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1 | Timestamp | what is your name? | how old are you, and how long have you been on tumblr? | has tumblr played a role in your intellectual development? how so and why/why not? | would you say tumblr changed the way that you thought about education? if so, how? | what do the network of mutuals/people you follow on tumblr mean to you? how do they differ from IRL acquaintances? | what do community methods like ref posts, web weaving, and piracy guides mean to you - as a thinker, as a blogger, and/or as a young person? | feel free to speak freely about any other thoughts on girlblogging, open source, digital curation, peer-to-peer pedagogy, etc etc etc here. | ||||||
2 | 10/29/2022 18:44:26 | kendra | 21, 8 years | yes. ppl are tumblr are generally more open minded and accepting. bc ppl on tumblr come from all diff backgrounds, growing up surrounded by that community online allowed me to really get an insight to what life is like for other people of different races, sexualities, genders, socioeconomic standpoints, and more. | definitely. tumblr helped me really understand my adhd in some ways, and allowed me to understand why education was so hard for me too. | mutuals r like . i wld know u in death. we wld never fight. irl friends is different cause u know they’re really there. people are messy. when it’s just online, you can really curate yourself to be whoever you want, whether that’s the best or worst version of yourself. offline that’s a bit harder. | i love motifs and symbolism. i love how the tumblr community comes together to help each other. | tumblr may have rotted my brain as a developing teen lol. but i wouldn’t have had it any other way. i’ve loved the way it’s grown and developed. the way the community has changed for the better since 2014. | ||||||
3 | 10/29/2022 18:49:46 | hannah | 25, 8 years | Uhhhhhh not really i don’t take it seriously enough for that | no, i figured out the ed system is broken on my own | they don’t mean much i don’t know or interact with them but i guess a lot of us have the same diagnosis | no idea | |||||||
4 | 10/29/2022 18:53:43 | febe | 20, have been on tumblr since i was 14/15 i think! | oh absolutely. i think that being in contact with people from all around the world gave me the opportunity to discover many new worldviews, opinions, pieces of media, etc that i never wouldve discovered otherwise. im not sure if i would be aware that i very likely have adhd (in the process of getting a diagnosis!) without first reading about it on tumblr. i doubt that i wouldve identified the way i do now without tumblr | hmm yeah id say so. there are lots of different education systems all around the world and without reading about others’ experience on social media i never would’ve gotten a glimpse into their functions. like besides just the general structure of the educational system it is fascinating to read about what kind of subjects are being taught, the different biases present in the curriculum, etc. | my friends on tumblr mean so much to me, i dont have the words for it. we’ve never met irl but im always filled with so much love whenever i see them in my notifications. i use my blog mostly as a diary and i just post about whatever is going on in my life, and their likes/comments just make me feel seen and reassured. there are lots of things i post about on tumblr that id never say to my irl friends, so having the knowledge that one of my friends on my phone is reading what im going through and is offering their support via a like means so much to me <3 i also get a lot of recommendations from my mutuals since they all have wonderful taste, added bonus! | they really meant a lot to me when i first joined tumblr. i looked up all kinds of reference posts about photoshop because i wanted to make gifs, which got me interested in graphic design (still one of my hobbies/interests). web weaving is such a wonderful way to discover new media that is similar to something you’re already familiar with! and piracy guides have been so helpful to consume said new media. overall i think tumblr’s abundance of resource posts are so so so helpful and they’ve truly had an impact on my life. like being able to download photoshop got me a new hobby and has helped me in my everyday life, and being able to torrent movies helped me to discover my favorite film. | i think your dissertation topic is super interesting! wish you lots of luck w the writing process <3 | ||||||
5 | 10/29/2022 18:54:00 | maggie | 20, since i was in 6th grade (rip) | yes! it introduced me to nearly every fandom ive been a part of, and i made one of my best friends on here! | yes, it highlighted how absurd the education system is, and just how lacking in really every topic it is | i try to treat them as normal friends as much as possible, in the hopes one day we can meet | hmm not too sure how to answer that one sorry! | love it, wish the rest of the world would stop making fun of women online so much. really frustrating | ||||||
6 | 10/29/2022 18:54:46 | Lec | 22, 9years give or take | Yes, exposure to media that lead to more media that i otherwise would have access to in the education that I had received | Yea, re:last question | I suppose they know better than irl acquaintances as the biggest selling loint tonthis site is the anonymity and subsequently the freedom to post more vulnerably and honestly into the void that would otherwise be wild had my irl acquaintances knew about me | I love ‘em. Its 2 in the morning here I’m sorry I might come back to this sometime else | I just love girl blogging and digital curation :) i think its loads of fun <34673483179@ hope the thesis goes well for you!! | ||||||
7 | 10/29/2022 18:57:35 | Karenna | 21 and since 2013 (so 9 years) | Yeah because I was introduced to a lot of stuff at at early age like SJW kinda things and even though they weren’t good in the long run, it helped break the conditioning from growing up in a very conservative place. | Yes, it made me realize how much the American education system left out. Although posts in the early days were not entirely true and many misleading, it did teach me to think about what I’ve been taught and do my own research about history, especially the history of America | I don’t really interact with people on tumblr that much other than my irl friends. I like to exist in my own little bubble and post things just for myself | They’re good resources | |||||||
8 | 10/29/2022 18:57:40 | Zack | Since ~2015 | Oh for sure. The competitive part of mental illness is forever ingrained in me now and i have an underground media complex or two lol | No not really. I always thought education shoudl be taught by the teacher and not the coursework. And that homework is redundant and all you need is tests every day | I dont really feel close to any mutuals but i feel nice when one i know from mh notifs likes oneof my personal posts:) | Good and i think wveryone should circulate them as much as possible in circles where theyre arent any snitches. We should be capable of so much more in this day & age that we just flat out arent | How the word girl changed into a “bro” or “dude” type word, atleast to me. Being a guy i had to get used to it though | ||||||
9 | 10/29/2022 20:06:27 | Leo | I’m 22, been on tumblr for 8 years off and on | Yes, it exposed me to leftist politics and queer ideology which made me a better and more aware person. Probably helped me realize I was trans. | Yeah somewhat, hard to measure but I mean for one thing it definitely made me check my sources more thoroughly. So much disinformation gets spread, probably not as much as other sites, and then a few days later the original disinformation will be spread around with an edit correcting the information. Information is always being updated and corrected. | I’m pretty anonymous on tumblr, which seems to be the exception rather than the rule. I don’t really talk to people on tumblr but I see their personal posts and all that. To me tumblr is a place of anonymity, even if you do have identifying info on your blog. It’s so disconnected from other social media so it feels more private and honest | It feels genuine when I see those posts shared around. What I like most about tumblr is that not very many people, at least not anymore, want to get a lot of followers or likes. It’s just sharing stuff. And sure people do a lot for attention still, but it’s less manipulated than instagram or twitter. I like web weaving, it’s an interesting and authentic way to interact with art and I love that people enjoy it so much. The piracy guides and all that are so nice too, that’s just helpful human interaction. | Honestly the meanings of these phrases are a little unclear to me. I see them used and in context they make sense but rn they elude me. Open source digital curation though, that’s the shit. Anyone should be able to interact with and curate art and doing that in a digital community that isn’t run for profit ( at least not well run) is great | ||||||
10 | 10/29/2022 20:45:32 | Kara | 23, 9 years (made account december 26th, 2013) | yes, I was fairly right-leaning when I made my account and prone to close-minded thinking. Having access to people with other opinions than my own and so much knowledge easily at my finger tips (compared to youtube, where I got everything from before, which had began to show me conservative videos). It not only challenged my views but did it in an accessible environment amongst my peers which drove me to seek out deeper education in things I didn’t understand. | Yes, I had a negative view towards school before joining, but informational posts on tumblr made me love the act of learning. I have an interest in history and languages that I never had before joining. I think the anonymity of tumblr makes it easier to accept education where you don’t have to look stupid face to face with someone. | I feel like I can be myself with my tumblr mutuals, and that I don’t need to change how I act to be accepted. Some of my tumblr mutuals have even become IRL friends and are closer to me than people I went to school with. | This day and age everything is behind a paywall. The spread of free information through tumblr promotes critical thought and has made me think a lot about the consequences of capitalism. It’s important that people are able to learn information and skills that would otherwise be nigh impossible to know how to search for on Google and you would never learn if you did not have this online community for support. | |||||||
11 | 10/29/2022 21:01:58 | vsg | 15, 3 years | i'd say definitely, i made an account when i was 12 so the content i've been interacting with on that website has probably shaped a good chunk of my personality and critical thinking skills/behavior. to give a positive example, those girlblogger posts about the inherent goodness of humanity and the love one feels about the world around them or whatever genuinely made me so much more appreciative of those things. like, i'll walk into my kitchen in the morning and see the sun filtering through the curtain in a cool-looking way and i'll just be filled with joy. it sounds silly but i find it to be really helpful with, yaknow, seeing the beauty in life and all that | not much? i do feel like stuff on tumblr has made me appreciate philology and linguistics much more, to the point where i (aspiring stem student) wish more effort would be put in teaching lang subjects the right way and not just as knowledge kids need to get a degree but as a kind of art, i guess?. but that's also sort of a personal preference. not sure about this one lol | i know we all joke about this but my tumblr mutuals are just people i happen to interact with online. i am aware i dont know any of them personally and ive just seen the persona they choose to portray online. i guess i could say i feel a bit more familiar with tumblr mutuals that are from my country, because we share a culture and similar experiences, but it doesn't make that much of a difference. i do think they can't be compared in that way to irl acquaintances though? most people i'm mutuals with on tumblr are very open about their interests and quirks, which is why that sense of ""friendship"" can develop between two people who rarely interact, and i guess you don't really get that with people irl | i love them!! i've found tons of incredible stuff that ranges from html and piracy guides to russian lit recommendations, and i think tumblr might be comparable to reddit when it comes to community methods (??not sure if that's the right word). i've actually learned a ridiculous amount of internet and computer related info from tumblr, e.g. i literally learned basic css so i could customize my theme. this website is the fucking cure for technological illiteracy lol | |||||||
12 | 10/29/2022 21:04:58 | renia | 18 to, around 4 years | definitely helped me better my English (second language). I did find myself being extremely gullible at 14-16 yo and believing everything I saw in the internet(whoever had the last word was right) . Growing older I started having critical thinking at last. I blame tumblr for being such a stupid child both online and irl, and school for helping me develop. | If anything it made me appreciate my linguistic teachers (first Lang. modern and ancient lit. philosophy) way more seeing how stupid I could end up if u didn't paied attention to them | I have no idea who my mutuals are. I ve never seen the list of my followers and I ain't interested in my notifications. I view following people like subscribing to a megazine or finding more of an authors articles. l | Oh I love them. They are helpful, informational, and often use web weaving as reqs | it's the best. doesn't even feel like a social media. it's like Its just browsing pinterest with more texts and curation. | ||||||
13 | 10/29/2022 21:13:55 | Mikey | 23 and 10 years | Yes, it's definitely affected the way I view social issues and politics (for good and bad), it was the first place I saw disability, race and gender activism being taken seriously and treated as a living movement subject to change as new information or perspectives were considered. Most of my early art education came from tumblr too, because there was a broad range of mediums and artists being shown and discussed which went far past the highly western canon-ized lessons I was getting in school. I was also familiar with the basics of a lot of literary criticism through tumblr discussion. | Tumblr made me consider what they WERENT teaching us, not in a conspiracy theory way, but more like whose perspectives were being left behind, what was being treated like history and fact even when situations were alive and developing. Based on school, I thought communism was a mostly defunct form of fascist government, until I learned on here that it was actually an effective and extremely important framework to analyze class and capitalism, and that's only one example. | I don't do much interacting with other users on tumblr, I mostly prefer passively reading and reblogging, talking in the tags a bit. I view my mutuals like beloved acquaintances. | Super super important and useful, I save them a lot. It's hard to find sources for information that aren't made for profit, full of Amazon affiliate links and unvetted information. Web weaving is great too, it's always interesting to see how people bridge different works. | Digital curation is fantastic and should be available on more platforms! It's why I've stuck around here as long as I have and why I still use this place every day. I'm in school for textile design and part of my work involves visual research, tumblr is really the only place that has a broad enough scope of things to pull from while also (unlike pintetest) has the community moderation to encourage citing sources. | ||||||
