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ABOUT

In the increasingly vast collections of websites and cultural landmarks among the sea that is the internet, one, in particular, stands out. At its peak, it was one of the most influential websites among teenagers, garnering over thirteen billion page views in 2013 (Britannica). Now, having lost nearly $712 million of its original value, it serves as a symbolic warning for online spaces: a reminder that the bigger you are, the harder you fall. My goal for this project is to outline the vast impact Tumblr has had on online culture using the circuit of culture method and address the subsequent “fall from grace” Tumblr experienced from 2016 to the present. I want to explore the many different subcultures that arose on the site due to its broad user base and specifically highlight significant shifts the site has gone through as a whole over time, including, but not limited to, the ban of adult content, the sites sell to Yahoo, and the mass exodus of its user base. While completing this project, one of the main questions I will ask is why Tumblr failed and how it became infamous. I will also explore how Tumblr’s users have been affected by the overall community and culture that was promoted and seen as acceptable during Tumblr’s heyday, specifically concerning prominent events regarding these users, such as grave-robbing, the glamorization of mental illness, and lying about fatal diseases. 

In order to effectively and accurately convey all of this information within my project, I have consulted a myriad of sources, both personal accounts and scholarly articles written on the topic. The ones I use are listed in my Annotated Bibliography, which can be found in which you can read the articles or watch the videos I reference in their entirety. This can be found here. I will also provide screenshots and videos of events I will be referencing, as most of Tumblr’s history is incredibly well documented, and many concrete and physical examples still exist. In order to provide an accessible and digestible reading of my project, I have divided this project into six sections, which are linked at the top of the page for ease. These sections include “Production, Consumption, Identity, Representation, and Regulation.”

My conclusion can be found here. Alternatively, you can also scroll, as everything is posted in readable order.

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ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Click "Read More" (May not be complete due to Tumblr's restraints. Completed bibliography turned in separately).

This article, written by a collection of researchers, focuses on the culture surrounding Tumblr that promotes self-harm. The article deeply discusses how social media can push people to self-harm by creating a culture that is not sympathetic to the illness but one that actually promotes the illness. The article claims that there is a large community of self-harmers that are connected through discourse on Tumblr, relating to each other through the way their acts are vilified and infamous within the grander community of Tumblr. The article also claims that Tumblr’s regulation of certain hashtags (such as #ed or #selfharm) continues to promote this culture. By “silencing” this community, it only encourages them to look for alternative ways to post, making the community even tighter. This is because only those with an “in” to the community can even find it. 

This article is an anthropological article that has been peer-reviewed and has its methodology listed plainly. Furthermore, the article does not list names or usernames when discussing the events taking place. This article is useful as it helps to give context and reasoning as to why the communities on Tumblr are so tight-knit and have been able to resist multiple bannings and censoring of keywords. The authors provide a wide and detailed study that is a great resource for my project.

Fyfe, Melissa. “Rise and Fall of Jess Miller's Pizza Empire.” The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sydney Morning Herald, 12 May 2016, https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/rise-and-fall-of-jess-millers-pizza-empire-20160512-gotftv.html. 

Griffith, Frances J., and Catherine H. Stein. “Behind the Hashtag: Online Disclosure of Mental Illness and Community Response on Tumblr.” American Journal of Community Psychology, vol. 67, no. 3/4, June 2021, pp. 419–32. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12483.

This article examines personal accounts of mental illness through hashtags like #depression or #mental illness. The article explores the tendencies of Tumblr users to post about their illnesses and about how these postings can create subcultures and communities that revolve around propagating mental illness, not combatting it. The article talks about how the rates of Tumblr users who post about mental illness (by “post,” the author means more of a romanticization of illness, not awareness) increase when paired with a community that encourages that type of behavior. This way, the author shows how subcultures arise because of Tumblr and why they become so popular. This article can also show the detriment of these subcultures and how users can get sucked into difficult behaviors to maintain a community.

