books0977:

Seated Woman. Jules Adolphe Goupil (French, 1839-1883). Oil on canvas. Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery. 

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56888493450.

To: support@tumblr.com

Fr: John Callender (jbc@jbcsystems.com)

Subject: Community Guidelines violation

Hi. I’d like to report a fellow Tumblr user for violation of Tumblr’s Community Guidelines. This user appears to have some sort of special access to my dashboard, where he has been repeatedly posting disturbing images of violence, suicide, and self-harm. I appear to be unable to stop this.

I don’t want to promote these posts any more than they already have been, but it’s important for you understand what I’m talking about. Here are links to a few of them. (Warning: They contain images that are graphic and disturbing.)

http://universalhorrorfilms.tumblr.com/post/50444456345

http://theconjuringmovie.tumblr.com/post/56818251610

These are the two that bothered me the most, but there have been many others. Presumably there will be more in the future.

Tumblr’s Community Guidelines prohibit the following activity:

Malicious Bigotry. Don’t actively promote violence or extreme hatred against individuals or groups, on the basis of… gender.

The posts in question appear to skew in a gender-specific fashion. I haven’t analyzed them in detail, but from the quick exposure I’ve had they appear to disproportionately depict women as the terrified victims of violence, while showing men as grinning perpetrators.

Granted, the sword-wielding woman in the first post linked to above is something of an exception. Whether these posts actually promote violence or hatred against women is a debatable point, so maybe we should give the posts a pass on that particular guideline. But the Community Guidelines also state:

Promotion and Glorification of Self-Harm. Don’t post content that actively promotes or glorifies self-harm. This includes content that urges or encourages readers to cut or injure themselves… or commit suicide rather than, e.g., seeking counseling or treatment… We aim to sustain Tumblr as a place that facilitates awareness, support and recovery, and to remove only those blogs that cross the line into active promotion or glorification of self-harm.

I think these posts do, in fact, cross the line into active promotion or glorification. Their dramatic depictions of violence, including the sword-wielding, blood-spattered young woman in the first image, and the dangling feet of the suicide victim in the second, are profoundly disturbing, and are presented with no hint that they are intended to promote awareness, support, or recovery. For Tumblr users who are struggling with issues of self-harm and suicide to encounter these images against their will and without warning could be extremely harmful.

The Community Guidelines continue:

Gore and Mutilation Content. Don’t post gore just to be shocking. Don’t showcase the mutilation or torture of human beings, animals, or their remains.

The posts in question clearly violate this guideline. The person responsible for these is posting gore intended to be shocking, showcasing the mutilation and torture of human beings, and depicting dead human remains.

Please enforce Tumblr’s Community Guidelines by restricting this user from posting this sort of content. At a minimum, let me know how I and other users who object to these posts can block them from appearing in our dashboards.

I’m not sure who the user responsible for these posts is, but from what I’ve read I think it might be this guy:

http://www.davidslog.com/

He reportedly makes these sorts of decisions at Tumblr. I could be wrong, though; he also posts to the blog at http://staff.tumblr.com, where he recently wrote this:

Making sure people aren’t surprised by content they find offensive is also incredibly important and we are always working to put more control in your hands.

So maybe it’s actually someone else who’s doing this. Regardless, it needs to stop. Please investigate and let me know what you find out. Thanks.

John Callender

jbc@jbcsystems.com

http://lies.tumblr.com

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56886236641.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56880085195.

Thanks, anon! Your message was nearly something that made me misty-eyed with gratitude.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56879801246.

Actually, it is a little-known fact that every single post I make is typed from a supine position.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56879496268.

itswheremydemonshide21:

Can every book shop have one of these please?

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56856709942.

insectlove:

insectuous: 

Found this guy in my backyard. He is actually male, I’m not randomly assigning gender this time. He is a common stag beetle, Lucanus capreolus, in the family lucanidae. Related to scarabaeids, hence the lamellate antennae. I will try not to be too gooshy about him, but I think he is adorable. Photos are mine. Released after capture, so I no longer have this specimen (too cool to kill).

