Today is my birthday. Yeah Happy B-day to me! As you have been my friend over all these years, I would like to offer you a present as token of gratitude for your companionship after all this time. Actually, it is an exchange being more precise. You have offered me so many images, concepts, ironies and ideas so I would like to return at least one of me. The only one of my feed being me. Not living live through others. Not a projection. Not an aspiration. Me. The only photo really mine. For once being a Tumblr hot gay jock. At least for one day. Today.
Every single image of my feed showed me during these years help me to define what I wanted to be.
Every single image encouraged me to go on step by step to become who I am today.
Every single image displayed many different possible realities that I could pick to incorporate to my narrative of reality or simply to reject and go on scrolling unapologetically.
Tumblr, you used to be my shelter. “This is not my life, but it should be!” was a desperate scream to the world. This is not my life, but it should be! is quite forceful and clear. And that was exactly what it was for me other life. The live I craved.
What I found instead was not exactly was I expected but not in a negative way. I found a community, the LGTBQI+ collective, which in my reality doesn’t exist. Community has implicit diversity, diversity is synonym of vast range options to choose as a result my universe was expanded and enriched.
Every single human being should have a safe space both mental and physical. In the same way Virginia Woolf claimed for a room for her own and changed the idea of equality making the world a little bit better (actually much better!). The relationship between reality and ideals has always been complicated. It is difficult to ideals to materialize in the real world, not impossible just difficult. Reality is always disappointing and most of the time it is harder than that. The harder it gets is when is easier to renounce a part of you to fit in or simply avoid problems. That part of you in the end is you. My reality against my Tumblr.
Imagine to live in a world where you were the only person with thumbs, besides you need to hide them as they are not socially accepted so as a consequence you are always hidden them desperately; putting your hands in the pockets, avoiding to shake hands during introductions, wearing gloves to cover them, getting nervous just for the idea of being caught… until a point where the idea to amputee them becomes not so extreme. However, the thumbs are part of you, and you are a whole being so amputee them will be to cut part of yourself and even though the problem would continue to be you. You are whole and one even if you don’t feel it at all.
Tumblr was a place to be complete, where the LGTBQI+ community could gather without restrictions and for many the only place allowed to feel the relief of all the reality limitations. All the naked bodies that my reality would never be able to show me were there. All the porn I wanted a lot as well I didn’t want was there too and yes nudity is not pornography. The line between is weak and, in a hypersexualized society, is hypocrite and even in some cases incoherent; asses are always welcomed but penises are always banned.
- Hide your thumbs! Our advertisers don’t want to see that part of you. They only want to see your money.
However dear advertisers I need my thumbs to earn the money you yearn for. It is sad to see weaponized a space of freedom and relief. The same space able to create a community to gather, to exchange, to show off, to create…. Being reduce to a platform of censorship. Censorship is the last way of control, the meanest and most mediocre one. I feel sad for the decision of that platform choosing not to be that safe place for future generations I hope they will find their way. I feel gratitude for the safe space that helped me a lot, to arrive here exactly.
P.S.; Thank you for following me until here even if we never cross paths in our lives. Y si lo estás leyendo gracias también a ti. Te querré siempre!
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