This is a peer-reviewed scholarly article written through the lens of psychology to observe the effects of these subcultures. It uses personal experiences, accounts, and public blog posts of 14,626 Tumblr users disclosing ten different mental health diagnoses using hashtags. This article is useful to me because, like the NSFW subculture, the mentally ill subculture is another window into how Tumblr propagates specific and unique cultures and the effects these subcultures have on the site's culture as a whole.

Nipples, Memes, and Algorithmic Failure: NSFW Critique of Tumblr ... https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461444820979280. 

This article discusses the banning of adult content on Tumblr, mostly in regard to the destruction of valuable subcultures on Tumblr, but also about the ways that Tumblr users resisted this ban. The article claims that Tumblr’s automatic filter does more harm than good, as it not only deleted adult content but unrelated pictures, like those of fully clothed people. The claim that Tumblr was banning “female-presenting nipples” also sparked many controversies, and the article talks heavily about the backlash Tumblr faced from its users because of this banning. The article also talks about the “memes” that came from these bans and how, even with the destruction of so many subcultures, more subcultures came to take their place.

This is a peer-reviewed, scholarly journal in which methodology and research are clearly defined and available for the reader. The article uses “7306 posts made between November 2018 (when Tumblr announced its new content policy) and August 2019 (when Verizon sold Tumblr to Automattic),” to base its findings around and provides a myriad of video and photo sources. This source is valuable to me because it discusses not only culture and community on Tumblr but also the failure of the Tumblr algorithm and how resilient these cultures can be.

“The Downward Spiral of a Tumblr User Ligaturemarkings.” YouTube, YouTube, 9 Oct. 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLarLdHA-NE

“The Evolution of the Tumblr Girl.” YouTube, YouTube, 28 Mar. 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1TF7pcYePw. 

“The Fatphobia of Early 2010s Tumblr.” YouTube, YouTube, 7 Mar. 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKhmwRwHjtU

This video goes in-depth about the fatphobia and shaming that was heavily incorporated into the culture of early 2010’s Tumblr. This video talks about cultural moments in history that shape the culture of Tumblr, such as the formation of boybands and the 2008 recession. The creator, Jessica Blair, also mentions that beauty gurus were immensely popular during this time and uses personal anecdotes and experiences to convey her message. She speaks about certain aesthetics that were popular at the time and how these aesthetics might affirm the biased ideas against fat people at the time. She claims that in the early 2010s Tumblr, thinness was everything and that almost every trend or clothing aesthetic that circulated at the time excluded fat people and promoted almost unhealthy thinness. Blair also talks about eating disorders on Tumblr, the normalization and glamorization of anorexia, and how brands like Brandy Melville helped to romanticize being thin. Blair also talks briefly about the domination of whiteness in this era and how fatphobia is linked to racism, specifically toward black women.

This source is a well-documented video in which the author uses scholarly articles and personal accounts to prove her claims. Blair uses direct photos and quotes from Tumblr accounts that were popular during the early 2010s and references many possible outside influences that affected the culture of thinness at the time. This video is useful to me because it is a highly detailed account of not just a certain time in Tumblr’s history but also of a specific detrimental culture being promoted. Blair also gives many examples of pivotal cultural aspects of the time outside of Tumblr, which can help me understand how certain times and actions change how culture manifests on Tumblr.

“The Story of the 20,000 Dollar Furry Commission.” YouTube, YouTube, 18 Jan. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTHgEV-xUSg. 

“The Tumblr Era Is Back...and We Should Be Worried.” YouTube, YouTube, 27 Sept. 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fz30qZ35UY. 

“The Tumblr Exodus.” YouTube, YouTube, 8 June 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyekDJU2iOY. 

Tiidenberg, Katrin. "Boundaries and Conflict in a NSFW Community on Tumblr: The Meanings and Uses of Selfies." New Media & Society, 2015, https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814567984 Accessed 19 Apr. 2023.

