Occupy Wall Street, Notorious RBG, cottagecore. These and several other lasting internet trends and IRL movements of the 2010s were born not on Twitter, on Facebook, or in the mainstream media but on Tumblr. You might remember it as the blogging platform that became one of the most hyped startups in the world before fading into obsolescence — bought by Yahoo for $1.1 billion in 2013 (back when a billion still felt like a billion), then acquired by Verizon, and later offloaded for fractions of pennies on the dollar in a distressed sale. That same Tumblr, a relic of many millennials’ formative years, has been having a moment among Gen Z.
Zoomers have gravitated toward the pseudonymous platform, viewing it as a safe space as the rest of the social internet has become increasingly commodified, polarized, and dominated by lifestyle influencers. As in its heyday, Tumblr is still more about sharing art, culture, and fandom than individual status. More posts about anime and punk rock than bridal trends and politics. In 2025, 50% of Tumblr’s active monthly users are Gen Zers, as are 60% of new users signing up, according to data Tumblr shared with Business Insider. And several of Zoomers’ icons, from the “Fault in Our Stars” author John Green to the pop superstar Halsey, have come back to the platform.
“Gen Z has this romanticism of the early-2000s internet,” says Amanda Brennan, an internet librarian who worked at Tumblr for seven years, leaving her role as head of content in 2021. She still uses her own Tumblr regularly as the internet’s resident meme librarian. “It allows for experimentation that’s not tied to your face.”
So, on the plus side that means they’ll be on the Fediverse soon.
On the negative, by now I fully expect Matt Mullenweg to flip out over some perceived slight or rivalry and ruin Tumblr for everybody 🤷
How will https://sh.itjust.works/c/curatedtumblr work when Lemmy is Tumblr?
Lemmy won’t be tumblr, it will just federate with it 🙂 So I guess c/curatedtumblr will work even smoother when it becomes possible to just cross post over ActivityPub.
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Curated circlejerk 🧐
Ok, this is actually pretty funny. I accidentally commented in the wrong thread and it turned out that it also made sense. I guess the internet trully is one big circlejerk
There truly is no
spoonwrong thread 😂
I mean looks around
Are we invisible?
Hello! Fediverse over here!
Community maintained!
Fresh memes!
rings bell
Come and get it!
Fresh memes!
My theory is that the primary reason why the fediverse isn’t more popular with young people is cultural. For instance, I don’t think anyone in generation z would use the term “fresh memes” :)
But yeah I also think that tumblr has a nostalgia advantage. It represents the internet before it “turned bad”, while the fediverse represents a possible future for the internet. Both have different appeals, but I think that nostalgia wins out for a lot of people.
I think it does too, but the problem with nostalgia is that you forget about all the shitty parts and just remember the good bits. Tumblr is still owned by big tech oligarchs even if it is smaller than the other platforms, and is still vulnerable to the kind of enshittification that the fediverse is more insulated against. Enshittification actually came for Tumblr long ago but it looks positively tame in comparison with other platforms.
Yeah I agree, I think looking towards the future is a better idea in general. I’m on lemmy but not tumblr myself
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You underestimate how much interface and algorithms impact how people interact with eachother.
I agree with this. I 100% believe the lurch to the right’s acceleration in America was fueled by social media algorithms.
This and clickbait. Both were a race to the bottom for information and debate quality motivated solely by greed.
It started with billionaires buying up all the media, but was further accelerated by the algorithms.
I’d argue that this is just a continuation of billionaires buying up the media.
Yep. Yesterday I stumbled across a few old Reddit threads back when TikTok initially get banned. specifically subreddit drama posts.
Reading through it, and seeing how gen z moaning about how they won’t be able to connect and find new people and info. I still think they are addicted to the algorithm but I also am able to empathize somewhat in the connection part. Facts are they were born into and grew in near total “antisocial” environment. Constant connection to the internet so it’s easy to forego face to face meeting, leading to a cycle of not hanging out physically like older generations did.
Then there were the COVID lockdowns helping itself to the pile of shit.
Peer influence going to TikTok, and then getting fed constantly with their algorithm using the short form content TikTok is infamous for.
It really is tragic when I look at it honestly.
Facebook has spent millions figuring out how to make your feed as divisive and confrontational as possible. I don’t think it’s had a good outcome for humanity and I think it’s more in the powers-that-be’s hands than the above person thinks it is.
It’s inevitable for ads supported social media.
They need to keep you “engaged” to show you more ads, and the most effective way to do it is to foster conflict.
Damn people… They ruined humanity!
If you’re talking about zuck, elmo, and pals, then yes the problem is people.
But it’s not “people” who’re flooding my feeds with fascist advertisements, etc.
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When asked specifically about how Bluesky might fit into these plans, a spokesperson would only comment on its ActivityPub progress.
Based. But yeah tumblr has been talking about activitypub for years now and i get that this takes a lot of work, but damn they are taking a while.
Also, Bluesky doesn’t use the ActivityPub standard, so it sounds like bullshit.
Tumblr is owned by Automattic.
The WordPress plug-in company?
Yeah, the one with the lawsuits involved and blocking plugins and such. Search for Mullenweg.
Been out of the WordPress dev scene for about 10 years. Didn’t know they got so big
A large percentage of the internet runs on wordpress
Still? Cool
The WordPress company, as in the developers of WordPress itself.
I’m wondering how Tumblr is a safe space while it’s still filled with porn-bots. I tried the platform several times and no matter what I do, I always get smacked with some random NSFW content.
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Majority of tumblr nsfw seems like some kind of black and white artsy erotica made by touch starved girl nerds so what’s not safe about it
I get spammed on Lemmy each week by “Nicole the Fediverse chic from Poland”. Each time from a different instance.
I hope she isn’t the start of the end.
Nah, there’s always going to be bots in any public network, it’s normal, should be fought and all but there’s always adversarial individuals, we definitely should find who’s this Nicole person and get them to stop this crap, but you’d be surprised how NORMAL it is to have anything on the public internet under constant, 24/7 attack
She/it is the only spammer I have encountered here. Would have thought it would be easy to block because each time is almost an identical message…
Beehaw has a manual approval process at least which must weed such spammers from signing up… yet allows them into my inbox despite my reports.
