The Subway Dystopia

Playwright/Lyricist, Director, Lighting Designer, and Geek extraordinaire just maneuvering life. Fuck fascists. 32.

[athanza]

From Veronica Tucker via Pinterest

[voidandradiance]

the most disorienting thing thats ever happened to me was when a linguistics major stopped in the middle of our conversation, looked me in the eye, and said, "you have a very interesting vernacular. were you on tumblr in 2014?" and i had to just stand there and process that one for a good ten seconds

[booksandchainmail]

#i was in a car with a linguist i had never met before the car trip and like half an hour in he looked at me#after i finished describing a geology thing that was happening out the window and asked if i'd ever spent much time on tumblr#the fuckor of it all#and then we spent six more hours driving#it sure does leave linguistic markers! i'm not sure i'm good with it (tags via @thoughtsformtheuniverse)

[issela-santina]

it is one thing to be a linguist and another to be a linguist who knows enough of 2010s Tumblr to spot one of its enjoyers

[lierdumoa]

Oh! @meret118 see above comment! The use of the word "enjoyers" instead of "users" or "bloggers" -> You left a comment a while back asking, "Does this just mean vocabulary words? Other than blorbo and sweet cinnamon roll etc, I can't think of what a Tumblr accent would be." I almost never see anyone use the word "enjoyer" anywhere outside of tumblr, but I see it on tumblr fairly frequently.

Another one is the verb "perceive" i.e. "don't perceive me" "I am perceiving" "I am being percieved." That's something that feels very specific to tumblr parlance.

There's the thing where people on tumblr have an emotional reaction to something and instead of, or in addition to telling you how they feel about it using emotion words, they will narrate a fictional action in the present progressive tense. "I am gnawing at the bars of my enclosure "I am kissing you on the mouth" "you are going into the soup" "you are getting all of the awards"

I once saw someone use that response format in ... I think it was a restaurant review, or a doordash review, or something like that. It was very unexpected seeing it outside of a tumblr post.

There are a lot of other tumblr linguistic quirks I can't currently remember off the top of my head, but I'll instantly recognize them if I see/hear them outside of tumblr. It's always a bit startling to see them out of context.

[pacificnorthwhore]

[i-wear-the-cheese]

when I was in university one of my modules was about internet slang and for our grades project we had to compile and analyse a small database of 100 words used by a specific community of our choice. I chose tumblr and that's how I stumbled across Gretchen McCulloch's research and discovered that yes not only did tumblr have its own vernacular and syntax (as @lierdumoa demonstrates), it was at the time a crucible of slang and memes probably unrivalled by any other part of the internet. and it's stayed that way! even the very title is McCulloch's book because internet is an example of this specific phraseology.

sadly my project is lost due to the website being wiped from the university database after graduation and my then laptop having a major hardware failure. backup your backups people! but the crux of the entire module was that the internet is full of communities using language not only as jargon for specific purpose but also to signal membership in said community. I even wrote a bit about non capitalisation and punctuation useage as a visual cue on tumblr and how including information in the reblog body or the tags indicated different levels of importance or intimacy of thought

I am holding the side of your face and looking deep in your eyes and telling you that love is stored in the syntax, and that we are rotating words together all at once as we all nod at their new and baffling meanings. if the devils sacrament be tumblr then the devils gospel is our collective voice. thanks for coming to my tedtalk

[weirdchristmas]

I am being perceived.

[catchymemes]

[microsff]

The parking attendant paused by the double-length bay. Intended for mobile homes and cars with trailers, it was currently occupied by a sleeping dragon.

No parts of it extended beyond the lines, and the paper ticket was clearly displayed, impaled on a horn.

The parking attendant moved on.

[lionessfeather]

I was going to just queue it for later but then it stuck in my brain, and I decided to make it everyone's problem

[antlered-vixen]

I am so tired of short-attention-span, trim-the-fat culture. All writing advice these days is for how to write like Chuck Palahniuk. "Cut 'think', cut 'feel', cut 'wonder' - only action, only pushing forward, show and move and move and move." What if I could emulate this style, and still don't want to? What if I want to write like Henry James, with three paragraphs of introspective musings between each dialogue line? The music advice is, "make it shortform, make it Tik-Tok compatible, make it punchy, hit the refrain as soon as possible." What if I want that 10-minute prog rock piece? What if I want that symphony? What if I want it slow and luxurious and lazy? Movies. Series. Poetry. Bodies. Everything is "trimmed trimmed trimmed trimmed, stripped bare, you have three seconds to win me over, make it airport chic." I don't want to win you over, then, I guess. I want the fat left it. I want the pleasure and the indolence and the indulgence. Fuck this art-advice that's always "your art needs Ozempic."

