Tumblr Spawns the Worst Things on the Internet

This is an academic presentation, don't get your Tumblrisms in a twist.

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Trigger warning: This presentation has roasting.

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DO NOW

Read each of the Tumblr posts created by real users. Everything was copied as they were in the original (excluding crude language). Circle one, just one, that you think is the most far-fetched, exaggerated, and/or insane of them all.

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How many of you use Tumblr?

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For those of you that don’t use Tumblr or don’t know what it is..

Tumblr is a social media website that is based on forum-like text posts as well as images. Famous parts of it include the hilarious replies of text, gifs and gif sets, and all the subcultures that have made Tumblr their home. Anyone is free to join and the userbase is mainly made of people in their mid teens (15+) and young adults (20+).

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What’s so bad about Tumblr?

Many things. But today we are focusing on three main ideas: Tumblr negatively affects growing teens, members create minority groups that are unrealistic or were originally parody and take them seriously, and its user base hosts a variety of people who think they are special and try hard to be unique.

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Statistics

Out of all the users on Tumblr, 14% of them are aged 13-17: 10% of these teens are 13-14 years old and 16% are 15-17 years old (Pew Research Center)

It is estimated that around 24% of American teens go online almost constantly and it has become a daily routine that many teens find hard to take a break (Pew Research Center)

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Affects

“They have a difficult time, cognitively, nowadays developing critical-thinking and problem-solving skills, because they are so used to quick burst and tweets of information" (Superville)

“People who spend even a few hours on the Internet each week suffer higher levels of depression and loneliness than people who use the Net infrequently" (Louv 77)

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Influence to Live an Unhealthy/Unsafe Lifestyle

There are blogs on Tumblr that are pro-anorexia and pro-bulimia that post pictures and updates promoting being anorexic or bulimic as a healthy lifestyle. These influence teens, especially at a time where they become aware of their surroundings and more self-conscious about their bodies.

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Top picture: Pro-anorexia blog post

Bottom picture: Pro-bulimia blog post

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To all the white male cis scum out there (I’m a radical feminist)

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Tumblr-made Minority Groups

Tumblr users believe and create minority groups that are unrealistic or were originally parody and take them to heart.

Examples: Cis scum, privileges, ableism, etc.

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Ableism

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, ableism is “discrimination or prejudice against individuals with disabilities”. Ableism’s forms of oppression include slurs or curse words and a person being more “abled” than another. Ableist slurs that are common in speech include but are not limited to idiot, stupid, dumb, crazy, and insane. Also, a person being more “abled-bodied” as another counts as a form of oppression in the eyes of these Tumblr users.

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Thin Privilege and Fat Shaming

The thinner you are, the more thin privilege you have but this has to be in relation to other people. To contradict this, Tumblr users with less thin privilege force the idea that being overweight or obese is okay and that criticizing them for being fat is “fat-shaming”. 

These Tumblr users think that “There's nothing wrong with being overweight, What they eat, the kinds of foods, saturated fats- doesn't matter. This whole notion of being thin and being fit is some kind of perpetuated lie by media and by society in an effort to keep them down  Having self-confidence and being positive about how one looks is understandable and acceptable, being obese and unhealthy are not.

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Dealing with Parody

Many of these minorities on Tumblr were made for parody. They were fake and not meant to be taken seriously but the lines were blurred between parody and reality that some Tumblr users believed it. The situation spiraled out of control and started to become Tumblr minorities.

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Special Snowflakes

It is a trend that is going on right now and is prominent in the world of Tumblr: the more diverse you are, the more unique you are. Someone can not just be ordinary or mundane or else they would be just like everyone else. Tumblr users do not want that; they want attention and there are ways they can get that by partaking in radical beliefs or making up random illnesses or diseases.