14 | 10/29/2022 22:56:05 | May | 24 and i’ve been using tumblr since i was 15. | tumblr made me more of a critical thinker. it made me more critical of my own thoughts and impulses. it made me aware of various (often unfair) structures and systems in society. it was also the main place where i engaged with others online for a long time. it influenced my aesthetic tastes and made me more socially aware, while also a bit more shy and closed off to the people i met in my daily life. because i started using it at such a formative period, i think it has shaped the very essence of me and i can trace my growth through the phases i experienced on tumblr. | yes, i think tumblr encouraged me to seek self-education. | i love the mutuals i have met on tumblr over the years. i think of them on my day to day, and they have been invaluable during these times, when everything feels so lonely. IRL i have very few friends and acquaintances outside of family, due to life circumstances and everything that has happened in recent years. it’s nice to have people i can share parts of my life with, even if it’s not as intimate as i wish it would be. my network of mutuals helps me cope with that. though it is easier to question the value of your friendship when it’s not as solid as an IRL friendship… i guess eventually, i would like for the best of these friendships to become something closer and bigger, become IRL. | i find ref posts and piracy guides absolutely essential. they make my life easier and fill me with excitement for what i can do and learn on my own. i have a deep seated passion for gaining knowledge that even trickles into the aesthetics side of it. i love collecting, i dream of a big library, i love research. i see tumblr as a form of “knowledge gathering” because i have found music, film, literature, fashion, history, or just plain old wisdom that keeps me searching and encourages me to develop a taste for things, or some perspective. i think tumblr satisfies that desire for knowledge and collecting in a way that only perhaps Pinterest comes close to. except tumblr has more options for text and circulating text-based content that makes it much easier to engage with ideas. | only in recent years did i come to understand the idea of “girlblogging” but the more i think about it, the more i am reminded of those fun romcoms we used to watch in the 00s of the girls trying to make it out in the big city, creating their own bold projects, and writing a daily blog post. the whole idea is very satisfying. as a teen, tumblr seemed more of a frustrating place to be, filled with fandom fights and drama depending on the day and the fandom you were in. but nowadays, it feels like the place where i can take a rest and find something beautiful to look at or think about. or something to sink my teeth into. sometimes it can even pull me out of a depressive state. a lot of us have aged past caring a whole lot about what others think. now, i can really make my blog my own. i don’t engage in web weaving, but i love forming connections based on what i read and see. when i was in my upper level english classes back in college, i found myself forming connections between what i happened to see on my dash and the class discussions. one time, in a 21st century poetry class, we were discussing a kaveh akbar poem, and a friend asked me how i found out about this stuff. iirc, i think what i said in discussion was related to persephone and hades. i just told her i read about it on tumblr. a lot of the things i find on here pull me closer to what i feel is the truth of life. at least, in my corner of tumblr, i think this functions as an ongoing project between countless people of many different backgrounds all trying to find the center of it, the truth of it all. i touch that truth a little bit, every day, through information, literature, music, film, art, pictures, and the little text posts made by the coolest girls i follow. | ||||||
15 | 10/29/2022 23:06:43 | Russ | I'm 21, and have been on Tumblr for 7 years. | Yes. Over the years, I've curated my feed to include various academics (accredited and armchair) and experts on a variety of topics. I also follow fic and meta writers for my fandoms. Following these circles allows me to casually learn about many topics and participate in group discussion on my favorite shows. | Yes. Tumblr was instrumental in my decision to not attend a 4 year university, as it does not suit my learning style. | Most of my social circles are almost exclusively online, so I do consider the mutuals I talk to my friends. However, this can lead to me feeling sad or disappointed when I don't get a response from them. | These guides feel a lot like receiving advice from a more experienced stranger. While I may or may not take it, I do like to check it over and acknowledge it's validity. | |||||||
16 | 10/29/2022 23:08:08 | Jessi | 26, been here since I was probably 15 (holy smokes) | Absolutely. I was raised by Catholic libertarians (definitely on the republican side of libertarian.) Tumblr started the domino effect that eventually led to my realizing that I am a lesbian. I’m high-femme and I struggled with a terrible case of compulsory heterosexuality before I realized I like women. I worry that if I never started using tumblr that I never would have had the political 180, I had in high school, and I still might be “heterosexual” and conservative. Instead of the proud lesbian leftist I am today. If that had been the case I can promise you I would be miserable. | Tumblr presented me with perspectives I had never encountered before. I had never meaningfully engaged with perspectives outside of the conservative bubble my family was in. | Unfortunately I never really dug deep into any internet friendships. I do, though, have some mutuals that I love to see reblogging my stuff. | Piracy masterlists have always been helpful. I’m also a Theatre Adult. I work in a regional theatre. I could always rely on tumblr if I ever needed a link to bootlegs of musicals or plays. This allowed me to see theatre I never would have been able to see as a poor person from the American south. | No other thoughts here, but best of luck on your dissertation! Love you! | ||||||
17 | 10/29/2022 23:34:51 | Kira (@pizarnikpdf) | 25 now, used Tumblr on and off since around age 13 | yes–i read a lot and it's introduced me to new writers and ideas. it's also encouraged me to think more critically about less obviously intellectual parts of my life, such as the tv shows i watch. | yes, i have a lot of privilege regarding education and attended one of the best private high schools in the country and then one of the top universities (later transferred out, but that's a different story.) although im disabled myself i didn't really have an understanding of how other people relate to the education system in my country (US) when i was growing up, I used to be quite elitist unfortunately and social media helped me shed that | ref guides have helped me learn more about different fields and topics and perhaps even more importantly, encouraged me to be passionate about things because of others' passion for them. for example i was never really into horror, but following people and seeing posts by people who are really interested in it and engage with it in a very intellectual manner has made me explore the genre more | ||||||||
18 | 10/30/2022 0:24:52 | Ange Rojas aka angefairy | I’m 25, about to turn 26, and I’ve been on tumblr since I was about 14, so since early 2011? I’ve used it on and off since then, under different blogs. I used it pretty regularly from late 2014 to 2017, and then I migrated to twitter. I made my newest blog in 2020 and I’ve been back ever since. | Definitely. When I first started using it in 2011, it exposed me to people who were similar and had the same interests as me. I’d recently moved to a new country and I didn’t really have any real friends, so in tumblr I found community. Then in the 2014-2017 years, I learned practically everything I know about feminism, trans issues, intersectionality and the like from people I followed. I learned about different cultures, about different religions, about police brutality and so much more. Being on tumblr during that period helped me figure out I was a lesbian; I remember reading Stone Butch Blues and feeling so seen. From the 2020 to now era, I feel like I’ve been exposed to a lot of beautiful art and poetry. I’ve always loved to read but my literature mutuals on tumblr inspired me to pursue a Literature degree at university. | Yes. This is extremely silly but the dark academia community made me excited to learn again. I think tumblr romanticizes a lot of things; some good, some bad. But the resurgence of blogs devoted to reblogging poetry and literary fragments (the so called “web-weavings”) actually made me go and look up the authors that were always featured in them. I’ve seen a lot of discourse about how “reading is cool again” and I definitely think tumblr has contributed to that. | They mean the world to me. I don’t a lot of their names, and they’re always changing URLs and profile pics, but I can usually tell who’s who from their mannerisms. I feel like I’m simultaneously presenting a more and less honest version of myself to my mutuals, but I supposed I do that in real life too. But on tumblr I feel like I can be authentic, even if it’s a curated authenticity. | They mean the WORLD to me. Ref posts and have legitimately been invaluable since I went back to college, and I’ve been able to read so many wonderful articles and books thanks to the piracy guides. I would love to own physical books, but they just aren’t in my budget as a university student, and I prefer to read in English so that makes it even more cost prohibitive. I feel like web weavings lower the barrier to entry into literature. I started reblogging web weavings just because I liked them and they fit my blog aesthetic, and now I’ve memorized so many poems by heart because they appear in web weavings so often. Stuff like Mary Oliver, Richard Siken, Wendy Cope, Ada Limón and so many more. I never would have discovered my love of poetry, and I never would have gotten serious about writing poetry, if it wasn’t for web weavings. | I hate coquette blogs. They’re just the newest iteration of pro ana garbage that’s always been on tumblr. I actually enjoy the term “femcel” even though I’m happily in a committed relationship. Someone put together a list of femcel cinema (basically films told through the female gaze. The answer to the American Psycho’s and Fight Club’s that film bros love) and I’ve been enjoying slowly watching the films on it one by one. I think tumblr is a lot more genuine now than it was in the past. A lot of the post-post-irony is gone and people are okay with being open and gentle. You see that in the reminders/care blogs. I think of my blog as sort of a moodboard of where I am emotionally. I went from having a very fixed aesthetic (pastel colors and angelcore) to reblogging a lot of darker content, not just visually but also thematically. I also have an interesting tagging system (that isn’t that uncommon in the literary circles I run in) where I use lines from poetry to describe different things. My favorite is “nature held me close and seemed to find no fault with me” which is from Stone Butch Blues, which I use for images of nature that I find to be particularly inviting. If I wasn’t so tired I’d go into the 2015 tumblr callout culture, and how that educated a lot of people on social issues but also led to a really toxic mentality and virtue signaling, and how abusers have been able to co-opt the lingo used by the community to get away with terrible things. I hope you have a good experience writing your dissertation and I hope you find my thoughts helpful! | ||||||
19 | 10/30/2022 0:28:51 | seren | i'm 22, and have been on tumblr since i was 13 | yes, absolutely. while social media decreased my ability to easily read and learn on my own, tumblr actually sort of helped by connecting me to a lot of literary people and helping me discover books, scholarly subjects, etc | yes, i think so - ive been educated a lot by the recommendations ive recieved there | i adore my tumblr mutuals. several of my real life best friends met me on tumblr back in the day. im going to europe with one of them in a couple months and potentially living with another one next year. | theyre incredible. they really connect young people with literary themes etc which is quite rare for the internet | this is so cool btw | ||||||
20 | 10/30/2022 0:46:22 | Anya | Age: 22, been on tumblr for 7 years | Yes, I follow a lot of book bloggers who had introduced me to amazing literature, films, language, history | No not really. But I love the community of fellow students and self learners | I can really express myself on tumblr, I am who I really am vs always feel like an alien IRL. My mutuals also understand me as fellow 20s mentally ill girls. | So inspiring, got my back into reading, feels like a real modern way of engaging with literature and other media | |||||||
21 | 10/30/2022 1:10:13 | sasha | 22 and since i was 12 | yes it gave me the tools to be my most insufferable self at 15. on a more serious note it laid down the foundations of my current taste in art & literature & also took my english from like. good for a polish teen to nearly indistinguishable from that of a native speaker | english classes in poland are fucking useless | i made some great friends on tumblr back in the day, even dated a mutual for over two years irl. now im pretty inactive so im not even sure who is who anymore but i have a deep fondness for every account i follow regardless | they're sacred | thank you god for giving me unrestricted internet access and enough iq points to use it the right way (pirating shit) | ||||||
22 | 10/30/2022 7:45:31 | academiques | 28 & since i was 16 | yes! being exposed to so many different opinions so quickly has made me want to do my own research and have my own opinions that i stand by | when i was an undergrad i followed a bunch of blogs of people in their 30s that were still in school/went back to school and that drove home the point that education isn't something that you have to be done with at a fixed age | i use tumblr to relax and have fun now so i follow people with similar interests and opinions on certain topics. irl my friends are much more diverse in their interests and opinions to the point where we don't share many interests so my tumblr is much more "me" focused than i am irl | i see them as what they are: a guide that can be helpful but not set in stone | spaces like these allow young women to curate a personality outside of the socially acceptable one they have irl and to focus on interests without feeling ostracized. i extend this to young people on studyblr: even if almost all study blogs look the same when they're first made, in a year or two bloggers evolve away from that restrictive style into something more personal. it's important to have a place where one can act exactly as they wish. irl there's only so much obsessing over the same book your friends can take before they want to chat about something else but you can post the secret history analyses on your blog until you become a blog dedicated exclusively to it - and then radically change to something else. it's freeing. | ||||||
23 | 10/30/2022 10:42:00 | Isa | 22 and 10 years | Introduced me to leftist theory and self care. I generally learn a lot about culture, communication and politics | No. it’s very US-centric so a lot of it doesn’t apply to me. | I don’t talk to my mutuals on tumblr so i’m largely indifferent abt them | I think they’re great tbh. It teaches people a lot of things. Web weaving is great for drawing parallels between media | Idk what most of these things mean lol i just reblog silly pictures | ||||||
24 | 10/30/2022 12:47:26 | Emily | 20, 7 years | tumblr has been my main social media platform since i was a teenager, so i think it's taught me a lot about social issues and how to think about them critically | a little bit, in that it's changed my attitude towards higher education, as growing up it seemed clear to me that university was The Way To Go if you wanted a good life, which i no longer think is the case for everyone | there are some people i'm mutuals with that i've been mutuals with longer than i've had my longest lasting irl friends, and i think you learn about people in a very different way online than you do irl, because irl you start with the surface level things and online you start more so with the things that a person is really obsessed with, which gives you a deeper connection more quickly if you're both into the same types of things | i save them and then often forget about them! but i know they're very useful to other people, and the handful of times i remembered the things i've saved they've been lifesavers | |||||||
25 | 10/30/2022 13:53:26 | Mara | I am 25 I have been on Tumblr since 2011 | Definitely. Through Tumblr I met a lot of people of various backgrounds and learned a lot about sexuality, gender, literature, art, culture and many other subjects. | Dark Academia even though it is an aesthetic it shaped an ideal image of education in our minds. In dark academia inspired educational system we could study and strive for academic experiences without worrying about jobs, tuitions etc | Some mutuals are very close to me, we are friends, we are like siblings. But there are some mutuals we don't talk, but I still trust them and consider them close. Like neighbours in a way, there are some neighbours that you see every day but you haven't exchanged a word but you still trust them. | I'm sorry i don't know what you are referring to. | I find it funny how people call tumblrinas cringe, or how superwholock was cringe. Of course any older type of blogging is going to seem embarrassing to us now, but in the same way superwholock was cringe 9gag was cringe. At least during the superwholock era we were happy, we were creating fics, fanart and we didn't even know the word discourse. | ||||||
