Just looked at a blog where the header description said 'sometimes I reblog posts I like so I don't forget them'.
And I feel like that, right there, explains so much about how the site has changed in the last few months.
People now think reblogging is an unusual behaviour, rather than a default.
Tumblr newbies, please, for the love of baby Jesus, reblog the posts you like. That is the whole reason the site exists - for you to collect all your shiny fandom objects in a single space. Which you can organize to your heart's content. Or not organize at all, if that's your jam.
Our blogs are intended to be collections of posts, not collections of likes.
THE ENTIRE POINT OF TUMBLR IS REBLOGGING.
Liking does absolutely nothing. There is no algorithm like on IG that will use likes to throw content at people. If you don’t reblog, then no one who doesn’t follow that person (or happen to find it in the tags) will see that post.
Tumblr is supposed to be your bookcase where you show off all of your pretties: the posts you like and the ones that you want to promote to support the other creators in your fandom/community.
they should really just change the name from 'likes' to 'bookmarks' because that's effectively what they are