Tumblr is Back… Yay?

Anyone who frequented the internet from 2012-2015 is becoming increasingly aware of the déjà vu lurking around every corner of the internet.

In the year 2023, my TikTok For You Page is full of Matty Healy thirst traps, Arctic Monkey songs, Bella Swan-core outfits, and coquette aesthetics.

For those of you who were not chronically online in the mid-2010s, these are all trends hauntingly reminiscent of the golden age of Tumblr. 

Like many others, I spent my middle school years endlessly scrolling on Tumblr, pouring hours into making edits, reblogging SuperWhoLock content, and trying to curate the perfectly polaroid-framed aesthetic. Tumblr was pivotal in the development of self-expression and creativity for me and tons of other young people, so, of course, I was immediately excited by this Tumblr nostalgia. I shamelessly blasted “The Car” and “Being Funny in a Foreign Language,” and I dusted off my Doc Marten Mary Janes from eigth grade. 

But, of course, nostalgia clouds judgment.

As I deeper examined all of the trends I had missed, I remembered all of the other trends on Tumblr that are coming back.

Tumblr was a haven for the glorification of some of the most harmful parts of femininity.

One of the most prominent communities on Tumblr was the Pro Ana community, a subculture dedicated to the promotion of eating disorders. It was impossible to scroll through Tumblr without seeing a reblog of that infamous Kate Moss quote, or a list of tips on how to deprive yourself of food. 

Another largely popular subculture on Tumblr was the Lolita community.

Lolita's aesthetics were fueled by Lana Del Rey's Sugar Daddy-inspired love songs, and the romanticization of Vladamir Nabakov's novel of the same title.

The popularity of Lolita, combined with Tumblrs young female audience, and the relaxed guidelines surrounding nudity and sexual content made Tumblr a breeding ground for grooming. As an attempted solution, Tumblr changed its guidelines in December of 2018, and banned nudity. Unfortunately, this did little to prevent the excess of grooming that was already occurring, and put restrictions on artists who used bodies as the subject of their work. Many Tumblr users also criticized the guidelines' specific ban on only female-presenting nipples. Recently, Tumblr announced that they would be reversing their ban on nudity, another sign that Tubmlr is returning back to its golden years.

Watching the current Tumblr resurgence, it’s not just the fun, creative, and cool parts of Tumblr coming back.

Just this past month, the New York Post dropped an article declaring that “Heroine Chic” is back in. If you look at TikTok, the majority of coquette aesthetic videos are predominantly thin, white women inching eerily close to the Lolita aesthetics that normalized the grooming of so many young girls. It’s clear the internet culture slipping back into its old ways.

Now, with Elon Musk's controversial takeover of Twitter, many users of the site are suggesting they migrate to Tumblr, which isn't a bad idea. Even though Tumblr was filled with pockets of toxicity, there’s hope for its future. 

Tumblrs' lack of algorithm and influencer culture allowed people to be a more creative and authentic version of themselves and allowed people to bond over shared interests in a way no other social media site could.

Tumblr proudly declared the death of cringe culture, refusing to force its users to conform to mainstream trends.

So I, for one, am all for Tumblr becoming the safe haven for those seeking refuge from other social media platforms. We just have to agree to work towards making Tumblr more diverse and accepting leaving behind all of the things that made millions of people feel insecure and embracing all of the things that made those people feel seen and accepted.