26 | 10/30/2022 14:09:49 | Savvy | 23, and since 2015 | I’m not sure about how much changing your opinion on things like queer identities counts as “intellectual development” vs like social development but it has shaped how I view people more than acedemia. | Yes, the dark academia/light academia movement and “studyblr” blogs have helped with the notion of romanticizing even the mundane/little things in your life | I’m able to vent to them about things I probably wouldn’t vent to irl people about, and it doesn’t have to be one-on-one since I’m making a post for the world to see | I think reference posts are humanity’s (tumblr’s) way of showing we hope that we’re all thriving and that we want to make it easier for others. I think web weaving is an interesting form of art. I think Piracy Guides are our hope for the future where there isn’t so much academic gatekeeping when it’s textbooks and then hoping that someday we’ll break up massive corporations when it’s pirating things off of like Amazon Video/Netflix/Hulu/etc. | One thing I would like to talk about is people gathering information from their speciality areas and sharing that information publicly and using it to help others. People who are in psychology may sometimes run a mental health advice blog, people who are into entomology may run a blog where they help individuals identify random bugs they see every day and share some facts about them, etc. | ||||||
27 | 10/30/2022 16:26:20 | Victoria or mermaid-lullaby how ever you wish. | 23, since i was 15 | Yes it has, it has opened a lot of doors for me and kept me updated on things other platforms have not. | Yes it did, it has gave me certain notions i haven't seen before but also to see like-minded people gave an idea of what i wanted to see. | I wouldn't call them friends really because i haven't really interacted with all of them, more how you get used to seeing certain people on your route to work or school and it gives you a certain comfort. | First of all, I wouldn't put all of them in the same category, reference posts and piracy guides represent a helping hand in the real world, but web weaving is a helping hand in the artistic way it inspired you but also it turns something inside of you. Second of all, all of these represent crucial parts of tumblr to me, reference posts and piracy guides have been here for years and web weaving is more new but parallels have always been a form of content on this site. | I think Tumblr is good at keeping an archive, it's very much like a little museums of everything we like, our ideals, our interests, our hobbies, of things that once meant something to us, our thoughts and vents. It's fascinating to see that., | ||||||
28 | 10/30/2022 19:28:09 | Ellie | 25yo, on tumblr for 10 years (since 2012) | Absolutely. I left a doomsday cult by learning LGBT people were kind, normal, and funny people, unlike what I'd been told. | Somewhat. I may have picked it up elsewhere too, but I now believe all education should be free and "intellectual" fields are not the only kind that matter. Trades are incredibly important and worthwhile. | They are like aquaintances I wouldn't feel comfortable saying hello to out of nowhere, yet I know so much more about the shifts in their moods and beliefs by their posts (as long as ai remember to look at their URL/pfp) | I might have an opinion but I'm not sure bc I haven't heard that vocab before :') | As a content creator, I just wish more things were copylefted and that copyrights expired MUCH sooner so we could create more art as a community, rather than standing back and beholding the media of mega corporations. | ||||||
29 | 10/30/2022 20:26:09 | Madison | 22, 8 years since age 14 | Yes, being able to see people’s opinions about media and life, especially gay people and those less in mainstream’s ideas and opinions made me think more critically about life and the things I saw and did | It helped me understand that no one is really an expert in anything, but also the joy in sharing and knowledge | Like all social media you know a weird mix of things with so much left out, but because of the anonymity of it you see a lot of peoples deep ideas without the surface image | They exist for a reason but there’s always some conflict | It’s an interesting mix of people and ideas, more like the old internet days with little commercialization and freedom, but still often the first commentary on events and pop culture | ||||||
30 | 10/30/2022 23:07:08 | sandini | 22 - 9 years | yep - taught me the basics of a lot of social issues, such as racism, lgbt rights, feminism, & more. helped me learn about the different views within these areas and cited academic sources for me to learn more. kept me up to date with news around the world that sometimes isn’t reported by broadcasting companies. | yep - made me realise how whitewashed and eurocentric my education (politics & econ degree) was and how much more work and effort is needed to correct this imbalance. | used to be a part of a fandom community, but now i follow people who seem to have similar or interesting vibes. they differ from irl people because of their tumblr-esqe humour, their sense of style/aesthetic, and their unfiltered way of communicating their views. | not really sure what those are. | |||||||
31 | 10/30/2022 23:18:59 | Izzy | I'm 20. I've had access to Tumblr for 7 years but I only got my own individual account 2 years ago. | I think so. Unlike most other social media sites, Tumblr culture promotes an attitude where it's accepted and encouraged to check people's sources (I think probably due to the ways that misinformation got so rampant even going back just a year or so). Tumblr also is an experience where you have so many niche little communities but anyone can still respond to any post which leads to a situation where ideas spread in a way that's unusual to most other sites. I think this has had an impact on my intellectual development at least a little just in terms of a preference for bottom-up as opposed to top-down intellectual structures. | I think the free access to so many different types of people has affected my opinion on education because I am not often satisfied with the acceptable range of viewpoints within most organised educational institutions. | My mutuals mean to me what I assume is an average amount. I care about them and I know most better than most of my aquaintences offline but ultimately if I were to meet them on the street I wouldn't recognise them. They're different to my offline aquaintences mostly in the order in which I know them. I've had friends on Tumblr for years whose surnames I don't know and yet I know their opinions on all manner of political and philosophical viewpoints or their fandom preferences or their childhoods. | I like them. I find them incredibly valuable as a means to build and maintain online communities. | |||||||
32 | 10/31/2022 6:28:41 | Nancy unbar | 21 and probably 10 years now | Big role on my teenage years bc it's where i spent most of my time, lots of my interests and sense of humor were fostered on here. I wouldn't say it's made me smarter but it's definitely influenced how i think about the world/ learning how to analyze the world with a critical lense (ie whats true and what's a lie, who's saying that information and what's their motive for saying it etc. Internet smarts i guess.) | I guess seeing all of these different opinions on what works and what didn't work for teens i knew on Tumblr did inform me of educational struggles, and how the way we're taught in schools aren't always beneficial | I feel like my mutuals know a realer part of me than me in real life. Tbf i don't have many friends so tumblr has always served as that social interaction where i was actually able to engage in my interests instead of feeling like i couldn't talk about what i was interested in because it was weird. Tumblr has connected me with so many people who are like me and have similar interests,whereas in real life I'd have to search forever/ far away to find people with the same interests as me. | It's important. Keeping the Internet as free as possible, and spreading the ability to learn new information is always a good cause. The best gift of the Internet is simply the amount of knowledge that is at your fingertips, so working to keep that information available still is so important. | |||||||
33 | 10/31/2022 6:40:52 | Bella | I am 23, and I have been on tumblr for 9 years. | Yes, it has opened me up to new ideas and opinions that I would have otherwise not likely been exposed to. | Yes, after reading about others' experiences, I would say that it has strengthened my opinion on free education. | I am not very close to my mutuals but I see them in the same way as I do my IRL acquaintances. | I think these posts are great resources. Sharing ideas and methods is how humanity has been able to thrive. | When I see posts with long paragraphs of explanations about a certain Thing, I just hope that the individual behind the post would put reference links to where they obtained that information. I now work as a scientist and it is my very nature to want to see the source of information. | ||||||
34 | 10/31/2022 6:45:12 | Julian | 16 and for 2 and a half years | yeah i would say so, i became a lot more aware of the peoplenand the world around me through my friends and the things ive seen on tumblr. i found it during a really lonely time in my life and ive stuck with it ever since. | they're some of my closest friends because they see a side of me that most of my irls don't really see and i think i am a lot truer with them because they're online and it's less pressure. i admire them a lot and i think i might put them on more of a pedestal than i do with my irls as well. | i looovveee the community posts or methods as you call them. i think they're so cool and they mean a lot to me because they always kind of seem to me as a sign of hope which sounds stupid but i just like. i can feel the love in all these posts from all these people and for someone who's so young who has so much left to live its exciting to see a different perspective from someone who's already been through half of it | ||||||||
35 | 10/31/2022 6:45:39 | mo | 21, 5 years | yes, emphasized the importance of critical thinking and helped me begin some self reflection | a little, pushed me forward on a path i admit I was already on of questioning the relevance of standardized education n valuing information passed through community, word of mouth n orally. as well as underlining the need to fact check even that which might come from a reliable source. | I don't really have many close friends irl or mutuals on tumblr, so I can't say they differ much. | absolutely necessary for survival. | |||||||
36 | 10/31/2022 6:47:03 | myers | 18 years old! and ive been on tumblr since i was 13 (so 5 years) | so much! it really broadened my worldview and gave me the opportunity to learn about so many topics that i never would have considered looking into. | i think so... its made me realise that a there is sonmuch more to learn than just whats being offered in schools. i like to think that tumblr has been something of an extension to my education. | i follow a lot of people that i think have very interesting things to say or share, usually about topics im already interested in. some of my mutuals have become my closest friends, and i think thats one of the best things that ive ever gotten from being on tumblr. | i really think theyre incredibly helpful for a lot of reasons. eg piracy guides are super useful for making things a lot more accessible for people that cant afford things / dont want to support cringefail creators. i have a very deep love for web weaving because its helped me find some of my favourite poems / songs / shows ever, and i think its a very unique way of connecting with people and getting your message across. | i wish i had more to say here but um. we stan open source software. long live girlbloggers. i wish you all the best with your dissertation i hope it goes really well <33 | ||||||
37 | 10/31/2022 6:48:53 | lohani | 25, maybe 6 years? | it's been a catlyst but certainly not the primary source. it started conversations and raised questions but quickly made me realize that genuine understanding would come from talking to the ppl who surround me and remaining grounded, because everyone has their own take and if you dont understand the fundamentals of where you stand, you will fall for the next hot take over and over again. | it has made me aware of the flaws in our systems of education but i think pretending it's an adequate substitute is absurd. i think as a teenager you sense intuitively that something is not quite right. and maybe you latch on and regurgitate the first intepretation of how or why bc you dont have the words for it yourself. and you can become indignant or self righteous that way. but it's a good starting point. kids care and they wanna be engaged. it does, however, call for a little more thought. reading "the classics" is not the end of the world, the goal is not always glorification and there IS value in picking it apart! | they're people i admire and would approach irl but perhaps their online personas keep me at bay bc they establish a sort of authority and i dont want to get involved with that. a. because it's unbalanced and could be unhealthy. i want to avoid putting them on a pedestal or developing a parasocial relationship. and b. let's be real that could get messy. weird ppl will spread to other ppl's inboxes due to any type of interaction sometimes. | LOVE THAT. OUR content now. i think it's nice to know ppl want to help one another, although i do wish more ppl would double check links before spreading them. | i think accessibility is beautiful but ppl should make more of an effort to interact with media that challenges them, and that means not ALWAYS asking for things to be "dumbed down". specificity has it's uses! | ||||||
38 | 10/31/2022 6:49:44 | Lydia | 22, 7ish years | Yes, I feel like I’ve been able to view things more critically/independently due to the fact that each argument on this site has like 1000 sides to it. There are also a lot of LGBT+ historical posts that I honestly wouldn’t have known about without tumblr. And I’ve definitely learned the importance of fact checking LOL | Yeah! It’s just interesting how so many people are educated differently as they grow up/depending on where they’ve lived. And I’ve developed the belief that it’s important to independently educate yourself at least to some extent/do your own research on a lot of things rather than blindly believing what you read on the internet. | Tbh I’ve been on tumblr on and off for my time here and have only recently stuck to one blog and abandoned the rest so currently I’d just say my mutuals are people whose interests I share | They’re literally everything!!! I love how accessible these posts are and admire the effort people put into compiling info like this | I do hate that the girlblogging concept at this point in time can lead down the rabbit hole of pro-ana blogs/cigarette chic/Lolita type posts and think that a huge downside of sites like these are the (near) unlimited access to sources like this that can heavily influence how people grow up/think/act | ||||||
39 | 10/31/2022 6:50:59 | eli | 21; i have been on tumblr for about 10 years | yes, unfortunately :/ it kickstarted my learning about social issues/activism and my leftist tendencies (which is not unfortunate.) however it also definitely impacted the way that i framed and contextualized these issues, and I ended up with a skewed perspective on what was important. because what is emphasized online (proper language) is different than what is actually important in the real world (proper action) | through the rising trend of anti-intellectualism all over the internet (and specifically tumblr) i have become more staunch in my belief that the education, while flawed in execution, is ultimately vital. however I have also learned a lot about the deficiencies in US educational practices and the ways that students of marginalized identities are disadvantaged at best and actively inhibited or harmed at worst. | they mean a lot to me! i dont know them super well but ive had a lot of one on one conversations with my closest mutuals, and we all have a separate social media platform called peach where we hang out and talk about our personal lives. while our relationships may be someone parasocial, i still talk to them more than i talk to my irl friends (just by merit of how social media works). | web weaving is fun when its not ripping quotes from material with no regard to contextual meaning and stuff. sometimes theyre soooo dumb but most of the time its really nice to see people trying to find patterns and meaning in art. piracy guides fucking rock man they are super useful and have saved me so much time and money. | |||||||
