As someone who used to be an avid tumblr user (Doctor Who fandom all of the way with a sprinkle of Skins) I really love this deep dive into the issues that tumblr had as well as the magic of it as well. This really brought me back to being a chunky middle schooler who would spend her Friday nights watching anime and reblogging stuff on Tumblr also being on fanfiction.net. At a time when I had no idea what about me was good or interesting, Tumblr gave me an avenue to be a part of something even if it was just sharing a love for a TV show. And of course when you take a bunch of insecure teen girls and put them in one place that has no regulations, awful shit is going to happen. I really appreciated this well written article and blast from the past!
I loved this essay!! As a 26 year old Tumblr user (mainly fandoms) it felt challenging at first - it is a space that has meant so much to me for such a long time and I have made lifelong friends there.
But your piece really made me reflect on how Tumblr was really my gateway to the darkest places of the internet. Sometimes I wish I had not found it when I was so young, and I know this to be true for so many of my peers. We had no instruments to face the enormity of mess-up content on there, I feel like our lack of media literacy (and, personally, that of my parents) did not prepare me from dealing with the consequences of tumblr use after so many years.
What an amazing deep dive youve done here, not only is it incredibly timely as new platforms have started to seek out recreating the “magic” of tumblr, but honestly educational lore (so to speak, lol) about a platform that was so influential for such a brief period!! Ive been looking forward to sitting down with this for over a week and it did not disappoint! 🤭❤️
I remember being on Tumblr when I was a teen and had managed to steer clear of ALL the drama. My feed was exclusively Homestuck and Sherlock. I had heard and seen so much happening on other folks' pages and it seemed insane. I think I didn't fit the Tumblr image close enough to generate any sort of engagement, because even after years of use I only had maybe 5 followers?
When I was young I had wished for more but seeing how things turned out in the end with Tumblr, that lack of audience might have been for the best
I didn’t skip tumblr exactly but I was heavily on livejournal and MySpace then on forums and then Facebook and kinda missed it. I logged on again a couple of years ago (maybe 2022) and quickly left again after being inundated with bots and DMs from bots. It was impossible to curate a feed. Is it still sex bots r us?
There are a lot of sex bots there, unfortunately. I did briefly log back in to research for this post. Most of the communities that were active during our time is now dead. I think back in the day Tumblr had an engaged community for literally any subculture/niche interest under the sun, much like now-Reddit. That's isn't the case anymore, though. Atleast for my interests.
It did and it was wonderful. You could out something out there and it would make its way through other fandoms until you had these wild, fascinating and entertaining posts. It’s so sad they are gone but they really put the final nail with the nsfw ban (as you said) and eradicated the queer community. It was a shell after that. I left between then and JG as I was Nerdfighter.
Yes. That ban was launched and implemented so poorly. I think that was also one of the instances when early Gen-Z really realised what corporate greed can do platforms. I mean that time was insane for YouTube also. With Adpocalypse and everything.
Now that I’m thinking about the timeline… I probably stopped using it around 2008/2009 when I started working full time and spent most of my time on fanfiction forums instead.
Oh that was before I even started. I love that through Substack I have been able to connect with people of all ages. Really widens my perspective. My irl social group is very 1995 - 2003 born.
super insightful!! and as someone who still uses tumblr every now and then the sex bots are literally everywhere lmao. not so sfw!
I think since they realised they can't really make it a investor / advertiser friendly platform, they just gave up. Which is super sad.
As someone who used to be an avid tumblr user (Doctor Who fandom all of the way with a sprinkle of Skins) I really love this deep dive into the issues that tumblr had as well as the magic of it as well. This really brought me back to being a chunky middle schooler who would spend her Friday nights watching anime and reblogging stuff on Tumblr also being on fanfiction.net. At a time when I had no idea what about me was good or interesting, Tumblr gave me an avenue to be a part of something even if it was just sharing a love for a TV show. And of course when you take a bunch of insecure teen girls and put them in one place that has no regulations, awful shit is going to happen. I really appreciated this well written article and blast from the past!
I am glad I got be part of your journey down the lane. Thanks for reading, Christina.
I'd come back to Tumblr if it wasn't for the trillions of sex bots
This really makes me miss the good old days of tumblr!
I loved this essay!! As a 26 year old Tumblr user (mainly fandoms) it felt challenging at first - it is a space that has meant so much to me for such a long time and I have made lifelong friends there.
But your piece really made me reflect on how Tumblr was really my gateway to the darkest places of the internet. Sometimes I wish I had not found it when I was so young, and I know this to be true for so many of my peers. We had no instruments to face the enormity of mess-up content on there, I feel like our lack of media literacy (and, personally, that of my parents) did not prepare me from dealing with the consequences of tumblr use after so many years.
Thank you for sharing :)
I so agree with you. We were exposed to a lot of uncensored content way too soon.
What an amazing deep dive youve done here, not only is it incredibly timely as new platforms have started to seek out recreating the “magic” of tumblr, but honestly educational lore (so to speak, lol) about a platform that was so influential for such a brief period!! Ive been looking forward to sitting down with this for over a week and it did not disappoint! 🤭❤️
Every time I see an overtly sentimental 20-something nostalgic for Tumblr, a little part of me shudders.
wow, such a good read!
I remember being on Tumblr when I was a teen and had managed to steer clear of ALL the drama. My feed was exclusively Homestuck and Sherlock. I had heard and seen so much happening on other folks' pages and it seemed insane. I think I didn't fit the Tumblr image close enough to generate any sort of engagement, because even after years of use I only had maybe 5 followers?
When I was young I had wished for more but seeing how things turned out in the end with Tumblr, that lack of audience might have been for the best
Yes, sometimes things don't work out for a reason. I am glad you had a better experience there.
I didn’t skip tumblr exactly but I was heavily on livejournal and MySpace then on forums and then Facebook and kinda missed it. I logged on again a couple of years ago (maybe 2022) and quickly left again after being inundated with bots and DMs from bots. It was impossible to curate a feed. Is it still sex bots r us?
There are a lot of sex bots there, unfortunately. I did briefly log back in to research for this post. Most of the communities that were active during our time is now dead. I think back in the day Tumblr had an engaged community for literally any subculture/niche interest under the sun, much like now-Reddit. That's isn't the case anymore, though. Atleast for my interests.
It did and it was wonderful. You could out something out there and it would make its way through other fandoms until you had these wild, fascinating and entertaining posts. It’s so sad they are gone but they really put the final nail with the nsfw ban (as you said) and eradicated the queer community. It was a shell after that. I left between then and JG as I was Nerdfighter.
Yes. That ban was launched and implemented so poorly. I think that was also one of the instances when early Gen-Z really realised what corporate greed can do platforms. I mean that time was insane for YouTube also. With Adpocalypse and everything.
Now that I’m thinking about the timeline… I probably stopped using it around 2008/2009 when I started working full time and spent most of my time on fanfiction forums instead.
Oh that was before I even started. I love that through Substack I have been able to connect with people of all ages. Really widens my perspective. My irl social group is very 1995 - 2003 born.