Dear me. Take a look at yourself. You need a good shave, a clean set of clothes and a steaming hot bowl of reality.
If you’ll permit me a hipster moment (and, given that you actually have a Tumblr account that you update with any sort of regularity, I’m assuming you will), I had a tumblr way back before it became sort of the new MySpace (the 2006 MySpace, not the current ‘nuclear-fallout-level-abandoned’ MySpace).
And it never used to be cool. It still isn’t. That’s the reality of the situation. You are not edgier, nor more informed, nor part of some secret indie-clique holier-than-thou illuminati just because you signed up for Tumblr and found a totally awesome 3-column minimalist text-on-white background.
The reason I used (and still use) Tumblr as my blogging medium of choice is because it is one of the only free social media outlets that doesn’t plaster its own logo all over your page, so instead of feeling like profile number 32749912, I actually feel a microscopic amount like a person, despite the relative anonymity of the Tumblr blogging system.
This is a good thing. So why, why are you all trying to ruin it?
Before you pump in that clutch and slam it into rage gear, allow me to elaborate.
Have a good think about why MySpace died. For those of you too young to have had one (god help us), it was easy enough to write it off due to the fact that Facebook came along and was generally better. But Facebook and MySpace had a lot in common. MySpace, in fact, allowed an even tighter degree of customisation. You still had the same level of social interaction, could still post photos, post bulletins for your friends to see, tag people (eventually) and all the run of the mill stuff you do all the time on FaceBook.
No, we fled MySpace not so much like rats from a sinking ship, but like people flee from a fart filled elevator - with quiet, intense desperation, while paying little mind to expressing the source of their apparent discomfort. We fled it because we had sprayed it with the awkard, fumbling funk of our adolescence. Like pubescent skunks we soiled our profiles with our teenage woes - our parents, our laughable 2-week relationships and the resultant fallout, our ‘intense and stressful’ (teehee) study schedule. We got excited about drinking underaged, we fought over the most ridiculous shit, we spent hours upon hours filling out special little bulletins with numbers that let people ask us questions. Is any of this ringing a bell?
Sure, people bitch incessantly about their anti-problems on FaceBook, but on Facebook, you are but a number in a sea of complaining numbers. The individuality you possess that I am forced to endure is limited to a 60x60 thumbnail of your profile photo and your oh-so-hilarious memesque profile name. Beyond that, your profile looks like everyone elses, and I am forced to endure no more of your tedium.
When you engage in such practices on Tumblr, innate human curiosity and perhaps not a small amount of self-loathing implores me to view your Tumblr page, and absorb at least the first page of personal expression, it is there forever, it is a permanent expression of your innermost feelings at this point in time… and here’s the secret.
Your feelings are completely transitory. If you are sick, you will get better. If you are heartbroken, you will get over it. If you are mad at someone, you will either remove them from your life seamlessly or forgive them in due time. If you are excited about your weekend, it will either be, good, or bad, but either way, it will be over eventually. If you think you have no friends, guess what? You are probably an insufferable fuckwit and need to work on climbing off your soapbox and not feeling so god damned sorry for yourself. If you are unhappy with how you look, you’ll either change it, or get used too it. Either way… You will grow up, get a job that if you’re lucky pays well and is enjoyable, have a family, get a house that needs to be paid off and kids that need feeding and nurturing and all the lame bullshit you posted on your Tumblr will seem totally infantile and moronic. Just like what happened to MySpace.
Stop treating this place like a diary you show all your friends, because I guarantee you, you’ll look back on it in 3-4 years and realize how much of a massive tool you are being. Mark my words. It happened to me. I mean, just look at this.