40 | 10/31/2022 6:51:13 | vexingcosmos/jane | 22, almost 7 years | Yes, I have been exposed to so many different ideas and discourses through tumblr that have shaped my thought processes. My engagement with the older fandom community has led me to internalize some of the ideals of the internet pre social media. Especially those regarding privacy and the need to archive impermanent internet holdings (eg fics that get deleted when websites do) | No I do not think so. I do not interact much with any side of tumblr that posts educational critiques or if I have seen that content I only internalized it if it was re inforced elsewhere like my sociology classes or educational youtube channels | I cherish them in a way, but I also do not have real relationships with them for the most part. I do not know their faces or real names. I will generally know their interests and I do sometimes interact through asks but not very much. I also do not always notice when a mutual is gone the way I would probably notice a missing acquaintance. It is easy to lose people online and not realize it as I still get plenty of notifications from other people. | I think they are incredibly useful when actually put into practice. I have shared one graphic on academic piracy to at least several hundred people over the past few years as I post it in group chats from my college classes. I have a reference tag that I do explore when I am looking for something and I love what has happened when I have implemented those posts, but I definitely do not do that often esp for posts just full of links. | I really appreciate tumblr's ability to fact check things eventually. It doesn't always happen and definitely not always in a timely fashion, but people here seem to be sorry to be wrong and happy it was corrected. I once looked into the validity of a post concerning Hatshepsut and contacted the OP about their information source only to learn their professor was misinformed and that they spread that along. Feel free to contact me if you want to do further interviews! I'm starting a teacher prep program to become a high school history teacher next year and would love to help research in any way possible! If I'm quoted I would like to be contacted and quoted only as jane not my url. | ||||||
41 | 10/31/2022 6:51:26 | grey | 25, since 2010 | probably. | no | i’m dating one, have varying levels of relationships with the rest | they’re alright | |||||||
42 | 10/31/2022 6:53:37 | Kameran | 30yo, since 2012 | If anything, it's helped me connect with Global news issues that I wouldn't have seen on my local news channels. | Tumblr has brought up many good points about how the current (North American) school systems are flawed for physically or mentally disabled folk who really need more accessible tools to aid them in class. | I mostly follow poets and artists. I don't know any IRL. | I think they are essential to people who are new to the internet. There is no class on how to use the internet or the etiquette for online behavior. | Being on the Poetry side of Tumblr, I see a lot of independent writers get the resources they need to self publish which is beautiful. I'm also on the Band side of Tumblr, and watching streams of live concerts with 50+ online friends all blogging about it at the same time gives such a strong Sense of Community. | ||||||
43 | 10/31/2022 6:59:01 | charlie | 19, 9 years | tumblr is the social media platform I've been active on the longest and it's also deeply unlike any other social media platform, i think it helped me a lot to have a platform geared towards longform content rather than short attention-grabbing tweets or videos. I find also that especially in the last few years the userbase (at least of the circles i run in) is a lot more levelheaded and rational than similar circles on twitter for example, obviously this isn't universal | purely anecdotal but i encounter a lot more people pursuing higher education or just interested in academia on tumblr? also again the format lends itself to experts being able to just commandeer a post and write a quick lesson on basically anything from archaeology to zoology to astronomy and then for that post to go massively viral | i have mutuals I'm really close to and i have mutuals who i completely forget why we followed each other in the first place but we still see each other around and it's nice! it's a lot easier to stay passively in touch with mutuals than it is with irl friends which ive always liked. i personally am not super close with a lot of my mutuals with a few exceptions but also i think there's a lot more baseline trust i guess? like i'm planning a meetup in another country with a few of my mutuals next year which i would never consider with mutuals from other platforms unless we were actually friends, i'm generally more inclined to assume that tumblr mutuals aren't freaks in some way | web weaving is the reason im doing a comparative lit degree! i think it's a fairly shallow introduction to the concept of bridging concepts across media but i still love seeing the posts whenever they come across my dash, they were massively influential on me when they first started taking off while i was early in high school. i don't engage with ref posts or piracy guides super often but i always appreciate the fact that they're possible to create and share easily | ive always appreciated that tumblr more than any other platform ive used feels like creating your own space. it's massively customizable and has a functional archive and it's always felt to me like bringing your friends to your room in your childhood home, like you're choosing to share and there's traces of your younger self everywhere but there's also clear distinct boundaries between your own space and the dashboard | ||||||
44 | 10/31/2022 7:00:38 | disarray | 20 currently, been on since ~13 | I would say its hard for anything to not have an effect on development though its certainly broadened the spheres im aware of and so the ones i associate with. more in recent years it has acted as a platform for me to engage with people in activities and discussions for the purpose of either intellectual stimulation or further development of my own perceptions | I was always very critical of the educatiom system, and that hardly stems from tumblr, though it did change my perceptions of authority and expertise of knowledge as well as more generally children as a vulnerable class of people | while some groups of mutuals are also irl friends of mine; the ones that arent, our interactions tend to be more within a focus of understanding, not necessarily specific topics but broader realms of criticism and analysis of literature vs political theory vs sexology and disability and such. mutuals i consistently interact with are no less meaningful than someone i interact with in person the same amount. | oh im not sure i would put web weaving in the same category as red and piracy guides. web weaving to me is the start of some theme or motif that has greater meaning and can be removed from the text without loss, hence repetition in unrelated works. ref and piracy guides are more of a resource for a community. theres not necessarily anything grander at workfor the medium but a gathering of resources, which while important and similar on a surface level, isnt quite the same. | |||||||
45 | 10/31/2022 7:02:30 | Juno (@lemonlimetoast on Tumblr, if you need that for citations or anything) | 20 years old, probably about 6-7 years | Yep! Taught me critical thinking skills and how to evaluate if what people are saying is true by further investigating, as well as learning how to navigate adverse social situations and disengaging rather than provoking further | I would say it's made me value social education and media literacy, and honestly gives me an appreciation for English classes/literature analysis because of how often people talk about books, TV shows, even classics like Frankenstein and Dracula | A lot!! I've been mutuals with some for the whole 7 years, and I've made some really good friends. I think Tumblr lets you interact with and be more familiar with mutuals through what they like and thus reblog | Oh! Like posts that are like master posts of resources or like soup recipes or something? I think it's incredible how people will share things that help them with others for the sole purpose of helping and sharing. I personally made soup that someone shared and it actually helped me stop being sick. I've personally never used master posts like "things to bring to college" with links and bullet points but it's nice to know it's there if I need it. Honestly this level of community is something I don't really see in other platforms, especially not places like Twitter and Instagram. | I have no idea what any of what you just said on this question means but! I think people sharing their experiences is so beneficial, not just for themselves to be seen in some way but also to others to expose themselves to other worldviews and gain a sense of empathy maybe. Idk it's nice on Tumblr :) | ||||||
46 | 10/31/2022 7:02:40 | misha | 21, 10(ish) years | i think so. i think i was exposed to a lot of content when i wasnt ready (i joined way before i was supposed to, but even still). i think its kind of an enabling disaster situation of a website which can make your problems worse if you are not cautious. but can be really great community otherwise. | yes. i feel like a lot of my exposure to more theoretical information (ie liberal arts/sociology/visual culture/general media literacy skills) has helped me with kind of having any sense of heads or tails in life. | theyre like im watching them in an aquarium i dont really talk to them but i appreciate their presence. it feels like parallel play or st but like a lot less | i think its nice but also only in web weaves and they have to be good. wary of other guides due to misinfo but the intent is nice. i think that the community appeal is a great thing esp bc its not really the same on other social media | i love it here i wouldnt have it any other way really ! | ||||||
47 | 10/31/2022 7:19:24 | Oscar | 18. About 2 years but that's been spread out over the last seven years | Probably. It definitely stunted my social development a bit because I would neglect irl friendships in favour of tumblr, I was way too young when I got it. I don't know if it affected my intellectual development specifically | A little. I have less of a focus on third level education for the sake of third level education and am now equally weighing a trade and a degree as options for next year. Used to think the tumblr university thing was cool but that's when I was stupid | They don't mean much to me, although I think that's because a) I am not close with any of them and b) since realising how much time I was spending staring at my phone doing nothing I've really tried to reduce time spent on it, and that prevents me from really engaging with the site's social aspects. To me tumblr is an entertainment app, rather than a social one | I adore web weaving because it's a very concise and effective way of getting something close to an essay into just it's bones. All the evidence, as it were, is compiled and ordered in a very specific manner so that the original thesis is clear, even if that thesis is just that these are all similar media. I love piracy guides because I hate spending money, and as a young person I think it's an important part of my generation's digital literacy | |||||||
48 | 10/31/2022 7:24:47 | mar | 25, been here for over a decade. yikes/ | absolutely! definitely would not be the person i am today intellectually without it lmao i was exposed to soooooo many ideas and thinkers that i would otherwise not have known about at All like . was 2014 tumblr a mess yes did i have a functional grounding in queer theory before i graduated high school also yes. ok actually functional is strong i dont think i Actually really understood gender trouble when i read it at 17 but by god was i trying. | you can just go learn things, it turns out! huge if true. | tbh i dont rly have a strong group of mutuals that arent my friends from other places, the people i dm with regularly are also people i text regularly | i like to look at web weaving posts and go aha! found the mountain goats! also i have probably 200 ref posts saved in my drafts they are like sisters to me | i think tumblr has been really influential to me in terms of like , assumed audience discursive proficiency? if that phrasing makes sense? the way people are on tumblr where they just be infodumping and like assuming people have both the willingness and the knowledge base to engage in relatively good faith on whatever the topic is of a post has made me more willing to talk like that in other areas of my life - this is usually a good thing but it has also led to nightmare scenarios such as when my coworker seemed like he was enough of a nerd and online enough to know what homestuck was and i just like , offhandedly mentioned it in passing only to find out that he did not, in fact, know what it was and he was FASCINATED. i, who have never read homestuck, had to 'let me tell you about homestuck' this man all because i made the mistake of using my tumblr social norms and assuming everyone already knows what im talking about. | ||||||
49 | 10/31/2022 7:25:29 | Mary | 24, I don't remember exactly but I think it's been about 10 years | First of all it definitely helped me learn English as I was using it on tumblr everyday. It was a source of new information and knowledge that I wasn't getting anywhere else (for example I first heard about AAVE on tumblr and it led to me learning more about it). And as I got older I definitely learned to think more critically and check sources etc. as more and more fake info spread around. | No, not really. I think of it more as natural learning that occurs in day to day life, not as form of education. | Mutuals to me are sort of like colleagues - we like each other and we share some kind of knowledge of each other, but we don't spend time together outside of tumblr. I only consider some of my mutuals to be my friends. | I have a soft spot for web weaving since 1. the person who coined the term is a treasured mutual and 2. I think it's an interesting way of analizing media by drawing pararells. It allows to see more meaning in details that would otherwise be missed. As far as piracy goes, I think we need to respect individual artists that are creating art nowadays but when it comes to pirating media from big corporations I do not see a problem. | I don't think I have any particularly strong feelings about it. I think as much as we (tumblrinas) like to think that we have these unique ways of posting or interest in obscure themes, in reality it can also be found on other social media. But at the end of the day I also don't think it matters as long as everyone is having fun | ||||||
50 | 10/31/2022 7:32:49 | X | 26 / 10 years | Unfortunately, yes. There's this pervasive culture of groupthink which young people (including a younger me) must blindly swallow in order to be a part of the community. This isn't a phenomenon unique to tumblr, but tumblr is very good at getting under one's skin. You follow only people who agree with you, and reblog only posts from people exhibiting acceptable ideology. Those caught following or reblogging Undesirables will be ostracized. Critical thought--regardless of what clique you find yourself in--is anathema. Tumblr certainly contributed to an intellectual stunting in me: paranoia, subjugation, and and a refusal to consider any content outside my narrow niche. | Not really. | They mean nothing to me as individuals. They're just streams of content I choose to add or subtract from the river of content presented to me on my dashboard. More like radio stations I choose to tune into rather than people I'd say hi to at a supermarket. | Very little. Many ostensibly-educational posts being circulated widely and uncritically are quickly out of date... if not downright misinformed to begin with. They can be a decent source of inspiration, but there are far better places to obtain information than tumblr. | I think I understand the angle you're trying to take here, but tumblr (and social media as a whole) is less a vector of peer-to-peer pedagogy than it is one of insidious brainwashing. Posts are so often reblogged because a user wants to be/look like the kind of person who cares about [subject], rather than because they are actually informed on and actually engaging thoughtfully with [subject]. The majority of links on masterposts apparently go unclicked--so many are still circulated after many of the links are dead. The notion that tumblr is a valid source for anyone to get the majority of their news, information, or ideology is a very toxic one. I can't think of a single useful skill I learned during a decade of tumblring, but I can think of many harmful habits and ways of thinking which I internalised--things it's taken me years to start unlearning. | ||||||
