Does Tumblr Breed a Culture of Negativity?

Millions of people across the world spend countless hours on the popular micro-blogging website, Tumblr. It’s taken over lives, created jobs as well as become a creative and personal space for the users to go and vent any pent-up sadness, rage, happiness and other strong emotions. It can be the root of many teenagers’ procrastination habit but can also be the inspiration and motivation for them to seek help, go outside and create new adventures and experiences.

As a user, I’ve constantly came across posts making jokes about various users becoming “Internet Hermits” wherein they are stereotyped to be pale students that spend the early hours of their mornings browsing the website. They are known for their sarcastic tone and throne of food wrappers as well as their allergy towards sunlight and socialising. As a user, I have grouped these “Internet Hermits” into a “Multi-Fandom Blog Owner.”

Tumblr has always been known for creating a home for users to settle into and create their own personality through blog themes and gifs. The fun-loving cat gifs are sometimes replaced with glorifying negativity and isolation within a person. It was always a running joke within the website that as soon as you create your own Tumblr, you have moved over to “The Dark Side” but the negative side of the website creates a brand new meaning.

The social networking site was founded in February of 2007 by David Karp and went on to be owned by Yahoo! from May 2013 and onwards. David Karp started the website in an attempt to create a “more free-form” blogging tool compared to other blogging platforms – WordPress and Blogger – around at this time. He said he felt these platforms “became a commitment” in that you had to sit down and create a full and correct post whereas with Tumblr you could create shorter, more personal posts as well as using images, gifs and videos to blog your life.

Tumblr has accumulated major success over the years due to the ease and accessibility of the website. Its main hub, also known as the “dashboard” has made it easier to “reblog” your favourite posts from your friends, follow new people as well as see the trending topics of that day. As a user, I know firsthand how easy it is to fall into the abyss of Tumblr and realise that you’ve spent 8 hours looking at various pictures of flowers while sipping countless cups of tea yet making no toilet runs. The beauty of the various photos as well as how relatable the posts are and the hilarious reaction gifs have brought Tumblr its 116.9 billion posts in total and allowed it to host over 248 millions blogs, as of August 1st 2015. It’s beauty and hilarity becomes hypnotising as you end up wasting days and weeks perfecting your online profile.

However, no amount of success will enable Tumblr to live down its ongoing stereotype of being host to various adult content and self harm/suicide blogs. The website is popular amongst teenagers and young adults, in particular under the age of 25. With teenagers notably being so impressionable the adult and negative content, for example the glorification of eating disorders, has it taken its toll upon teenagers everywhere viewing this form of content regularly?

Overall, Tumblr can be seen as your very own internet space, created just for you, how you like it and this can be used to share joy with your friends through hilarious gifs and connecting through fandom blogs as well as shedding a light on important issues occurring all over the globe in today’s societ. It can also be used for the worst by glorifying eating disorders and sharing adult content not suitable for young people as not only college-age adults use the website.

It’s understandable that many users make use of the platform as a way of sharing their life with others but there are limits for the younger audience that should be taken into account, are there not?