This article also talks about banning adult content on Tumblr and the culture surrounding selfies or “self-shooting,” as the author calls it. The main goal of this article is to explore how selfies affirm, destroy, change, or conceptualize community and culture, specifically through the lens of “NSFW” (not safe for work, a phrase that refers to pornographic or gory material) photos. The article also talks about how the banning of NSFW content from Tumblr affected the subculture of “self-shot” pornography and what this ban meant in the grand scheme of the overall Tumblr community. It goes in-depth on a very specific community and culture, defining the good and bad parts while maintaining a sense of neutralism. 

This is a peer-reviewed article published in a scholarly journal, and like the others, it serves as an ethnographic, anthropological study. The study uses various “not safe for work” examples from personal blogs with original content or blogs that recirculate content and provides a detailed section describing their methodology. This source is useful for me because it provides another and objectively unique look into the ban on adult content and provides a specific and centralized community and culture that was effective. It also defines a huge cultural moment in Tumblr’s history that had a lot of affects on Tumblr as a whole.

“‘Tumblr Is Dominated by America:" A Study of Linguistic and Cultural Differences in Tumblr Transnational Fandom.” Taylor & Francis, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10714421.2022.2126589

This article focuses on the dominance of American culture on Tumblr, specifically through the lens of linguistics and how non-Americans are affected by this Western domination. This article analyzes non-American fans’ engagement with Tumblr and explores the motivations of non-English speakers and non-Americans to join Tumblr. The article builds on the idea that websites are extremely large cultural spaces and explores the differences between communities produced by English-speaking American users and transnational users. The article discusses the idea of “transcultures,” what blended cultures look like, and how social media sites propagate and encourage blending even the most distinct cultures.

This is a peer-reviewed article with the methodology clearly and boldly listed, and the author is participating in ethnographic research in the field of anthropology. The study uses interviews with 19 Tumblr users, both transnational and American fans, to accurately study these blended cultures. This article is useful because it allows me to garner proven examples of how Tumblr affects and morphs cultures and communities. This also shows that Tumblr is a site that is not just significant in Western cultures (ie. America) but also in many parts of the world. I talk a lot about the blending of subcultures within Tumblr, and this article really helped me understand how cultures become blended and what the overall effects of these blended cultures are.

TumblrMart – Help Center. https://help.tumblr.com/hc/en-us/articles/7467765335575-TumblrMart. 

“Tumblr.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Apr. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumblr. 

“Why Tumblr Died so Quickly.” YouTube, YouTube, 4 Sept. 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esUriEoFfUc. “Tumblr.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 19 Apr. 2023, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumblr. “Why Was Tumblr so Queer ?” YouTube, YouTube, 21 Nov. 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvlLrd-BKW0.

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PRODUCTION

The first thing I’d like to discuss regarding Tumblr’s overall culture is the production of this culture. More specifically, I want to talk about who is circulating, promoting, and profiting from the plethora of subcultures that have sprung from Tumblr’s user base. Created in 2007 by CEO David Karp and CTO Marc Ament, Tumblr is a site that allows users to blog about whatever they desire; movies, books, cooking, and more. In addition to running their blog, users can like and “reblog” others' posts in a fashion that is similar to Twitter. In 2013, Tumblr was sold to Yahoo for $1.1 billion in cash, but many users were troubled by this sale, causing a massive culture shift that revolved around rebelling and petition signings in an attempt to curb the sale. Eventually, Yahoo did acquire Tumblr from Karp, but Yahoo’s integration was unsuccessful, and Tumblr lost over $752 million of its original value due to faulty marketing attempts on Yahoo’s end. Verizon bought Tumblr in 2017 but was unsuccessful in maintaining profits and users, with over 30%  of its user traffic lost. With the ban of adult content in 2018, Tumblr reached a dark period for both users and owners, so it was once again sold to Auttomatic in 2019, the mother site of WordPress, to whom it belongs today (2023). The sale price is undisclosed but is rumored to have been around $3 million, a significant markdown from the $1.1 billion Karp sold it for during its peak (Wikipedia).