51 | 10/31/2022 7:37:05 | Alyssa | 17, 5.5 years (since august 2017) | yes. it introduced me to many music styles and "aesthetics" that i later curated my in-the-flesh life to match. most importantly, it played a major role in me developing severe anorexia at 13, which i am only now recovering from. i was extremely bright as a child (skipped a grade) but will now live with some level of brain damage for the rest of my life. some part of me believes this could have been avoided if i never made an account. | yes, because i was involved in mental health activism communities from 2017 to 2019, which caused me to feel indignant over the way the school system treated neurodivergent individuals. i myself don't have ADHD but many of my mutuals did, and i felt the need to advocate for change on their part. i remember arguing with my family over changes made by my school to increase the length of periods, telling them that they didn't understand how this would impact people with learning-related conditions! | i tend to follow smart people... interesting and creative minds... people whose aesthetics align closely with my own internal sensibilities... irl, i am quite involved with my city's "scene" and know a lot of young people, but i absolutely delight in finding one of these traits in someone who i may still have many points of difference from. tumblr is so addictive because you can find all of these traits condensed into a single person. it's a heavy dopamine rush, especially since i both love people deeply and have struggled in my life to fit in and feel understood. still, though, i tend to pick up many more characteristics from my irl friends. i think just because they are real to me. i can observe and mirror their gestures, mannerisms, etc. i honestly have no idea how many of my mutuals would act or communicate if we sat down for coffee and that is strange to think about | i personally think the trend of "girlblogging" is awful and heinous but as a recovering anorexic i have a vested interest in stopping these aesthetics proliferating. also, i think performing a kind of hollow femininity online can only generate a disconnect between one's self and one's gender identity, even for cis women. this will no doubt have ramifications down the track. although i am very young, i do remember a time when cis girls and women who felt estranged from traditional femininity were more inclined to express femininity through other, more authentic means - through experimenting with fashion, or androgyny, or speech - than to flaunt the symbols of these stifling ideas (dolls, ballet flats, ribbons) in a kind of garish showcase. idk. i want these girls to grow up healthy and well-adjusted. that is all i want. my tumblr is @pathologyprincess and i rant about these things sometimes.. mostly just about my own life tho so enter with caution | |||||||
52 | 10/31/2022 7:39:54 | Roos | 19 years old; since I was 12 | Yes, being on a website often during your developmental stage does that | It made me believe it’s fun! By help of ‘studyblr’ and classics I saw that studying is actually a nice experience | They are casual friends if you could even call them that; I rarely actually talk to them | Love it! Sharing information is very important to me | |||||||
53 | 10/31/2022 7:41:39 | Rory | 25; ten slutty, slutty years | I think it has in specific ways, namely to check sources on things lol (alexandria's genesis be damned) but also in how I interact with media. I love drawing parallels and making connections across different stories and also looking deeper into metaphors and symbolism/imagery. | Yes but moreso in the way that I don't have to finish college to be worth something lol. And that there are plenty of ways to get "an education," like just learning things like basic necessities (sewing, cooking, taxes), or just, having an interest in something and just doing research bc you can (like the historic/literary shift from fae to fairies. I actually ended up writing a paper on that one) | The thing about a tumblr mutual is you can immediately start being weird with each other, rather than waiting to be weird with irl people. Back in 2013 when nbc hannibal first started I became mutals with a good handful of people just bc we were all horny for frederick chilton and immediately started sending each other asks and imagines about him. I was actually a conference-goer to the blorbuscons that were held this year, and we all ended up joining a discord where we're weird but we have a channel within it where we share academic texts as well, just cos. | Idk what web weaving is but I love a good reference post. They can be "in reference" to anything, and it may contain subjects you never even thought about thinking about. It just opens a lot of mental doors and I like that. | Sorry bestie it's 4am and I'm only awake rn from terrible insomnia so I don't have anything good :( I hope your dissertation goes well!!! :D | ||||||
54 | 10/31/2022 7:45:49 | Zahra | I have no idea, probably 4-5 years | Kind of? I mean there's a lot you can learn about people | I always knew that our education system sucks but yeah I guess I'd say so | Some I haven't talked to at all but we still interact on posts. Some are good for friends of mine. And I would die for a certain one. | Honestly they've been super useful, I try to reblog them as much as I can | I don't have any thoughts to be honest lol sorry | ||||||
55 | 10/31/2022 7:51:06 | Shiloh | 26 | Yes. It has developed my perceptions of internet culture, my understanding of how the internet works, and has both negatively and positively developed my views of politics | I don't think it changed much of my views on education, although it did heavily influence my belief that internet safety education should be mandatory in schooling | They mean just as much to me as IRL friends--they are simply another type of interpersonal relationship I can develop and they are no less influential or meaningful than people I can interact with face-to-face | As a thinker and young person they've helped influence my views quite a bit, especially in regards to capitalism and fair use | I could give a thesis on how much Tumblr has been an influencing force in my life, but I think a sentence to sum it up is: the social media that benefits you by damaging you | ||||||
56 | 10/31/2022 7:55:12 | kimi | 27, since 2013 | I would say so. I have learned a lot about social justice and how to navigate the world. I've mostly gotten a lot of random fun facts though. | nah | I have six blogs and my relationship with my mutuals is different on all of them. the most influential relationships I have are with my fashion/girl blog. Tumblr provides a way to be a little weirder and more personal than I would be irl | I mostly see piracy guides and while I'm glad they're there, I don't really use them. | the drama involved with girl blogging is the most entertaining social media interaction for me. I love deciding what images and posts go on my blogs and seeing how people interact with that. | ||||||
57 | 10/31/2022 7:55:45 | Jones | I am 23. I've been on tumblr for 9 years. | Yes. This will sound so dumb but I didn't know that being gay was a thing before I joined tumblr. I live in a very conservative area and this was 2013 when I joined so tumblr was super different from any other social media site I had use before this. It also got me into webcomics and podcasts which are mediums I still really enjoy today. | Yes, it showed me how school can be better. Like all the shit they dont teach you, and how hard it is for students whose needs aren't met due to learning disabilities or other life factors that put them at a disadvantage. It basically taught me about how discrimination isn't just a personal thing but systemic, and how that can affect a school system and someone's education. | I have several mutuals but I only talk to one. They differ from my IRL friends in terms of what we have in common. For example my friends I met at school and I have the common experience of growing up together and going to school together. My tumblr friend and I made a connection over similar interests and fandoms and that's what led to us being friends. | I like having those resources, especially since they're usually compiled pretty well and I can look at the notes to see if someone leaves feedback or wants to reccomend a change. | Open source is nice I like sharing resources with people. I think digital curation is great on tumblr since influencers and corporate pages are so rare and the ads aren't as bad as other social media sites like Instagram. | ||||||
58 | 10/31/2022 8:05:56 | Beatrice | 24 years old, and I've been on tumblr for the past 9 years | Yes, it's taught me to consider my own positionality more when responding or internalizing concepts that I run into. The nice thing about tumblr is that you can't tell that people are "different" right away because it's a primarily textpost based system where individual's icons and names can be anonymized easily. This means that often when you read these textposts, you're mapping your own assumptions onto the speaker, and usually those assumptions are that the speaker is just like you - same age, gender, race, ethnicity, etc. When those assumptions aren't borne out by the content of the post, sometimes people online get frustrated or confused that this seemingly neutral textpost isn't so neutral. Encountering this many times on tumblr has led me to check my assumptions in a very upfront way, which I think is a net positive for my intellectual development. | I wouldn't say that tumblr has changed the way I think about education, but it's reinforced the idea that education is not limited to an academic setting, that education takes many valid forms, and that the definition of education is defined by the user. | The network of mutuals or people I follow is a nice reminder that I'm not alone in an anonymized space. I don't know much about my mutuals and I don't interact with them much on a personal level - our primary interactions are reading the notes - but it's very refreshing to have this shared relationship based on liking the same content and not needing to insert our own personalities into the dynamic. | I may be a young person technically, but I sure don't feel like one! I've primarily seen piracy guides, so I'll only speak to my experience. The presence of these guides is a hopeful and positive sign - it shows that there are strangers on the Internet who are invested in making sure you have options that aren't locked behind a price tag. That being said, piracy guides aren't often presented in a neutral way. They're accompanied by short paragraphs where users explain what motivated them to disseminate these guides, either from a type of media being cancelled by its network or by some adage of a younger person who wasn't aware of how to pirate media. It's a nice reminder that these are humans who are making and curating these guides. | |||||||
59 | 10/31/2022 8:09:14 | ev | 18 and about 5 years | absolutely. tumblr allowed me to be connected to the lgbt community and discourse/education in a way i wasn’t able to on other social media. it made me think about all media in more critical ways as i was involved in certain groups on the app. i was introduced to poetry, legends, religion etc etc. also i was too young to see all that porn. | yes. i have learnt a lot from tumblr about myself, politics, critical analysis. education through social media is definitely achievable. | i’m not too close w any mutuals but i love seeing their ideas and tag and reblogs. it’s like seeing so much of a person without knowing them. i know so much about their believe and values and opinions on deep topics but have no idea of the surface level of who they are. i know their thoughts on what it means to have a soul. i know they haven’t spoken to their parents in six months. but i don’t know what they look like or what food they’re allergic to or their name. watching someone’s life through a blog is like seeing straight through someone to their core and missing all the extraneous bits. | they mean so so much. it’s useful and thought provoking and a beautiful way of sharing someone’s collection of sources or literature that for some people is unattainable. | |||||||
60 | 10/31/2022 8:18:44 | Frances | 20 and 6 years | Maybe? It has probably influenced some of the opinions that I hold | It opened my eyes to how education worked in other countries, particular the usa | I don't really know them but I recognise they profile pictures | I don't know what's this means | |||||||
61 | 10/31/2022 8:50:37 | Delilah Lillian | 18 | Yes, it has shaped my humour a lot. I won't laugh at a tiktok but I'll laugh at a photo of a fish with a funny border for far too long. | Yes, by thinking about multiple sources of knowledge and communal education. Sometimes it kind of feels like sitting round a bonfire and have elders telling stories and all chiming in (maybe arguing too, haha) | All my moots are people I know IRL sorry. | I LOVE those weave posts where they thread different art and poems together. I screenshot them frequently because I think they're really cool examples of thinking cross media, which is the kind of thinking I'm encouraged to do in school now with my creative subjects. I like tumblr becuase I feel like it hasn't been exploited by an algorithm and an influx of serotonin trigger-happy clicky low-value content. Again it feels like internet 'elders' (lol) around a campfire. I used tumblr to teach myself how to make Sims 4 custom content and pirate stuff. It's just niche knowledge from og internet people that you kinda don't find elsewhere on the internet. Feel organic (moreover than really anywhere else on the internet) | We have to keep tumblr uncool, that's part of it's charm. It shouldn't appeal to instagrammers and tiktokers - we can't let that happen lol. But on a serious note their form of content consuming is SO vastly different from tumblr. I value the slow process and curation for tumbkr content. I've reblogged posts I've seen floating round my last 5 years on tumblr and each time they add something new and valuable - but veery slowly. Its like meeting an old friend haha, seeing posts still floating round. But everywhere else is pop pop pop snappy fizzle out after a day content and I really don't think that's how we're supposed to process stuff. So I don't want tumblr to try and force itself to adjust to that consumption method, which is what I fear might happen should their be an influx of alternative social media users | ||||||
62 | 10/31/2022 9:36:58 | Cait | 20 y/o, have been on Tumblr since 2013 (I think) | Yes. I learned many random facts, but I also stopped fact-checking. I’m now more easily convinced that something is real or a fact if it looks somewhat logical. However, I do think this would be the case on any other social media (like Facebook) as well. | I did see quite a few posts that were like “Bet you didn’t learn this in school!” and I guess I did internalise the feeling of “my school education definitely doesn’t teach me everything that’s out there and if I’m interested in something, I can and should do my own research” | I don’t have many mutuals, but do have some blogs I follow where I kind of know the people by name and vaguely know what’s going on in their lives. It feels like checking up on celebrities. So unlike with IRL acquaintances there is no mutual conversation happening. | I think it’s heartwarming that people are out there helping others by creating these things. Also makes me feel like I’m not alone with some feelings I have (in relation to web weaving posts) | |||||||
63 | 10/31/2022 9:38:26 | Antonia | 22 (not consistently but since 2014) | Maybe to a very small extent, since master threads, and blogs represented such detailed writing and study of topics and went into great detail looking, explaining, judging, reasoning a cause. | I think it made people more critical towards minorities since it was a space that was strongly supported by angsty teenagers, the queer community, poc. It also gave a platform for teenagers to express their worries, issues very freely and feel seen and understood similar to fandom culture or maybe it is the same as fandom cultures (it’s very closely linked, I think) | It is a weird relationship, since people open up a lot around topics they would otherwise discuss with their real life friends after months, years of getting to know each other or often never but at the same time the online profile only shows you a small fraction of the real person and limits them often to Herz specific interests. | They are important for sure! Algorithms, freedom of speech are a very sensitive and limitless discussion. Reducing hate online or I’ll-minded hashtags, communities is a very difficult task. Tumblr has/ had a hugely positive and negative impact on individuals I am sure. There is no black and white thinking towards this topic it needs a very large conversation | Overall, I think tumblr was a huge cultural medium of a lot of teenagers lifes during the 2010s and I hugely appreciate that it was there and I was part of it. It definitely left an impact on me but I have never critically and theoretically analysed which impact it had specifically; Exited to read your dissertation on it!! | ||||||
