Hold me closer, Tumblrina
The feminine urge to blog on Tumblr
Tumblrina (plural Tumblrinas)
1. A user of the Tumblr microblogging service
Tumblr user am1na1992 says in a blog post, “I always love coming back here because every other social media platform is too loud.” As of now, myself and 17,116 other Tumblrinas agree with this sentiment. Personally, I left Twitter behind because there was simply too much discourse (most of it being loud and dense) and it overwhelmed my own thinking process. And Instagram is just an absolute hellhole that made me anxious, yet desperate, to post a photo worthy of some other girl’s envy as she scrolled past.
And after the recent hours-long crash of Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook, who was it that stood among the rubble and chaos, untouched?
Tumblr. *crowd boos*
Wait, wait! Tumblr gets a bad rep for being that dead site that used to harbor melodramatic hipster-sad girl rants and pictures that made you feel bad for not having that Indie Teen Movie life (that was personal). But it’s not dead, and it’s not all that bad. Just like with any other social media platform, if you stay away from freaky, harmful sides, you can actually have a peaceful time reblogging your silly little pictures and text posts.
Tumblr has evolved — at least if you visit a blog that wasn’t abandoned in 2014. The aesthetics, the topics, everything, has grown. And it’s done so quietly, which is why I like it so much. Of course, there is still discourse and of course there are those kind of people who spout out baseless, insensitive opinions just to make waves, but it’s easier to avoid them on Tumblr than it is on say, Twitter.
And since everyone is mostly just doing their own blogging for the sake of it, you have a private corner of the internet for yourself (and maybe some devoted followers if you managed that back in the day). You can really use your blog like a diary, and for the most part, no one will engage. It’s less expected to get attention whenever you post on Tumblr nowadays, which is why you often see deeply personal, confessional-like posts from your fellow Tumblrinas. Of course, there’s a certain tint of humor to the digital diary entries that appear between the aesthetic editorial photos on your dash, so unless you know the blogger personally, it’s an unspoken rule to just mind your business and keep scrolling.
I blog to satisfy my own creative urges. My blog has evolved over the years, and I just enjoy scrolling through my unique curation of posts like Narcissus admiring his own reflection that pool of water. It’s quiet here, and there’s less pressure to perform since there’s no underlying hope to go viral, gain millions of followers, and become a ~content creator~. There’s a shared understanding between the Tumblr users of today: we’re not here to get attention, we’re here to hide from it. It’s lonely in an intimate way, because there are still thousands of other people being lonely on this site right along with you. But hey, it’s not as somber as that may sound — the Tumblrinas make me laugh the most these days. We know how to have fun, too!
Some may ask, “What are you doing this for if you know no one’s paying attention?” and to that I say…
I do this for the teen girl that still resides within me.
I do this counter-culture of even logging into Tumblr in the year of 2021.
And I do this for them…
The Tumblrinas (who won’t even see this btw because they’re too busy BLOGGING, ugh…gotta love ‘em).
