god the commercialisation of the internet makes me sad. as someone who also grew up in the heyday of tumblr fandom (and is still involved in tumblr fandoms today--its a good vibe there tbh!) the thing i miss the most is that the internet used to feel like a park i could hang out in, but now it feels like a jungle that i have to march through, wacking bullshit away with a machete, just to get to the good parts.
and what sucks the most is that really the only way to get around the things i don't like about social media is through personal actions--get an adblocker, use the computer instead of my phone, limit my time on apps, et cetera. but there's nothing i can say or do that will actually fundamentally change these apps to be more community-centric (as opposed to ad-centric) because instagram, tiktok, etc. all have a huge monetary incentive to keep things the way they are. watching the whole internet go downhill over the past ten years or so, with seemingly no end in sight, is just depressing. i hope more people start to realise they deserve better and things start to change
A park is the exact analogy I had in mind when writing this piece. It's troubling that there's so much onus put on the individual to prevent getting sucked into a heavily commercialized internet because that can only go so far. Platforms setting community-driven precedents is really the only path forward because they hold so much of the power.
“I was listening to Lana del Rey’s Ultraviolence this week and - as typically happens when I listen to that album - I experienced a kind of out-of-body ascension.” What a way to open this essay, and it’s 100% true! Ultraviolence is my fave album of hers, it scratches some kind of itch in my brain. As per usual, fantastic essay! I can definitely relate to growing up with various internet niches that felt exciting and special. Now I find less online about common interests and more about aesthetics, products, and lifestyles. Theres really no neutral third place to escape to anymore and if we do find it, it’s limited.
Hm, not to push back too strongly here (yes, social media is way more commercial than it was a decade ago) - but when I was on Tumblr around 2014 or so, I felt like there was an unspoken (and sometimes very spoken) rule that writing under someone else's post when you reblogged it was a breach of etiquette. And the format of the website - no chat feature up until *after* the Yahoo acquisition, posts becoming unreadable if more than ~three people reblogged with comments, etc - seemed to me to discourage communication. Could have been a "local norm" among my friend group, of course.
I see your point - dialogue may not have been as rampant on Tumblr as other social
media apps. I think the platform played a poignant role in developing fandoms and community members then took to other platforms to converse in a more in-depth manner. Regardless, Tumblr did help develop a niche sense of community online in various pockets, in a very visceral sense, which is at the core of my thoughts here.
what's interesting about tumblr is that i feel like there was always a larger communication around posts that was happening on instagram, reddit, and pinterest. like, for as long as tumblr has been around, people have been reposting tumblr posts onto those other sites and talking about them there. tumblr posts from that era seem less like places to communicate and more like origin points for discussions that travel across the internet.
it's kinda wild to think about now, because i use tumblr more than any other social media these days. its the only site that feels truly anonymous anymore, and its much easier to find community on there instead of having content fed to you with an algorithm
That was definitely a big part of my experience too! I always remember seeing Tumblr text posts on Instagram and people discussing them further on there. But I think it's that visceral, anonymous nature of Tumblr that makes it feel even more like an organic community - like you point out.
god the commercialisation of the internet makes me sad. as someone who also grew up in the heyday of tumblr fandom (and is still involved in tumblr fandoms today--its a good vibe there tbh!) the thing i miss the most is that the internet used to feel like a park i could hang out in, but now it feels like a jungle that i have to march through, wacking bullshit away with a machete, just to get to the good parts.
and what sucks the most is that really the only way to get around the things i don't like about social media is through personal actions--get an adblocker, use the computer instead of my phone, limit my time on apps, et cetera. but there's nothing i can say or do that will actually fundamentally change these apps to be more community-centric (as opposed to ad-centric) because instagram, tiktok, etc. all have a huge monetary incentive to keep things the way they are. watching the whole internet go downhill over the past ten years or so, with seemingly no end in sight, is just depressing. i hope more people start to realise they deserve better and things start to change
A park is the exact analogy I had in mind when writing this piece. It's troubling that there's so much onus put on the individual to prevent getting sucked into a heavily commercialized internet because that can only go so far. Platforms setting community-driven precedents is really the only path forward because they hold so much of the power.
“I was listening to Lana del Rey’s Ultraviolence this week and - as typically happens when I listen to that album - I experienced a kind of out-of-body ascension.” What a way to open this essay, and it’s 100% true! Ultraviolence is my fave album of hers, it scratches some kind of itch in my brain. As per usual, fantastic essay! I can definitely relate to growing up with various internet niches that felt exciting and special. Now I find less online about common interests and more about aesthetics, products, and lifestyles. Theres really no neutral third place to escape to anymore and if we do find it, it’s limited.
So glad you can relate!! I feel like so many around my age that grew up on the internet share this experience
Currently my favorite spaces are Reddit & Discord-overall they are not coming for me besides the sponsored posts on Reddit.
I feel like I can bathe in conversation with my attention rarely interrupted by ads.
Were not *usually* selling our souls there, but rather there to chat and refresh.
Hm, not to push back too strongly here (yes, social media is way more commercial than it was a decade ago) - but when I was on Tumblr around 2014 or so, I felt like there was an unspoken (and sometimes very spoken) rule that writing under someone else's post when you reblogged it was a breach of etiquette. And the format of the website - no chat feature up until *after* the Yahoo acquisition, posts becoming unreadable if more than ~three people reblogged with comments, etc - seemed to me to discourage communication. Could have been a "local norm" among my friend group, of course.
I see your point - dialogue may not have been as rampant on Tumblr as other social
media apps. I think the platform played a poignant role in developing fandoms and community members then took to other platforms to converse in a more in-depth manner. Regardless, Tumblr did help develop a niche sense of community online in various pockets, in a very visceral sense, which is at the core of my thoughts here.
what's interesting about tumblr is that i feel like there was always a larger communication around posts that was happening on instagram, reddit, and pinterest. like, for as long as tumblr has been around, people have been reposting tumblr posts onto those other sites and talking about them there. tumblr posts from that era seem less like places to communicate and more like origin points for discussions that travel across the internet.
it's kinda wild to think about now, because i use tumblr more than any other social media these days. its the only site that feels truly anonymous anymore, and its much easier to find community on there instead of having content fed to you with an algorithm
That was definitely a big part of my experience too! I always remember seeing Tumblr text posts on Instagram and people discussing them further on there. But I think it's that visceral, anonymous nature of Tumblr that makes it feel even more like an organic community - like you point out.
Yeah, tumblr screenshots were everywhere on the rest of social media. Feels like that's the niche Reddit fills in 2023 (AITA?)