Tumblr’s operating model is similar to other social networking websites. Still, instead of creating a “page,” users can create their own blog, including custom HTML that allows for full creative license. Like Twitter, users on Tumblr can “reblog” other’s posts and have them appear on their blog or create their own posts with options for photos, videos, or text boxes. 

At its most popular, Tumblr was relatively “ad-free,” with most of the purchases being made on Tumblr stemming from private sales, like premium theme codes, art or writing commissions, or personal promotions from popular blogs. One user, Jess Miller, known simply as “Pizza” on Tumblr, was one of the few profiting from Tumblr in the early 2010s, earning about $10,000 a week at sixteen when her blog was at its peak through product advertisements and sponsorships (Fyfe). After its sale to Yahoo, ads became common on Tumblr, causing uproar from many communities. Some of these ads were so ridiculous, or so far from the views of their audiences, that these ads often became memes, in which users mock them for their poor quality. (See below posts by @/alliswyattonthewesternfront and @/bellanes-in-archeld). 

Later, Tumblr would introduce multiple attempts at site-wide premium options, such as “Post+” and “TumblrMart.” Post+ was introduced in 2021, claiming this on their Tumblr account @/postplus: “Diehard fans and new audiences across the globe can support your supreme creations for as little as $1.99—right from the comfort of their dash.” TumblrMart offers an ad-free experience for Tumblr, as well as merch and various exclusive “gifts” for users (Tumblr Support). Both of the mentioned attempts garnered harsh criticism from users, with many taking to Tumblr to complain. An account called @/postplus-protest posted a text chain detailing how to stop Post+ from “ruining” Tumblr, which received over 100,000 “notes” or likes: “Besides filling out the survey, it is time to show Tumblr we mean business and show our displeasure by hitting them where it hurts. Ad revenue.” User @a/fxs posted a meme below in which they even claim that this attempt at ad money by Tumblr is turning the site’s users anti-capitalist:

Overall, the production of Tumblr has been a rocky slope, and with the added struggle of its’ rebelling user base, it is no shock that Tumblr has lost about 90% of its worth since its original sale to Yahoo (Wikipedia).

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CONSUMPTION

Now that we have talked about the production of Tumblr and what exactly is keeping the lights on, let's discuss who its consumers are. As the site’s attempts at attracting revenue have been unsuccessful, I’m focusing on the personal productions of Tumblr’s users, specifically its fandoms. From true crime to Doctor Who, fandoms have a special place on Tumblr that isn’t found on many other websites, and many of Tumblr’s biggest money-makers use fandoms to garner “commissions” (art or writings usually from a fandom that are created in exchange for a fixed rate) from other fans. This consumer base is unique to Tumblr, as its wholly separate from Tumblr as a company. Tumblr simply serves as a very convenient platform in which users can find those who share similar interests.

 In their video The Story Of The 20,000 Dollar Furry Commission, YouTube creator Izzzyzzz talks about the story of a fandom artist being paid $20,000 to create a portrait of their “fursona” (a fictionalized creation by members of the “furry” fandom, in which they use a heavily designed anthropomorphized animal for affirming or lewd purposes). This sale is, of course, on the extreme side, but it can help define how popular commissions can be. The prices of these commissions can range from a few dollars to a few thousand dollars, depending on the complexity of the art, the popularity of the artists, and so on (Izzzyzzz, 1:50). Many Tumblr users use commissions as their basis of income, usually waxing about a lost job, vet bills, or other relatable grievances that can attract fans who want to help. Of course, there are a few subsets of fans who want commissions no matter what, and many artists have commissions open during certain times, like during the premier of a new season of a show, and so on. I have attached an example of a commission here so you can see how users sell or buy art.

