Does this make me sound ancient? Well, jokes on you, because I’m actually Gen Z, but old enough to remember life before TikTok. And in those days, if you had an angsty text post, an artsy photo edit, or a sexy GIF of your favorite fictional character headcanon, you posted it on Tumblr.
These days, you can still find almost all of these same trends on TikTok: 17-year-olds posting their personal drama with #messytok, artists capturing their creative processes and final results, and Draco Malfoy thirst trap edits that make me slightly uncomfortable. If you search for the older Gen Z cuspers or millennials on TikTok, you might even see specific references to Tumblr inside jokes.
Basically, if you think about it hard enough, TikTok is a modern iteration of Tumblr. But Tumblr is practically dead, and TikTok is very much alive. While a Tumblr spokesperson says that 48 percent of its current user base is Gen Z, it’s undeniable that the site’s total user numbers have dropped off in the past few years.
After a deep dive into my own archived blogging history and current For You Page, here’s why I think that is — and some takeaways on how TikTok can avoid the same fate.
Tumblr content just didn’t keep up with the times
Long story short, the social media world loves videos. Quick how-tos, lifestyle vlogs, and meme videos give me a hit of dopamine in a way that static posts just can’t accomplish. And while Tumblr had the joke text post down, you would be unlikely to find a true video post in your Tumblr dashboard. The closest it came was GIFs, which used to take a thousand years to load, so it was more worth it to just keep scrolling.
While Tumblr did have the capability to post video content, it just wasn’t that popular. People didn’t log on to Tumblr to watch videos, because nothing about Tumblr’s video format was specific to its platform. Since the dashboard was a never-ending scroll, similar to TikTok, users didn’t want to sit on one post to watch a five minute video. If you wanted longer content, you’d move to YouTube. And back then, short form videos were on Vine (RIP).
And while that was all fine and good, the lack of video content on Tumblr didn’t let true Tumblr personalities develop. You could have a super successful blog without ever showing your face or talking directly to your followers, and that’s the difference between an influencer-type of success and blogging fame.
“I think part of [what made Tumblr die] was the growing vanity around social platforms, where your image and content provides a reward for sharing yourself or an edited version of yourself,” said Haley Peterson, former active Tumblr user, in a DM. “Even though you can do that in Tumblr, I feel like it was more of a place for curating content and mood boards, which didn’t match the direction that society was heading.”
Although not exactly an influencer platform, Tumblr does currently have its Creatr program which launched in 2015. It features artists and their work for potential pairing with brands and advertisers in paid campaigns. The program’s structure allows for a similar paid content opportunity as a typical influencer, but still lacks that identifiable face that other platforms champion.
In comparison, TikTok is almost the antithesis of Tumblr’s format, but it offers similar content. It obviously has short form videos down, and it allows people to hop in front of the camera and informally offer a hot take on the latest Netflix show or showcase their art with a distinct voiceover detailing the steps. The organic, almost face-to-face interaction is drastically different from the anonymity, and allows for TikTokers to build empires beyond the app.
TikTok’s creation features also set it apart, where you can duet other users, take advantage of trending audios, and play around with filters as a central part of the content. These features encourage a different type of creativity to take place directly on the app, rather than just showcasing content that you made elsewhere. Going live on the app also drives more engagement, and contributes to that organic feel.
And while both platforms have the never-ending scroll feature, TikTok’s algorithm actively learns about the user’s preferences for content, whereas Tumblr was a labor-intensive process. You had to find the blogs you liked and follow them yourself. Sorry Tumblr, but I have only gotten lazier, so I’ll take an algorithmically curated For You Page any day.
Anonymity meant questionable content for young teens, unchecked
Scrolling your Tumblr dashboard as a middle schooler was a safe haven; you could vent about your crush not paying attention to you during math class and mention him by name without having to worry about him finding the post. Sometimes that post could go viral (if you were #relatable enough), but if your name wasn’t attached to your blog, as a lot of Tumblr users operated, they would never know it was you.
This anonymity was central to Tumblr culture, where you could get vulnerable about mental health or talk about niche interests that you wouldn’t want to broadcast publicly, like questions about sex or intense Jack Black worship. But this anonymous culture could also get nasty.
“I remember Tumblr being very eating disorder-y and had a lot of problematic content on it. It was so pervasive at the time, focusing on ‘thinspo’ and ‘thinsperation’ posts and it spread everywhere,” said Ejun Kim, a former Tumblr user who’s now a TikTok fan.
She’s not the only one that remembers this kind of content, first popular on LiveJournal, where a search for “eating disorder” still yields several pro-anorexia communities. As LiveJournal died off and many of its users migrated to Tumblr, I saw those same posts as a 13 year old. They were plastered all over the blogs I followed, full of tips on how to get a thigh gap or restrictive eating guidelines. Every comment was wistful, and all of it went unregulated.
This article and image source from Mashable.
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