Kendra Brea Cooper
Tumblr is a place where the hashtag reigns supreme and falling upon a subculture is an everyday thing. It's a place where dreams are declared and change is demanded. It's where you can be exactly who you are, or someone else entirely different-all in one day.
Social media is made for sharing. You can share anywhere on the net. But what is special about Tumblr is the ability to aim your thoughts directly at someone looking for them. Sharing on Tumblr is like reaching out into the unknown, and asking the world for intimacy. You never know the kind of connection will come out of it.
Tumblr celebrates the remix. It's interesting to see the ways in which cultural items, especially ones that are burned into our minds, change when they're in the artistic hands of fans. Remixing isn't just fun, it's also a resistance to power and the those who want to keep things the same. It's a way of wrestling out of tradition. It's a way of actually representing the world around us.
Copyleft means we're opening up. It's like saying "my work is your work" and letting it go into the world to see what becomes of it. Creativity isn't solitary, and it grows through our interactions with each other. Creativity is never over, it changes with time, society, and minds.Many microbloggers on Tumblr release their work without attachment and hope that it becomes a collaborative effort with people they've never met before. Isn't that beautiful?
Just with a few scrolls you can pick up on everything from new philosophical view points to a new way to do your nails. While at first sight it might seem overwhelming, the Tumblr world has so much to offer in terms of opening up your mind. You can explore a new idea through blogs all day and see it from so many different angles.
Tumblr is the people's art gallery. The hallways are unlimited and the walls we hang art on repeat forever. Art says something about culture, and the more art we have access to , the more we can understand ourselves and open up to change.
While there are all different kinds of blogs on Tumblr, there's something to be said about the way people resist the status quo through creativity, sharing, and repeating over the site. Ideas burn through blogs, leaving old and destructive narratives in the ashes. Race, religion, and sexuality are only some of the issues that people have openly tackled over Tumblr. There is power in the image. There is power in just a few words.
In the past 20 years, the definition of "community" has drastically changed. On Tumblr, you can connect with the groups you fit perfectly into, even if you're thousands of miles apart. There seems to be a subculture for everything, and everything is a subculture. Fandoms have power in numbers, and have become producers themselves by adding to the fame through fan art and fan fiction which has become as popular (if not more) as any Rolling Stone article.
We need more of what is "out of the norm". Your curiosity can lead you into a new world, and the way you share can lead all of us into a new world. Question why things make you uncomfortable. Tumblr breaks open minds through our eye balls.
Many of us go online for our news these days. While it's still important to dig and find verification, we share the news on Tumblr that's important to us. Traditional news has a time limit, a specific discourse, and a point of view. Much is left out. The way we share online and express our opinion on news matters is incredibly important to society as a whole. On Tumblr, issues are confronted, talked about, and shared.
Tumblr offers the bits and pieces that connect us. There are moments of empathy and realization in the things we share and repeat. Everything we post holds the possibility of connection. The immediacy promises the world will never be stale, people are thinking about things, and change is always possible.
Pop culture and all that ideology sitting in the blind spot. Also crafts.
