going to check out of tumblr for a bit. i have some IRL stuff to attend to, and the recent negativity i’ve been encountering in the spaces i came to tumblr to specifically escape from is really making things difficult for me to focus on anything else in my life. i think i just need some space away from the nexus of vitriol for a while.
i’ve realized i don’t really have any friends or very communicative mutuals on tumblr (to be clear to my moots: not blaming y’all at all! this is a personal issue on my end). on top of that, unfortunately, i’m currently in a living situation where i’m living almost 40 miles away from most of my good friends, and recently i’ve basically been stuck taking care of my family’s house while they’re out for a couple weeks. so i’m very isolated at the moment, not really by choice, and the current vibe of tumblr is only piling on to that isolation. add on some existing mental health struggles recently… yeah it hasn’t been great for me lately.
i’m realizing right now is a really bad time for me to cling to social media and its one-sided relationships as a way to stave off the effects of little to no in-person interaction. that’s always been a problem for me, really, but right now it’s intensified. so when some of the fandoms i’m in start to turn on themselves and give in to cynicism and spite, i feel like i’m taking that all on. it’s a parasocial sort of thing that i despise. add on my insecurities about my self-worth and the current climate on here just ends up making me feel like i’d be more useful to the world if i was dead.
and i’d like to believe that i’m not worthless. so i’m getting off. maybe when tumblr feels more safe, or when i feel less like i need to rely on it, i’ll come back.
for a while, tumblr was a safe space for me, a rare place where most people were generally positive and kinda silly about things. but as tumblr in the past couple years has morphed more into a typical social media, so too has come the same issues that caused me to get off of other social media platforms.
in the end, what was keeping me here lately was, typical of social media, a form of FOMO—a moral obligation of sorts. because everything on tumblr is being heavily moralized and politicized as of late, spinning in circles (but sometimes people are right), i felt like i would be doing a moral wrong by not being on here. that my choice to ignore tumblr was a choice to ignore some great moral issue.
but, like, nah. for one, don’t forget that you don’t owe anyone on the internet your mental space, or time, or all of your attention. you don’t owe anyone anything by way of existing or not existing on the internet, other than basic respect. and also, tumblr is not the only, or best, way to fight for causes you care about. you’ll arguably get a lot further connecting with your local community and employing a more grassroots mindset.
but, really, human beings can only do so much. we are not psychologically built well for chronic social media usage. i sure as shit am not.
i have real-life friends, real-life things to address. i’m so caught up in fandom bullshit on tumblr that i almost forgot to do my ballot for some upcoming local elections. that in itself demonstrates why i’m switching my focus.
to anyone that reads this part, thanks for reading through my rambling. i do sincerely appreciate the amazing people i’ve met on here, and i’m still planning on doing that appreciation post sometime for y’all.
