“the platform’s reign of online influence—from roughly 2010 to 2015” ⤴️
“visits to Tumblr’s website and mobile apps declined more than 40 percent from October 2018 to October 2021” ⤴️
“The site has been sold and sold again, shedding clout through both the natural aging process for social-media platforms and an unnatural run of tragic corporate mismanagement” ⤴️
“seemingly never figured out how to make money” ⤴️
“If Tumblr disappeared from the internet tomorrow, how would it be eulogized?” ⤴️
“fending off the irony-addled lunatics of 4chan and offering a different, weirder route for the “extremely online” mind” ⤴️
“Now even the once-devoted talk about it as if it’s already gone.” ⤴️
“Our social networks would be visible and searchable, with friendships cataloged in photo albums full of hyperlinked tags.” ⤴️
“Facebook’s “wall” would be a site of public presentation” ⤴️
“Whereas Facebook aimed to bring everyone and their mother online, Tumblr was the opposite: an online underground, a place where your mother, in particular, would never see you.” ⤴️
“ptimized for secrets and for pseudonyms, which meant it was for art and confession and porn.” ⤴️
“His company would try to represent a wilder and more inclusive vision of the internet.” ⤴️
““Tumblr was like this wide-open blank canvas,” Katherine Barna” ⤴️
“the site raised artists and writers and activists and fangirls who came to it for pictures of actors and pop stars and GIFs of kissing but then stumbled across the language of intersectional feminism, anti-racism, gender identity, and passions” ⤴️
“this blend produced a political coming-of-age” ⤴️
“Tumblr, which Grim calls “the people’s platform,” would go on to be an energizing force behind the Black Lives Matter movement, while seamlessly relating that cause to the site’s ongoing conversations about representation in media, entertainment, and politics. “There was a direct correlation between internet activism and real-world activism that was undeniable,” Alexander Cho, an assistant professor of Asian American studies at UC Santa Barbara and a co-editor of the academic collection A Tumblr Book: Platform and Cultures, told me.” ⤴️
“it served as a wellspring for memes, web comics, and new forms of art and popular culture. GIFs emerged on Tumblr blogs as a fully realized visual language” ⤴️
“all were learning a new vocabulary with which to talk about social issues” ⤴️
“Tumblr users were introduced to concepts such as sex positivity, internalized misogyny, gender identity, and ableism—as well as, somewhat notoriously, trigger warnings and safe spaces.” ⤴️
“Tumblr would in this way become the home of the “discourse.”” ⤴️
“Because of the site’s design, conversation happened in a nesting-doll structure” ⤴️
“Tumblr’s “cascading” dynamic, which Cho described in a 2015 paper as “rhythmic and strange.”” ⤴️
“you’ll find yourself amid dozens of overlapping conversations” ⤴️
“visually created the appearance of a conversation that was ongoing and building,” Moya Bailey” ⤴️
“ailey coined misogynoir to describe the unique discrimination experienced by Black women; the term was then popularized on Tumblr through its discussion by other women writers and academics*.*” ⤴️
““There was an opportunity for people to learn from people who weren’t like them, and at that time I do think that there was a real interest in that learning,” she said. “You could see how people’s thought processes were evolving.”” ⤴️
“stylized, self-centered feminism was popular on Tumblr long before corporations and Instagram influencers perfected the monetization of “girl power.”” ⤴️
“its aesthetic prized thin white women—just like the old forms of media that Tumblr users were determined to reinvent. (Dangerous pro-anorexia blogging ascended to new heights on Tumblr too.)” ⤴️
““Tumblr also had this darker side,” Melanie Kohnen, an assistant professor of rhetoric and media studies at Lewis & Clark University, told me. “This intense emotional engagement that was prevalent in Tumblr culture and the articulation of emotion could play out in ways that were not always healthy.”” ⤴️
“Tumblr was often criticized for its purity culture—conversations could go nuclear as soon as someone was deemed “problematic,” or once their “fav” had been declared “canceled.” Anonymous “Ask” boxes enabled anonymous harassment, and dogpiling was a common experience for anyone who misspoke.” ⤴️
“Tumblr’s “cascading” dynamic became a source of endless punishment, and cancel culture, as it’s understood and fought over today, can be said to have emerged from its milieu.” ⤴️
“The platform’s reputation for earnest, righteous debate also made it a lightning rod for trolling. With all their talk of identity and oppression, Tumblr users would be tagged as whiny “special snowflakes,” “SJWs,” and “Tumblrinas.” A lot of this vitriol came from the memelords of 4chan, Tumblr’s darker cousin in the online underground and, for a while, its direct rival.” ⤴️
“Nagle positioned Tumblr users’ “hysterical liberal” attitude as the cause of an “anti-PC” backlash with significant real-world consequences.) “Tumblr” was a shorthand not just for a certain style of internet user, but also for a generation that was learning to signal its priorities through consumer choices, entertainment preferences, and political actions that utilized social media.” ⤴️
““The nail in the coffin was the porn ban,” a former Tumblr employee who left the company in 2021 told me.” ⤴️
“many former users already talk about the site in the past tense. The sentiment “I miss Tumblr” circulates regularly on Twitter, where nostalgists tend to refer to the latest topics of conversation or styles of humor as “2013 Tumblr” or “Tumblr season 2,” as in, invented a long time ago … on Tumblr. Some have even gone back to Tumblr to live in its ruins. “i love how irrelevant tumblr is,” begins a Tumblr post that, ironically, went somewhat viral on Tumblr in February 2020” ⤴️
“Melanie Kohnen told me. Tumblr could never cash in on its user base, which is why it sold to Automattic for such a low price, she said; for younger users, “there’s a sense of relief of not being tracked and surveilled and monetized at all times.”” ⤴️
“When I found Tumblr, it felt like finding the whole world. This kind of thing is difficult to put into words—like the sensation of learning how to read, or your first existential crisis. When I talked with Molly Soda, she, too, struggled to capture the extent or logic of the site’s influence. We spent almost an hour on the phone together, reminiscing. Eventually, Soda admitted she was stumped. “Yeah, could I trace its exact cultural impact? Like, no,” she said. “I think it’s bled into everything.”” ⤴️