64 | 10/31/2022 9:40:35 | Anna | 21, and I've been using Tumblr since I was 15 but really became active at 17. | I think so, Tumblr has a lot of history and art content on it, as well as fiction analysis. With art history specifically, its grown my interest in the subject. (and I was righteously annoyed when Tumblr banned classic art for nudity) | No, not really. Education as an institution needs reform, and Tumblr is good for scrolling through and learning cool things but as a tool for education, it could be used for getting participants in a study (hi!) or getting niche information that you can research in more detail in a journal. | They're people I follow because I like the same stuff, but personally I don't really talk to them. I like that we have mutual interests but I'm cognizant of their privacy, tumblr isn't really as social as platforms like discord. | I think they're super useful and I'm always grateful for the people that share resources. I write, so reference posts are especially useful but I've also reblogged a couple of guides for protest, and I think those are helpful so people are safe. I like the community of safety first thinking that a lot of posts like that are trying to impress on people. | I don't think I have any at the moment but good luck! | ||||||
65 | 10/31/2022 9:46:56 | Sadie/ @lambheartedgirl | I'm 19, and have been on tumblr since I was 11 (yikes) | I am a poet and I follow a lot of blogs that write/ curate and discuss poetry! It's one of my top ways to discover writers as I get to see a line or two that people identify with enough to post and see if their identity and voice is something I'd like to examine further. | I'm not sure that it's changed it, but it certainly broadened my horizons on that front. It has exposed me to different cultures and how they philosophise things in a way I wouldn't have expected or thought of myself. | I'm autistic and take a lot of comfort in the extremely optional socialisation that comes with being mutuals! It's an unspoken bond that doesn't cause me anxiety and still makes me feel valued. It's a special and different kind of relationship than anything I've had on other social media platforms, for sure. | I'm not sure what these are :-( | |||||||
66 | 10/31/2022 10:08:48 | Frootdragon | 15-18 been here about a half year but i got a lot of exposure to the site as a whole through other social medias and youtube video essays and such so i know a lot of the stuff thats happened id like to say but i wasnt AROUND for it yk | Not really? Its helped me get the ropes of safe pirating and that one chain abt pi holes but i just... havent been here long enough | Not really, education for me was always kinda a " you can learn it from anywhere, school just teaches you a smidge of it all! and it also only teaches you what it deems to be necessary for someone entering a late stage capitalitic society at like. 16 should know " whereas by watching documentaries or the yt video essays or even seeing tumblr chains and educational posts you can learn so much more about the world around you and find joy in something not tainted by standardized education. ( then again most of my interest are "tainted" BUT YOU KNOW EHAT I MEAN!!! ) | GOD THEY ARE THE PEOPLE EVER!!!!!! like. I dont have many true true irl friends, since ihave trouble differentiating an acquaintance from a friend. So having a mutual be someone you follow snd they follow you and you share reblogs back and forth and such, its so much easier to actually say yeah thats a friend! And ive never outright talked to them but they still seem like awesome people and id love to have a real chat with them someday. I also have a group of discord friends i met on amino that i still talk to regarly today and they literally mean the world to me ( love u freak bin ) | I think theyre really important, young people these days, me included, are brought up around things like piracy and such being bad but they arent! Its like most other things, morally grey, its WHAT you priate that determines whether its bad or not. Like. Dont pirate from a small independant author yeah? But if theyre not going to notice the difference of one less subscription or sale, they're free game. And also, piracy is literally a requirement at this point to keep media alive, after HBO axed ok!ko and infinity train the only reason they were still available in some form was BECAUSE OF PIRATING, old games for consoles no longer being made or lost to time are only playable through roms of them, and eventually new generations wont be able to play these games and enjoy these shows. Its our duty to preserve these different ips for the generations to come so that they can enjoy the things we did. Its also great from a history pov, it means historians will be able to look back and see how the people of times long gone portrayed certain things! | |||||||
67 | 10/31/2022 10:18:53 | Jessie | 19, 7 years | I'd say so, Tumblr has a relationship with communication that's unique to any other platform. You don't really get long callout posts on other platforms than maybe Twitter, but even then it's in a totally different context on Tumblr. | I don't think so, I think the way people feel about education is pretty unanimous across social media. | Mutual networks on Tumblr influence me probably more than anything else, the most likely way of getting me to watch a new film is if all my mutuals are posting about it. It's a special friendship that doesn't require actually talking to each other. | I think they're more important now than ever, especially with everything on the internet slowly becoming hidden behind paywalls. Also, Tumblr is one of the few places you can safely post and talk about things like that. | |||||||
68 | 10/31/2022 10:39:21 | alice | 17, 5 years | yes, i think in a similar way to how consistent internet and social media use is guaranteed to have an affect on someone in their formative years, but tumblr in particular because i’ve found it’s more supportive of conversation, i’ve spent more time on tumblr and it’s been incredibly influential to my media consumption of art, literature, music, film, | yeah. one of the things i’ve been struggling with recently is that it feels impossible to continue to learn in a range of disciplines as you age out of highschool, like i’ve pretty much chosen to study art and visual media moving forwards, and it’s made subjects that i previously enjoyed like literature, and sciences feel inaccessible to continue to study. but i’ve felt that keeping mutuals who have different interests in education has helped that, because it means i’m still having at least some engagement with content and readings from other disciplines outside of my own field of study in a way that i don’t think school can facilitate properly, even if it’s not in a formal way, i still think it’s helping. | i have a group of friends i made when i was about 13? or so, they’re mostly all a few years older than me, which is different to real life, and have been influential in different ways to irl peers because of that. i have got to see them go through school and life generally before i’m at that stage of development, and it’s definitely impacted my choices in the last few years. additionally, i’m from a mixed heritage (chinese and white) with very little irl exposure to people who share chinese heritage, but ive managed to find that online, primarily on tumblr i’ve had more reflection on what my background means to me and how it impacts my life behause of who i follow online than i think i ever would’ve had on my own, and it’s definitely helped me feel settled more in my identity, with help from people who are older, and generally willing to talk | yeah again, it’s about increasing accessibility to information that isn’t facilitated elsewhere. i’ve had difficulty researching for art projects, but have some people i’m following for resources that have been actually genuinely helpful | sometimes i’ve been concerned about the amount of time unspent online has been unproductive and has ultimately lead to realworld consequences, where i feel poorly socialised and underdeveloped , and maybe it’s because it’s a comfort zone etc etc but i don’t honestly have many regretsof spending the majority of my teenaged years particularly for me, as an aspiring artist, i’ve had the easiest time exploring art, and media , and finding content through tumblr, and curating an online space that i feel genuinely comfortable in, apologies if u did not want my entire life story lol | ||||||
69 | 10/31/2022 10:42:01 | Lauren | 23, and 8 years | I'd say yes. I learn about things from posts people make, or am inspired to read more about topics myself. This most commonly involves animal species, environmental developments, or world news. | Only a little. Being the age I am, I've always understood the internet to be a valuable resource for education. I think my experience on tumblr has expanded my worldview and provided me with enough educational information for me to also include social media as a means through which people can learn. There is a lot of fact checking involved though | I don't talk to my mutuals most of the time bc I am very shy, but there are a few that I'm always happy to see around on my dash | ||||||||
70 | 10/31/2022 10:50:17 | Ieva | 24, been on Tumblr since age 12 | Yes, it has exposed me to a lot of leftist and feminist ideas, queer community, and has influenced the way I consume media and my aesthetic taste. | Not really | I see them as more than IRL acquaintances and less than IRL friends, excepting one or two cases where we have been mutuals a long time and actually got close - those I would consider actual friends. My mutuals in general do mean a lot to me, as they are likeminded and supportive people. | They were formative to the restarting of my poetry career, and they inspired me to create an online literary society where we create the same sort of web weaving in turn. They opened up the horizons of what types of literature I was exposed to. | Healthy or not, girlblogging feels therapeutic, like writing a journal to vent even though up to 5k people might read it. It still feels personal and freeing. | ||||||
71 | 10/31/2022 11:04:34 | darius | 17, been on Tumblr since December 2017 | yes, definitely. My circle is full of a lot of english majors so I find myself looking at media with a much more analytical eye than my peers do, as well as just providing more mental health support from first hand sources (that, honestly, are sometimes more effective than my therapist.) that actually know what they're talking about and how to cope with it. despite having OCD I am noticeably more grounded and mentally more open to recovery and coping than some of my non-tumblr friends | they're my best friends. I may not talk to them much but I know I can be as casual as I want, whereas irl there's always an expectation on how to act, even in your own. on Tumblr I can just speak my mind and send 🐜🍑 to a friend at 1am if I really want. | more accessibility! keep themselves coming. web weaving is wonderful from a literary standpoint, much like blackout poetry, the patchworking of various sources feels like a very Tumblr thing. ref posts have helped me dramatically develop as an artist too, and likewise others I can share them to. likewise piracy guides just help to make more media and software accessible to the masses (thank you to the Tumblr post that taught me how to pirate after effects!) and it builds a sense of community. like sharing eggs with the neighbor when she's missing one for cake. we're just people helping eachother out. | ||||||||
72 | 10/31/2022 11:19:25 | agnes | I am 19 right now and have no idea how long I have been on tumblr. Fairly long though | It has definitly shaped my intressts | No, but I think it is significant that I am not American for this question | Well, we are all anonymous to certian degrees. I also see and know things about them that I do not about rl acquaintances and vise versa | They mean a lot! They are all guiding lights in their own ways. | |||||||
73 | 10/31/2022 11:30:53 | Cashew | 23, and………….. 10 years | Yes, I was raised in a homophobic and transphobic (and racist) household/country and had held those beliefs until I started going on tumblr. Aside from that, I have learned English through tumblr and have read many books because of tumblr. It also made me read many articles that have been posted and allowed me to expand my knowledge and attitudes towards certain topics. | Yes, and as silly as it is, I think “dark academia” specifically allowed me to romanticize my university experience as well as urging me to study properly. | Interesting question, I think there’s a sense of “loyalty” to my mutuals? Like I have grown up with these people and we have vastly changed as people, but somehow our interests have remained similar. There’s a sense of “kinship” with my mutuals, like they’re a friend but not quite a friend. Someone I’m sharing a shared space with, and that space being tumblr of course | It’s like older “tumblrinas” looking after one another. | What’s so special about this place is how well you can curate your own personal space without sabotaging the spaces of others through tagging, filtering, etc etc. | ||||||
74 | 10/31/2022 11:31:10 | Anne | I am 20 years old, and I've been on tumblr for 7 years | Yes! I learned to speak english by myself being on tumblr, and tumblr played a big role in my decision to study psychology | No, I don't think so | I'm not emotionally attached to people I follow on tumblr, while I have strong bonds with IRL acquaintances | I'm sorry, I don't know what these are | |||||||
75 | 10/31/2022 11:41:13 | ig | 21 | yea things I learn in class kind of just randomly pop up on Tumblr in the form of literary/academic quotes or useful photographs and all. useful sources. it's because I'm studying english and art history that works pretty good with the Tumblr usuals. also I don't read the news and this is my only source | Tumblr has given me so much piracy advice if that counts. free sources only era. also even though uncitable a lot of anecdotal knowledge can be found on Tumblr and they are way easier to absorb than a theoretical way of phrasing the same thing. but this idea isn't new. | I can be more open with discussing certain topics because of the distance. also they are very much more tailored to the interests (ie writing, a specific fandom, interest in certain philosophies) that led me to them so discussions can go much more in depth. | oh I love it. much freer and open way to learn things. maybe not as structured and so harder to go in depth with logical density but it's good for stirring the inspiration juice | I am like connected directly to multiple people's brains when I browse the dashboard. there is no hierarchy of more or less important thoughts, only whichever sparks your interest. peer review culture on Tumblr is a beautiful thing | ||||||
76 | 10/31/2022 11:48:24 | rin | 27, i’ve been here since 2009! | yes. it’s offered a way to look into important things like love, family, education, politics, etc. things i wasn’t aware of! | yes! i used to not really care for educators since i’ve had my fair share of bad teachers but it’s made me realize that they’re just trying to do the best they can with the little they got. and those bad teachers i had were products of a failed system. | they mean the world to me. i was so lonely when i first logged on. and through tumblr i was able to make acquaintances that made me feel love. although some of them have gone, i’ll still cherish those relationships. vs how they differ from IRL acquaintances, i’ve noticed that people IRL don’t really care about the things i’m into. with tumblr you’re able to make your own dashboard and follow/make friends with people who are into the same interests! in IRL, it’s kind of just. not possible especially if you come from a super rural area like i do! | i wouldn’t have known about these resources or thought about poetry that way. i used to think ok i have to subscribe to this service or buy this product to be able to read a book/watch a movie/etc but i don’t have to! i’ve saved so much money that i would’ve wasted had i not known about these posts. | n/a | ||||||