Reblogging for commentary. Catch-and-release insect appreciation gives me hope for humanity.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56856671536.

odditiesoflife:

The Ancient Ones:  Oldest Living Organisms on Earth

The trees of the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, in the White Mountains near Bishop, California, are the oldest living recorded organisms on Earth. Many of the trees are over 2,000 years old, with the “Methuselah” tree dated at more than 4,773 years old. It was previously thought that this was the oldest tree in the world, but was superceded by the discovery of another bristlecone pine in the same area with an age of 5,063 years, giving it a germination date of 3051 BC.

These trees were young and growing at the time stone axes were being used in Europe, the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) was being built, and cuneiform clay tablets were being used in northern Syria.

source 1, 2, 3

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56835592491.

strengthissexy:

littlegreybook:

“We mistake sex for romance. Guys are taught that pushing a girl up against a wall is romance. Sex is easy; you can do it with anyone, yourself, with batteries. Romance is when someone you like walks into a room and they take your breath away. Romance is when two people are dancing and they fit together perfectly. Romance is when two people are walking next to each other and all of a sudden they find themselves holding hands, and they don’t know how that happened.”—John C. Moffi 

I love this so much.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56825311692.

gandalf1202:

Vincent van Gogh – First Steps, after Millet [1890] on Flickr.

In autumn and winter 1889–90, while a voluntary patient at the asylum in Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh painted twenty-one copies after Millet, an artist he greatly admired. He considered his copies “improvisations” or “translations” akin to a musician’s interpretation of a composer’s work. He let the black and white images, whether prints, reproductions, or, as here, a photograph that his brother, Theo, had sent – “pose as subject” then “improvised colour on it.” For this work of January 1890, Van Gogh squared-up a photograph of Millet’s First Steps and transferred it to the canvas.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York – Oil on canvas, 72.4 x 91.1 cm]

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56814804671.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56804338259.

thegetty:

houkgallery:

Victor Schrager (American, b. 1950)
Black and White Warblers
©Victor Schrager/Courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery

Q: How do you perceive the relationship between bird and handler?
A: It is similar to the relation between a sculpture and pedestal.

Victor Schrager, in an interview about his Bird Hand Book

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56794636291.

Okay! I’ll get right on it!

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56788081756.

thebettablog:

black—orchids:

Curious Betta

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56786142838.

wingedjewels:

American Dipper (Cinclus mexicanus) by Alan Vernon. on Flickr.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56741619628.

amysinponderland:

Real life Angry Birds

Heh. That’s what I call a lineup.

“It was that shifty-eyed red one, second from the left, officer. Yeah, I’m sure. I’d recognize that beak anywhere.”

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56731679255.

“‘And you look like a protagonist.’ She was talking as fast as she could think. ‘You look like the person who wins in the end. You’re so pretty, and so good. You have magic eyes,’ she whispered. ‘And you make me feel like a cannibal.’”

– Rainbow Rowell

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56721504698.

fuckyeabirds:

Scarlet Ibis

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56711273687.

esteldin:

Black Mount, Rannoch Moor… by ouldm01 on Flickr.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56701798999.

likeafieldmouse:

Lisa Nilsson – Tissue Series (2012) – Anatomical cross-sections in paper

Artist’s statement: 

“These pieces are made of Japanese mulberry paper and the gilded edges of old books. They are constructed by a technique of rolling and shaping narrow strips of paper called quilling or paper filigree.

Quilling was first practiced by Renaissance nuns and monks who are said to have made artistic use of the gilded edges of worn out bibles, and later by 18th-century ladies who made artistic use of lots of free time. I find quilling exquisitely satisfying for rendering the densely squished and lovely internal landscape of the human body in cross section.”

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/56693649992.