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IDENTITY

Now, let’s talk about the identity of the users who participate in and change the cultures that make Tumblr Tumblr. The idea of the “Tumblr Girl” is an image that has become increasingly notorious in Internet circles, treated almost as a relic of a time long past– a group of people to be ogled at by would-be ethnographers hungry for their rich and infamous subcultures. The specific identity of a “Tumblr Girl” is a varied one, with dozens of subcultures that present their own niches in the grand scheme of Tumblr’s culture: goth, twee, grunge, hipsters, fangirls are some of the more famous examples (Izzzyzzz, 3:13-19:40). But, lurking in the somewhat harmless subcultures created for teenage girls on the site, more dangerous and sinister identities arose, creating the aesthetic of the “sad girl,” in which mental struggles and self-harm became an idealized form of uniqueness. Working hand in hand with the “sad girls,” “pro-ana” and “pro-mia” became a staple for Tumblr’s darker subcultures, with “pro-ana” meaning pro-anorexia and “pro-mia” meaning pro-bulimia (Blair, 19:43). Tumblr’s unique blogging system and promise of anonymity help to spur users into embracing identities that may not be so healthy: “The internet has afforded those who self-injure, especially young people, a relatively safe space to talk about the practice anonymously and without judgment” (Guccini, McKinley). You can see examples of dangerous and worrying posts here and here (colossal trigger warnings for these posts, which is why they are linked, not embedded). 

By creating and promoting these identities, people with mental illness further alienate themselves from help, as they create a sense of “other” with the rest of Tumblr. Often, these accounts do not care about the harm they cause, and any attempt from others to help regulate these posts to reduce their harmful effects are met with disdain and hate. Often these “pro-ana” bloggers give tips on how to achieve goal weights (often dangerous ones like 90 to 80 pounds for full-grown adults), how to reduce cravings, and how to hide the illness from doctors or guardians (Blair, 19:58). Having Tumblr as an outlet to speak on mental illness and struggles can be a good thing, such as for people who are unable to find connections elsewhere: “Building social capital through online communities is especially important for those individuals who are unable to meet in person due to inaccessibility, remoteness, or social stigma” (Griffith, Stein). However, because these accounts present their illnesses as aesthetically pleasing and desirable, those who are already struggling can be presented with extremely triggering content in which the community encourages them to alienate themselves from outsiders who would not understand. Eugenia Cooney, or @/eugeniac on Tumblr, is one of the best-known examples of pro-ana posting on Tumblr, to which she has denied all help and surrounds herself only with people and users who affirm her disorder. Though her blog has been deactivated, you can view one of her posts here, which is tagged with #pretty and #thin as though they are synonymous with each other (again, trigger warning). 

Cooney is also an example of merging cultures and identities on Tumblr. Cooney is a part of both the “pro-ana” and “emo/goth” identities that have been popularized on Tumblr and is a physical embodiment of the complicated relationship between varying identities on Tumblr. Cooney is also an example of how mainstream these identities can become when merged with others and how intertwined eating disorders, self-harm, and about every other subculture are on Tumblr.

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REGULATION

In November of 2018, one of the most significant decisions for Tumblr users was made: no more adult content would be offered on the website. After claims were made that child porn had been found on the website, Apple’s app store subsequentially removed Tumblr, prompting the app to take action to be restored (Pilipets, Paasonen). This action caused an uproar among Tumblr users, prompting many long debates and extensive rants to be posted about the issue, with many claiming censorship. According to Pilipets and Paasonen’s article Nipples, Memes, and Algorithmic Failure: NSFW Critique of Tumblr, “The remodeling of Tumblr into an SFW space meant doing away with much of its subcultural activity to accelerate more acceptable flows of content. During the first 3 months following the ban, the perceived sex-negativity of the “new more positive Tumblr” mobilized fears about many of its communities being ruined even as blogs of the extreme right (“nazis”) remained untouched.” By removing adult content, Tumblr completely destroyed several avenues of culture that were important to its overall meaning. Remember the $20,000 commission? Many of these commissions were lewd, and though the ban only battled real depictions of porn, many feared that the art community and all that they had built would be ruined, just like the adult content community was. It also didn’t help that the algorithm put in place to automatically remove nudity from the site was incredibly broken, meaning art was being taken down, along with completely innocent photos of animals or fully clothed people (hellarose, 4:05).