77 | 10/31/2022 11:54:43 | Gabby (@cancermoongirl) | I'm 23 - I think I originally started using tumblr in 2013. | Tumblr has definitely played an interesting role in my intellectual development because it has exposed me to things like books/movies/music etc. that I otherwise probably wouldn't have heard of. A lot of the time these have been things that no one I know in real life has an interest in, but there are whole communities of people on tumblr who are similarly interested. Being on tumblr has helped me to stay connected with my own interests over the years. I have discovered some of my favourite books and writers through tumblr, for example. Sometimes I might see a quote that really speaks to me, so I go and read the book it came from. Then I can come back to tumblr and see what other people thought of that book, or maybe share some quotes that I liked. I feel like having a community like this just helps me to actually stay engaged with things on a deeper level. | Tumblr has really helped me to keep engaged with some of my interests (such as reading and creative writing) over the years. I study english literature and writing, and I have often found inspiration for assignments through tumblr. In real life and on other social media I often see the sentiment that "reading too deeply" into things is a bad thing (like "the curtains are blue" phenomenon). I appreciate the fact that on tumblr we do tend to read deeply into things, because this way of thinking has helped me throughout my studies. There are a lot of people on tumblr who have very unique perspectives and who explore very interesting ideas in their posts, which in turn helps me to stay inspired and think of things from new perspectives. | I have found a lot of likeminded and interesting people through tumblr. Even if I don't necessarily talk directly to all of my mutuals, there is still a sense of community when you're all sharing your interests with each other. I have always found it difficult to really talk about my interests with people in real life because I sometimes feel like they just aren't interested, so I find tumblr is a nice way of sharing my interests and connecting with people in a way where theres much less pressure. I also think in real life I worry about being labelled "pretentious" for talking about books or philosophy or other niche interests that sound overly "intellectual", but on tumblr I don't need to worry about that at all because I there are so many likeminded people who are in the same boat. | I really enjoy these kinds of web weaving posts, because I think they are an interesting way to explore ideas and concepts. They have helped me to engage with things on a deeper level in many cases. For example if I'm reading a book, I might start to make connections in my mind to things like art pieces, song lyrics, scenes from movies or tv shows, etc., which prompts me to think about the deeper concepts at play in those works. I'm always intrigued by the connections that other people make, as they often provide an interesting new perspective. I also really appreciate posts where people share links to pdfs of books or essays. I've gotten to read a lot of interesting things because of those kinds of posts. They are often curated in a way that makes me interested to read (i.e., the post might have links to a list of essays all about a certain topic). I always enjoy the opportunity to learn about new topics and concepts, and I feel like this make it easy for me to do so. | Tumblr has always been the only social media that doesn't completely stress me out, which has honestly been really important to me throughout my teens and early twenties. I feel like I don't need to worry about what I post on here. I just reblog things that I like, and theres no pressure. Other social media tends to be so geared towards presenting a certain version of yourself to the world which I just don't enjoy. I like being able to curate my blog just by reblogging and posting things that I like. It serves as a nice archive of my interests over the years. | ||||||
78 | 10/31/2022 12:01:14 | Lawrence Thomson | 18 years old and I've been on tumblr for about 6 years now | Yep. Young and sheltered, I found tumblr to be both a source of fun and lots of politics. Lot's of internet culture, language, ways of communication and speaking i ended up picking up from tumblr. People love to yap and yap on tumblr and boy do I love reading. | Yep. Many intellectuals here that supply long, thought out posts full of articles to read has changed my views tonnes. Educations importance, how it should be handled, how it is treated as a right, such things I have learnt. | Practically nothing. They're a silly profile picture to me. They provide me with the feed I've specifically cultivated for myself. I cull and add at will. This is very different to my IRL relationships, I value those highly, its important to maintain these, lest u fall into some kind of shit mentally unwell escapism pit. | Suuuuper important. I consider them /vital/ for both the internet and the future for us all people. Yadda yadda keeping art alive or wtv. | The internet is a never ending, forever deep and intimidating pool of knowledge. Take a leap from the edge and learn to your hearts content. But be weary of the things that lie. That deceive and destroy. This blessing is too a curse. Waaahhh!!! Wahhhhhh!!!!!! X3 | ||||||
79 | 10/31/2022 12:03:44 | Ioana | I'm 19 and i've been using tumblr for the past 7 years. | Yes. Tumblr has helped me come across different resources such as articles, books that i now reference academically and in my everyday life, reignited my curiosity about different subjects and made me want to learn more. | Yes. I know see education more as nurturing my interests and learning about things that i love than grades and homework. | For me, my mutuals are people with similar interests to me, they help me share my excitement and passion for those things considering i can't really do that in real life. They make me feel understood, and i think i really benefit from having this support from an impartial, external person. Helps me remember that there are still good people out there. | I unfortunately don't know enough about these topics to comment. | |||||||
80 | 10/31/2022 12:19:17 | Willow | 37, for over a decade though I’ve been more active in the last year | Yes it has provided writing advice, and literary analysis. As well as a general good feeling that helps me wake up in the morning | Probably but only in the way that everything i experience affects everything else. | They are people I respect for their aztara shipping analysis | Shrug emoji | That is a very open prompt. Those things are good. Not sure if I’m awake enough to say more. | ||||||
81 | 10/31/2022 12:38:55 | Angel | 25, 10 years | it has shaped my sense of humor, interests and some of my views so yes | yes, Ive often looked out other sources and accounts of events because if my distrust of information thats just told to me bc of the misinfo in tumblr | The shape my interests and texts im reading/media im consuming. i often thinkthey're smarter than my irl acquantances | its an interesting way of connection and i love it bc it seems to verbalize how my brain works. | |||||||
82 | 10/31/2022 12:44:10 | Dominique R | 31(32 in Dec), I've been on tumblr since Sept 2010 according to my archive | Yes, I genuinely think it has made me a better person for the most part by forcing me to question my worldviews. I grew up in a rural village and while tumblr can be a bit extreme (to the point of comedy) in it's social views, it helped me be better and racist and sexist ideologies. | I think it has somewhat helped my mental health surrounding education but for the most part it hasn't changed much. I still believe that education is a basic right and that people shouldn't go bankrupt trying to further their education. | Is it weird to say they don't differ? The only difference is getting to be there for them in person. This may be because my brother is a mutual and I've met several mutuals that the line is blurred. | Oh they're absolutely indispensable in helping me question internet information safety. I've run across a couple suggesting unhelpful strategies that border on dangerous, thankfully another version saying this always seems to circulate soon after. Almost like seeing the peer review process happen live. | I think something like tumblr is indescribably important in developing your worldview. Unfortunately, they rely on you curating your own space and if the person curating is too young to know this, then they can become unhelpful and at worst--toxic. I truly value my tumblr girlies for creating a space where I feel safe to post and exist in the internet. Maybe I'm an outlier due to my age but I don't think I could leave behind something that has been such a huge part of my life now. | ||||||
83 | 10/31/2022 13:20:18 | TemaTomo | I'm 15, and I've been on Tumblr for less than 3 years. | Yes!!! It showed me a lot of things that I can think about, a lot of things that are Bad, and, uh, uhhh, it has not taught me how to handle my thoughts. I think too much :( | Yeah, it definitely showed me how bad my country's (usa) education system is, and it also, uh, gave me hope for better? | Despite my probably good access to all of these, I don't really use them, as I feel like they are useless to me and/or I wouldn't use them well. | ||||||||
84 | 10/31/2022 14:10:30 | Alessia | I’m 22, and i’ve been on tumblr ever since i was 12 or 13 | In a way I guess being on the internet from a very young age helped me see the world from other points of view other than the small town in the middle of nowhere i’m from, but i also believe it would’ve been much more helpful had i been a bit older. | No, it didn’t | They’re the funny little people in my phone lol, i love them the way i love my dog if that makes sense, but it’s hard to picture them as real people, i don’t feel the same empathy towards them like i do with the people in my life | i love web weavings. they’re everything to me. they introduced me to the world of poetry, i think it’s a very good way to learn about poems, authors, artists, etc without that overwhelming feeling of not knowing where to start whenever you approach a new thing in your life. | I don’t girlblog much myself but looove to see other girls do that. like yes!!! you fucked up little creature share your day and thoughts and impending sense of doom with us. i love it i eat that shit up | ||||||
85 | 10/31/2022 14:14:08 | Fei | 17, 3 years or so | Yes, I've learned to think more critically about the content I consume and to not believe everything until fact checking no matter how believable it is. There are also many posts I've read that made me learn things that I've carried with me and probably will continue to carry for a long time. I've also discovered a lot of new media and interests and met a lot of people to have shaped who I am and my opinions. | I don't think it has | I've not gotten very close to anyone on tumblr, but there are a few people that I had a few short conversations with and there are communities I've been in where we mostly talk through asks or tags. They've definitely have became my friends to a certain extent, I think about them from time to time IRL when seeing something that reminds me of them and when I've lost the community, I grieved for quite a bit. My IRL acquaintances know me more in terms of personal life, but my mutuals are often who I go to when I'm incredibly passionate and happy since they're the people I go to for shared interests. | I love them. I go back to them a lot and have made me explored a lot more types of media and I think that it's a way to share love to people. | |||||||
86 | 10/31/2022 14:15:07 | L | 34, six years on Tumblr | Tumblr being a global site means it's easy for people from around the world to say "look, my country doesn't have these problems, it's already solved this issue. Here's what we did to change things. You can have better, and you deserve better." For Americans who can't afford to travel and who are isolated from the rest of the world by oceans, Tumblr helps us see how much better things could be. | After seeing the research, I now realize homework for k-12 is pointless at best, but actively punishing for students who don't have parents to help them, or who can't afford tutors, or who have to work to support their family. It's a measure of your free time, and it primes you for unpaid overtime as an adult. For children under 10 especially, homework means they're working longer hours than their parents. | In America especially, the way we view copyrights and access to information is set up to benefit the few rather than to allow as many people as possible to learn. Tumblr helps fill in gaps by giving access to resources for academics, and media for those who can't afford it. Piracy in particular becomes important in the age where streaming sites now have the power to unlist and delete entire series and movies, with no legal way to ever obtain them again. If we don't share these works, they become lost media. | I think Tumblr being a very woman-friendly and creator-oriented space means you end up with a community of helpers. Instagram seems geared towards appearances and competition for a mythical perfect life. Twitter's tight character limit ends up lending itself to being a platform for arguments and the "clapback." Tumblr users aren't without their disagreements, but largely it leans towards mutual aid, trying to connect people with resources, and a userbase who wants to uplift each other and help people avoid the same issues they've had. | |||||||
87 | 10/31/2022 14:17:41 | Erin | 24, and I’ve been on tumblr since 14 or 15 | Yes. I think in my younger years (around 15-18) tumblr was often the primary source of leftist news and discourse in my life - it might have actually been my first ever exposure to discussions around things like feminism, queer identities, civil rights and liberties, etc. The discussions I read older users having on here back in the day, surrounding political and philosophical issues, opened my eyes to a completely different way of thinking that my very sheltered, very repressed teenage self had never before encountered. And in reading those discussions online, I also learned about just how many different, nuanced, conflicting takes people can have on the same issues, even when essentially on the same side of those issues. It forced me to confront that so many real world issues don’t have black and white answers to them, and to reject a lot of anti intellectual, puritanical, sensationalist thinking that masqueraded itself as leftism on other platforms like twitter. I honestly do think I have tumblr’s older user base around 2013-2017 to thank for that, it was my first time seeing adults engage in discussing important things with children and teens in good faith, and at really trying to lead these children to do their own critical thinking and reflecting rather than shaming them for not knowing things or having (often objectively) Bad Takes. | I guess that like any place where free open discourse about political issues can be had, it kind of revealed how censored (or, even if not actively censored, just very limited) a lot of official education is for teens - I’m Australian, and my schooling absolutely did not touch on half of the history I consider incredibly fundamental to how the world is today, or the systems that govern how the world runs right now. So I guess tumblr just exposed me to new information and that led me to reflect on the formal education I’d received and its failings, but to be honest I’m not sure if that’s unique to tumblr or if just being online in any sort of vaguely political space as a teenager would have had the same effect on me. | They’re just my funny little online guys. I’ve followed a lot of these people for the better part of 10 years and even though I don’t know half of their names, I feel a weird sense of kinship with a lot of them as a result. These are people who grew up kind of parallel to me, and I can look back at their old url they haven’t changed since 2013, or the shit they post on the regular and briefly be confronted with holy shit we connected somehow by complete coincidence years ago and even if we haven’t even talked, we’ve been sitting here in this space talking at each other that whole time, kind of absorbing what the other had to say even when we weren’t actively aware of it. I owe way too much of my sense of humour to these people - I quote old posts, I have entire in jokes with my irl friends built on them - and I don’t even fucking know them lol. It’s strangely comforting sometimes. I have a really good, supportive group of irl friends, but there’s something really neat about coming back online to the same old faces after years and just witnessing what’s going on with them. | Piracy guides have become kind of essential to me to be honest. I never got good at torrenting when I was a young teen, and then I fell into streaming when my parents paid for official services for a few years, but given that I’m both poor as shit now and (conveniently) ideologically opposed to the absolute hell that is late stage capitalism’s effect on the accessibility of art for the general public, learning how to freely and safely pirate from equally fed up young people on a site like tumblr has been a life saver. Or! Even just learning about things like library services and free public online facilities, tumblr consistently has the most stupidly niche knowledge stored up somewhere in a post that one day magically floats across your dash and blesses you with a ton of previously hidden information that makes life a lot more convenient or allows you to engage with small things like media consumption a little bit more ethically than before and I really cannot over state how neat that is. | I can’t really put it into words, so I apologise for that, but there’s been a lot of discourse on tumblr especially over the last 2 or so years and in the wake of Musk buying twitter about the very distinct subculture that has developed here since the 2018 post porn ban purge (what a collection of buzz words), and I just feel like yeah. That’s what this space feels like. There’s a weird fucking culture here that runs counter to the very vast majority of other online spaces we inhabit most hours of the day. It’s not actively hostile, it’s somehow become deeply communal (from once being a place known for being excessively fickle and canceling anyone for anything), and it’s still curated by you for you. That’s WILD, is it not? I’m weirdly thankful to have a place online that’s both as free as tumblr is, and as populated as it is - as in, I’m not being forced to use some small new start up that has like 50 people on there with me, so I’m still able to encounter new people and new ideas constantly. And I’m kind of fond of it, too, as much as so many people on this website make me want to rip my hair out. It helps that I’m pretty sure like 90% of this website’s (active) user base is young queer, often neurodivergent people. It somehow hasn’t been poisoned by corporate interests or the far right or influencer culture, and the majority of its users are actively antagonistic and resentful towards any attempts to change that fact. (OR, it has been affected by these phenomena in some spaces, to some degree, but by virtue of how curatable this place is, I have been able to completely seal myself off from all that mess and build a little cave for myself). Anyway, good luck with your dissertation, I hope something in here was helpful! | ||||||
