re: tumblr contrarianism about AI; instead of learning about and accepting things that are true and real the average tumblr user instead tries to forcibly bend facts to show that the status quo they enjoy has been Woke the whole time, actually, and nothing in their life ever needs to change. it's very obvious with any posts about environmentalism, AI and animal agriculture in particular are topics that typically bring out the worst in users
I think the user base is chasing the high of when this site was considered “avant garde” like a 40 year old ex-athlete still chases the high of “almost going pro” when they were a teenager. But what made this site culturally relevant was not only the humor and social justice politics but the constant engagement with revolutionary and academic texts. We were producing commentaries, even whole new theories, but being academically informed and sharing educational materials we’re reading fell out of style. That’s like trying to excite people about music here - there’s no audience for it anymore, total disinterest. And without that, how can we claim to be more politically advanced than other website’s user bases? We’ve fallen behind and delusionally we think we’re ahead.
I think we became complacent when we noticed Twitter was recycling old tumblr arguments we moved past and developed a sort of undeserved superiority complex over the rest of the internet. Meanwhile people think this site is full of pathetic jokes.
I also think about the nostalgia for this begotten era - “we used to be the feminist antiracist website, etc etc” which ignores how much backlash and conflict these basic ideas faced then. I mean, the backlash was part of the “culture wars” which went from online 4chan vs tumblr wars to offline lethal Nazi rallies and mass shootings. Rose colored glasses about how popular these ideas were while also not investing in the type of intellectual work that made those ideas “popular” to begin with. Nobody wants to do the homework.





