[importantcatpics]

[homunculus-argument]

I once chatted with a guy from Hawaii, we started talking about languages. I mentioned that while I've heard very little of it and hardly seen more of it written down, the Hawaiian language seems to have extremely similar balance of vocals and consonants as Finnish does, so it's actually pretty likely that there are some words that exist in both languages, but mean one thing in Hawaiian and a completely differen thing in Finnish - much like in Japanese.

He didn't find it plausible, so we agreed to disagree. Later on he mentioned that his name is [firstname] Kalani Kanaele, and when I told him what that translates to in Finnish, I had to spend like 20 more minutes trying to convince him that I'm actually not fucking with him.

[homunculus-argument]

Okay so in finnish, "kala" means "fish" - just any fish, fish in general, and "kana" means "chicken". "Ele" is "gesture", as in a physical movement that an animal or human does to nonverbally communicate something. The -ni suffix is a possessive referring to oneself, essentially "my". In finnish, compound words are of the "if it doesn't exist yet, I can make one up on the spot" variety, so almost all nouns can be slapped together to refer to something specific.

So, broken down like this and put back together, this dude's name translates to "the chicken-like gesture that my fish makes."

[silly-jellyghoty]

This is pure poetry

[fandom-man]

[scholarlypidgeot]

@moethh don't hide this in the tags

[ashenbot]

do trees experience a military draft?

[realflaminglily]

to fight against who?

[ashenbot]

the ones who won’t leaf them alone

[daily-weasel]

[mammalidentifier]

Mountain weasel (Mustela altaica)

[professorsparklepants]

#it fucken sumny (via @mindfulwrath)

[feminist-space]

[official-lucifers-child]

the wemther brothers

[timcurrysbooty]

[carlottagiudicellivevo]

[takiki16]

NO FEAR.  The actors who played Long John Silver and Captain Flint in Black Sails FULLY ACKOWLEDGE that the Muppet adaptation was the best

(source)

[saint-batrick]

[alder-knight]

hi i hope i get to be the one to break this news on Tumblr, because

I am reading Tim Curry’s 2025 memoir, Vagabond

and in it, he not only devotes a chapter to Muppet Treasure Island, but also references this very post

so, to recap

no, Tim Curry is absolutely NOT a Muppet; however

yes, he and Miss Piggy ABSOLUTELY fucked

[odinsblog]

Wow. Talk about attention to detail.

Video here: https://twitter.com/javi_draws/status/965260617790738432?s=21

[spookyold-saintjm]

I will probably reblog this every time I see it on my dash because it’s absolutely stunning

[onyxai]

This is literally insane. How did you have the patience. Tell me your secrets o’ art god.

[i-say-ok]

ok!!! :0

[anarchist-rat-swarm]

Part of me is like “neat. Reblog,” and part of me is like “I understand now why impressionism took off, because there’s a 0% chance the artist wasn’t like ‘fuck this shit’ by the halfway point.”

[targetedknowledge]

[0v9]

deeply unserious animal

[daysleftofsecondterm]

EVERYONE SHUT UP AND LOOK AT BEANS THE ARMADILLO ON 1,013 DAYS LEFT

[omghotmemes]

No, no it isn’t.

[moonlit-aura]

this gif is perfectly timed because it gives you enough time to read it, comprehend it, and still have this too-long-for-comfort moment of suspense before being punched square in the solar plexus

[bigandlong]

If you see this on your dashboard, reblog this, NO MATTER WHAT and all your dreams and wishes will come true.

[jae-felidae]

Oh hey! Haven’t seen this in forever! Didn’t reblog it when it came across me before, not gonna skip it this time, I need some good vibes.

[firefox-official]

oh shit was that today

[firefox-official]

does anybody have an extra knife i can borrow

[freshlydelivereddarce]

TODAYS THE DAY SALAD BOY