88 | 10/31/2022 14:32:59 | Mason Alexander | 17, just under two years | Sort of, I've learned some social justice concepts and also a couple of interpersonal relationship bettering tips. Lots of my political viewpoints and values come from Tumblr. | It changed it in a sense that I became even more inclined towards a certain position. | They don't know my real name but know lots about me that I don't express to people IRL. Things like my struggles with bipolar disorder, political standpoints, fondness of piracy, etc. | Everything. I have an #important tag that I put some of those into, mostly piracy guides seen as I'm a data hoarder. They mean a lot. | I didn't even know Tumblr was a home for open-source, and am pleasantly surprised. Girlblogging, for what I know of it, is funny. Digital curation is best when done by humans who know you instead of an algorithm, like done with content on Tumblr by your mutuals. | ||||||
89 | 10/31/2022 14:58:58 | daniela | 21. I have been on tumblr since 2016 when I was 15 years old. | Definitely -- it gave me an understanding of the LGBT community that was completely different from my upbringing, and allowed me to have a space to develop my own political beliefs away from my parents and my own highly insular conservative environment. That's not to say it was always great -- I was highly susceptible to misinformation and was very shaky and scattered with my beliefs at that time, but I would say that it gave me a pretty significant head start. | Absolutely. Because of the new worldview that tumblr helped build for me, I began to see my own private christian education in a new light and became highly skeptical and cynical. And for good reason. Now that I have been out of school for three years I can see that my education was very limited and damaging. I also went to a christian university for a semester because of finances and I held that experience at arm's length. At my private christian school, academic excellence was the modus operandi. University was the only path, and so people who graduated and went immediately into the work force or went to a community college first were considered failures. Not openly, but that sentiment always lay beneath the surface. And that sentiment terrified me. It is why I went to the christian college instead of taking a year to work and assess my options, like I did later. I do think education is important, in fact, I am going back to college for the spring semester of 2023. However, because of the tools for questioning that I developed through tumblr, I now seek education on my own terms. All education looks different, and the academic path is not singularly correct. I have been out of school since the end of 2019, but I have never stopped learning. | Back when I was in high school I had a tight knit group of mutuals that I developed through a competition over a shared interest, and we talked every day. They were very important to me and supported me during a time when my mental health was very low. I ended up having all my devices taken away for over a year and then my old blog got deleted, so we lost touch, but I am forever thankful that I had them during that time. I have new mutuals now, but we rarely speak. I would like to reach out but I am quite a nervous person so for now I admire from afar. | They are the heart and soul of the site. There is nothing more human than sharing knowledge and support, and fostering creativity and conversation. | There is a lot to love about tumblr, and it is these things that make it interesting and special. However, it is still the responsibility of each individual to make sure that they and other people are not contributing to harmful ideas or spreading misinformation. Sometimes people share sites that are disturbing. Sometimes they share misinformation. Sometimes the web weaving posts are for a fandom that is inexcusably damaging to minority groups. Tumblr is a personal curation site, and so it is important for us as users to curate with care and intention. | ||||||
90 | 10/31/2022 15:21:02 | Jago | 23, 11 years | Yes- it has made me more aware of literature that I wouldn’t have consumed otherwise, and given me a deeper contextualisation of media analysis | Yes- it actually helped me realise and get diagnosed with ADHD, which gave me access to tools that dramatically improved my learning habits | Honestly I respect them more than the people I know in my life, and my main group of friends now are people I met through tumblr | They make finding forgotten and lost media easier and more accessible to a broader audience | |||||||
91 | 10/31/2022 16:22:42 | Magda | 24; 10 or 11 years | Yes. Has opened me to new concepts and knowledge in the realm of politics, art, literature, media discussion. | No | I don’t interact with them much. I am mainly online to look at photos and quotes and whatnot | N/A | |||||||
92 | 10/31/2022 16:37:16 | Nikki | 23 and I’ve been on tumblr since I was about 15! | Most likely. Tumblr affected me in many ways. It made me think about social issues that I wouldn’t have otherwise even known about. I think it also helped me in the development of my emotional intelligence because there is lots of poetry on there. | I wouldn’t say it changed the way I thought about education, because those beliefs were always there. But it made me realize that I wasn’t alone in those thoughts. | I follow so many people on tumblr who’s inner lives are very similar to mine, and I don’t come across many people like that in real life. I think the anonymity of it really helps. So it’s a community that makes me feel like I can be myself. Many anonymous communities online can be harmful, but my tumblr community is so positive and full of love and it’s amazing to be a part of. | ||||||||
93 | 10/31/2022 18:42:58 | Rachele | 24, I’ve been on tumblr from 2012ish to 2015ish so three years, even if I still have an account | I definitely learned how to use HTMLs and how to download safe stuff online. Also a lot of fan culture. | It for sure made “intellectual” stuff cool, such as poetry and extra complicated books, not much else other than that. | I felt quite close to people that I didn’t know. Much much more easy to find people in the same interest-bubble as you. | I don’t know much about the topic. I for sure downloaded a couple of adobe programs for free illegally from tumblr tho. | Amazingly strong fan culture, even if a bit different from Twitter’s. Pass me the term - a bit of a fucked up social network that made me think that I needed to “be different” to be someone. | ||||||
94 | 10/31/2022 20:17:02 | bridget! | 21, 8 years | Yes! Tumblr was where I put my feelers out, as we have to do when we're 13: I was discovering what I thought was funny, beautiful, interesting, and terrible. | Tumblr made me feel that everyone was entitled to most things, like information and resources. It was founded on the principle that we're all better when we uplift each other. | Mutuals usually find each other because they consume the same content. Some I could no longer relate to once one or both of us had moved on from whatever medium joined us, but I guess that is just what a "medium" is for. | I think web weaving is a pretty beautiful way of communicating an idea. It's half delivering information and half collage art, and that part makes the first part even more effective. There are all these fragments floating around, and when we link them, we get to explore new contours of the same ideas. | Love all of it | ||||||
95 | 10/31/2022 20:25:44 | Salem | 24, 8 years | Yes- I gradually discovered poetry. It drove me to pursue an english degree (especially after exposing me to what fanfiction can be + offer). A good portion of new political and social ideas were first discussed on tumblr, as well as alternate lenses and perspectives on how to be. | Yes- I realized education wasn't an end state or a result, or an achievement. It is a continuous process, and we are all scattering out in a hundred different directions of learning. | We have niches in a way irl acquaintances don't. I have one mutual who is capable of dissertation-level expounding about the significance of time loops in plot, and have no idea what most of their other opinions are. You're able to focus on certain ideas (or create sideblogs to do so) and be specific in your thinking and creation in a way other social media or irl interactions discourage. | I literally created a web weaving sideblog to store the ones I found as I found them (digital-assemblage, if you're curious). I find them to be digital forms of collage, of the kind of recombination that is intrinsic but is discouraged by capitalism and a profit-motive-focused culture. Reference posts allow me to lean on the analysis and thinking other relative experts have done, rather than wasting precious time reinventing the wheel trying to sort informational wheat from chaff. I support art when I can, but in a culture where all media is in conversation with itself + money is finite, piracy offers an essential tool to stay in the know about pop culture. | We teach ourselves, and we are slowly developing unique art forms and communication styles that circumvent the traditional hierarchy education offers. (Take this with a grain of salt; I do have an English degree lol) | ||||||
96 | 10/31/2022 21:00:30 | iamunderwear | 22 years old, been on tumblr for 9 years | it definitely has. being non tumblr through my developmental years provided a lot of different perspectives and lived experiences that i don’t think i would have been exposed to without it. it helped me a lot with my development of critical thinking skills. | i think since tumblr acted as a platform for a lot of smaller voices, it showed me that what we learn in educational institutions is not the limit of what there is to be learned. | they are similar to irl acquaintances but i do feel like i know them and they know me in a much different way than people that i know offline. the ability to curate who those digital acquaintances are makes being honest about interests that i have much easier than with in person interactions. instead of finding each other by happenstance of situations, my mutuals have found each other based on common interests which is more than i can say of most people i know offline. | as a thinker, i think the more accessible resources can be, the better. it’s important to keep these resources circulating so that people can have access to more information and media. as a blogger, i personally have a side blog dedicated to collecting reference posts, so i definitely think of them very positively. | i think the fact that you’re able to build your dissertation around tumblr already says a lot about the resources that it can provide as not just a media consumption site, but as a means of passing around information and education. it definitely has its flaws, but there are aspects of this site that i don’t think any other media platform can really emulate. that being said, good luck on your dissertation ester!!! i’m at the tail end of my undergrad and this shit is hard, so i’m proud of you for getting as far as you have (: i hope you’ll end up posting your published work, because i would love to read it!!! | ||||||
97 | 10/31/2022 23:14:11 | Brittany | 28 since i was 14 | Somewhat in an encyclopedic way | Not really | Im more judgmental online and limit my engagement w mutuals and feel disconnected. IRL I make friends based on convenience and complementary energy levels | ||||||||
98 | 11/1/2022 0:18:40 | liberty | Im 21. Ive been on and off since 14. | Not a lot. Book reccomendations mostly. Sharing of google drives. | I think its important to have reading comprehension and critical analysis type skills. | Im not very social online. Some people i talk to but i wouldnt say ive ever had true online friends. | I learned to pirate from my dad, guides help me. Reference posts have helped in the past or links to pdfs. | Tumblr is pretty cool i obviously like it but honestly. Its had negative effects. Girlblogging by far encourages shit behaviors in me (think ed content) but also its nice to feel camrederie | ||||||
99 | 11/1/2022 15:10:01 | Μary | I'm 30 and I've been on tumblr since 2010, when I was 18. | It actually really has - I'm in Cultural Studies all my life, both in my undergraduate and graduate studies, and I started sharing bits of what I was reading on my blog. To this day, most of my posts are not reblogs but self-posted fragments of what I read for research and many people have expressed they discovered a lot through my blog. My blog probably serves as a mapping of my intellectual development through the years. Eventually, I created a password-protected second tumblr that I made into an archive of all -literally all- my readings since about 2017, with a neat tagging system. I probably wouldn't have made it through my studies without this, by now it's an organized archive of not just readings, but project notes and even diary entries so if this platform ever crushes I fear I'd lose a strip of my life. | It definitely made me aware of how the habits of knowledge consumption have changed in the digital age and how sometimes it can provide a space for sharing. | Most people came to my blog for the theory and expressed gratitude for all the theoretical references they were discovering through my posts, but when I went through the most difficult time in my life probably and started sharing more personal stuff, I got extreme love, support and encouragement, and in the end this is why I still stay on this website even though I'm probably too old for it at this point - the community is a vital part of it. I find some of my mutuals brilliant thinkers and their amateur analyses sometimes feel more sophisticated than those of my uni peers. | I'm unfamiliar with those - I had to google them, oops. | I think what makes this platform unique is that you can't make money or clout off it, it's not like instagram, twitter or youtube etc. To many it feels obsolete and many IRL friends of mine are surprised it still exists. Since it escapes the law of value, it tends to become a space of reinhabiting the negative, all that we repress in order to look 'perfect' and 'functional' at all times, in order to look good for potential bosses or to monetize every last part of our existence. Girlblogging becomes a space of inhabiting womanhood differently, a space to be wounded, intensely enamored, exhausted, quirky. All the nuances, 'the accursed share' that has to be edited out of our public persona can be reclaimed. | ||||||
100 | 11/1/2022 16:04:04 | ecrituria | I'm 28 and have been on tumblr since 2009 (!) | oh yes, following blogs that post quotes related to fields I'm interested in (literature, philosophy, etc.) is a unique way of being exposed to what I think of as an archive of figures, texts, concepts, etc. in that field. so often, quotes from books or essays would end up on my bookshelf or on my computer as a pdf. instead of reading one text in-depth, tumblr encourages the sharing of small excerpts and citations, which is a really interesting way to think through a particular idea or issue. | hmm. i think tumblr can complement the educational process, i.e., foster discussion, circulate concepts, but i don't think it's a substitute for the classroom or for pursuing self-education offline | they mean everything to me, even/especially the ones no longer here. tumblr is where I first learned that friendship didn't have to be limited to an arbitrary geographic boundary and that we could have a social network based not on people we already knew in real life but based on common interests with complete strangers. i am such an introvert and so quiet, so on tumblr i could share and talk in a way i found difficult in real life. | (i'm not a girl so feel free to disregard my answers) |