By having the company, Tumblr, decide who can post what, especially regarding ad revenue, the divide between Tumblr users and Tumblr only grew. After this ban, around 30% of users left the site, with that number steadily increasing with every passing year (hellarose, 3:51). Photo provided by @/hellarose on YouTube.

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REPRESENTATION

To wrap things up, Tumblr has had many issues, but its openness and ability to create spaces where people can share their interests in (relatively) judge-free subsections of the internet is not an example. When thinking about the “representation” section of the Circuit of Culture, I knew that I wanted to talk about queerness and how much of a place it has been granted in both Tumblr’s history and culture. Tumblr is a site that promotes things that others do not understand and allows the “weirdos” of the world to find true connections with others who truly understand and care about their interests. Queer people, people of color, and neurodivergent people not only have a space on Tumblr, but they have a massive one, which is a feat on its own now, let alone for the early 2010s. Neopronouns, which are unconventional pronouns such as xir/xer, gained a lot of prominence on Tumblr in queer communities. Though many outside websites, such as 4chan, attacked these ideals, Tumblr remained a uniquely tolerant website (hellarose, 1:23). That is not to say that there were not those who wished to stifle the communities that were less than conventional on Tumblr, but nowhere else on the internet were these people the outliers, at least by how much they are on Tumblr. 

According to YouTube creator @/hellarose (3:38), before the ban on adult content, nudity allowed queer spaces to share content directly relating to gender or sexually-affirming care. The space which queer people have on Tumblr associates even the name of Tumblr with queerness, often being mocked as “the gay website” by homophobes or trolls. Still, this association of queerness with Tumblr only goes to show the vast monopoly queer spaces had on Tumblr, enough to make Tumblr notably queer itself (hellarose, 4:37). The anonymity of Tumblr also allowed for spaces that were free from most consequences; queer people could try out new pronouns, new names, or new identities without worrying about backlash from parents or peers. According to “A Tumblr Book: Platform and Cultures” by McCracken et al, “for Tumblr users, 65% said their primary motivation was to communicate with ‘people who are like me,’ rather than with family or partners (3%) or for meeting new friends (4%) (hellarose, 5:12). This is a huge difference from other social media platforms, in which the main goal is to communicate with people from real life, but its this difference that could be why queerness is one of the most prevalent identities found on Tumblr.

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CONCLUSION

Tumblr is a complicated site full of mistakes and users who’ve ended up (or should be) in prison. It’s a financial disaster and a burden to almost everyone who buys it, and it can promote hateful and sometimes downright dangerous communities to grow. Still, it’s a site like no other. The subcultures and vast communities that Tumblr has allowed to blossom under its wing are so unique and special that, even with over 90% of its original value lost (Wikipedia), it still remains one of the most, if not the most, well-known websites in history. Tumblr is a haven for subcultures and is the mother site of so many well-known cultural movements that it is impossible to list them all. Good or bad, Tumblr has shaped how we interact with online spaces through fandoms, aesthetics, art, writing, and so many more. There are many angles from which to view Tumblr through the Circuit of Culture model, but I focused mostly on the bad, the dangerous, or the foolish. It’s important for me to say that by no means are all of the cultures that Tumblr has developed “bad,” in fact, it has been an incredibly open and tolerant community for many queer or neurodivergent people online, more so than most. My main question about why Tumblr failed can be answered fairly simply: they alienated and helped destroy the subcultures that made Tumblr such a unique site, choosing ad revenue and commercial support over its users repeatedly. 

It’s difficult to say whether or not Tumblr will live to see another decade or if the attempt at a resurgence will succeed (Rafiee, 7:37), but it’s safe to say that Tumblr’s influence on the internet will never die. For better or for worse, the sheer amount of subcultures created on Tumblr in the 2010s have only so far been challenged by other phenomena like TikTok, but as of now, I believe non have begun to touch Tumblr in terms of the effect on the internet as a whole.