![]() And for those who produced their own NSFW content, Tumblr’s leniency meant income. For the user base, access to queer, feminist and alternative representations of sex and sexuality was meaningful, leading to self-exploration and community building for vulnerable groups such as LGBTQ+ youth. Such openness also facilitated the rise in NSFW content that became a core part of Tumblr’s identity. ![]() Tumblr founder David Karp meets with President Barack Obama in 2014 at a high point for the social media platform. This approach contributed to its explosive growth, which crested in 20 when Tumblr claimed users spent more time on the site than Facebook and Twitter. In allotting greater control over how users presented themselves online – through, for example, pseudonymity and relaxed content moderation – Tumblr stood out as a bastion for creative expression. Both the individualized blogs and real-time feeds display an array of original and re-blogged media, ranging from written posts to videos. This is partly due to the flexibility of the main user interfaces. In spite of that, Tumblr remains a home to art, fandom, memes and social critique. At the same time, it has long dealt with issues such as recurrent bugs and functionality problems, bullying, hate speech and the glorification of self-harm, leading some users to term it the “blue hellsite.” Since its inception, Tumblr has served as a countercultural hub for women, queer folks, young people and marginalized communities. From ‘blue hellsite’ to hell in a handbasket And in the years following the NSFW ban, I’ve seen many try to make sense of Tumblr as a platform on the cusp of a comeback or a vestige of a bygone era.Īnd yet, long overshadowed by social media platforms like Facebook and Snapchat, Tumblr continues to resist easy answers to what it is and could be. Both as a communication researcher and early era user of Tumblr, I’ve contemplated the site’s unique place in internet culture.
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