Hey, folks reading this! I was waiting to hit my exact 10 year mark as some sort of poetic goodbye, but I’ve decided today is as good a day as any.
I joined tumblr when I was 17. A few of my friends had already used it for a year or two before me, so it was a splash of peer pressure, boredom, and curiosity that made me sign up. Yes, I’m aware that made tumblr sound like a drug. And no, this isn’t going to turn into some lecture about social media addiction.
I joined tumblr when I was SEVENTEEN! I’m twenty freaking seven! I had just graduated high school when I made this account, and now I’m a working stiff with a masters degree, who has moved halfway across the country from home (and am about to move a few more time zones away!).
Tumblr has been such a uniquely fascinating place where I’ve been swept up in fandoms (and had the god forsaken word “fandom” added to my vocabulary in the first place), found new interests and common ground, and been able to have an outlet for my ridiculous stories and anecdotes. I’ve connected with friends from high school and college, connected with friends I’ve never met in person, gone to different countries to visit new friends, and overall felt like a part of a confusing community with no real consistency or organization. And I loved that. This is such a bizarre place where there’s some semblance of mainstream legitimacy and structure, yet it’s so impossible to monetize that it hasn’t become a hellscape like Facebook or Instagram. It’s unlike so many places online.
I occasionally used this site as a public diary read only by the few followers I had, like an inside joke written on a bathroom stall door. Once I made a couple posts years ago that gained traction, suddenly I had a few thousand people following me (and many more visiting my page and creating traffic) until I didn’t know what I was using this for anymore. I kept on as usual, but wasn’t sure how this functioned as an outlet. I didn’t care about trying to use that traction to gain a following or to create content, but suddenly my posts had an audience. It was validating at times and hurtful at worst. If I reblogged a friend’s personal post with opinions and it got notes, my friends would find themselves responding to inbox messages or in sudden online arguments. I don’t want to be a conduit to that.
I definitely don’t mean to sound so full of myself or like I have any sway. I’ve already been extremely absent from this site, and I bet a majority of my followers are bots at this point! It is wild to me that a story I posted online is shared across multiple sites and social media pages, and has been copied by tiktok stars, Twitter users, and was even copped for Jimmy Fallon. What a wild fucking world we live in.
But for those of you who put the time into reading this stream of consciousness, thank you. Thanks to those who have become my IRL friends. Thanks to those who keep in touch. Thanks to those whom I hope I won’t lose the same level of contact once I sign off for good. Thanks to those I may not be able to keep contact with at all, but who have sent me kind messages over the years or who have stuck around for a long time and interacted with me. You made this a really fun experience.
I’ve shared a lot on here over the years, and have decided to leave just a few select posts that make me smile instead of deactivating this page. If you’re reading this and you’ve been here a while, I hope you live a life that is full and kind and that builds you up with enough positive resilience to weather the storms.
If you’re just tuning in to my page because you saw the Jeffrey post... yes, it really happened. No, he didn’t respond. Yes, he’s still my mom’s accountant. No, she’s not afraid.
My name is Mary, and I’m a person, just like you.
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