that episode yet

• We’ve barely scratched the surface of the tumblr community but there’s so much that it can’t be covered in a single powerpoint

• Go forth and tumble, and see what the website is all about for yourself

Or, if you actually want to have a life…