If Arctic Monkeys, Lana Del Rey, and The 1975 takes up a large percentage of your Spotify Wrapped every year. Then I am left to assume you are no stranger to the infamous site, Tumblr.
Well you must be feeling a bit nostalgic, with many of the Tumblr popularised trends making a come back. The #Tumblr2014 now having 154.2 Million views on TikTok.
The site it’s self being a microblogging and social networking website, which sounds alright?
The site quickly got hit by teenagers around 2014; filled with teenage angst and the ‘coming of age’ feelings. The site allowed those teens to discover people who had the same interests as them.
Tumblr was just like any other website/ social media platform at the time, that eliminated the geographical problem of meeting new people, at the time along side: Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. So what made it so special?
With so many active and addicted users, knowledge of news/ events spread like wildfires. As well as online debates such as, “is the dress white and gold or blue and black?” or “Do you hear Yanny or Laurel?” Yep, that all started on Tumblr!
Tumblr gave them a place where they could speak freely about what they thought and believed in, this was important to teenagers because they may feel like their voices are not being heard. This spread like an epidemic and soon everyone and all their friends were on Tumblr, not that you would ever speak about it in person.
The notion that you would never ask one of your friends what their tumblr ‘@‘ was, became an unspoken rule in culture. We saw this being mirrored on the “Tumblr of today”, the social media platform, Tiktok. In early 2021, we saw many people creating “secret Tiktok accounts”, however these accounts were still public. It essentially meant you didn’t want any of your “in real life friends” following it, so you could post anything and not become embarrassed.
The majority of Tumblr’s audience was made up of teenagers. Yet, not all the popular posts circling round were that light hearted and insignificant, as the “white and gold or blue and black dress”.
The content the site is infamously know for, was not very pleasant. These posts would regularly mention topics such as drugs, mental health issues, and constant perspectives on how one should look. This caused a lot of negativity and pressure on to the young minds that fuelled Tumblr’s popularity.
The love for rockstars, and pop stars with built up personas started to mirror on to the generation, by them creating an almost online persona inspired by their favourite figures in pop culture and others’ posts.
Singers such as Lana Del Rey, a “persona” in herself of the previously know as Lizzy Grant, creates emotion ballads about lots of different topics. Yet the ones that stuck with the users of Tumblr, would be the tracks talking about simply being sad.
However, being teenagers this rapidly spiralled, with the creation of songs like; Pretty When You Cry, Sad Girl, Video Games, Mariners Apartment Complex, and many more. These all contributed to the creation of the what we now know as, the so-called-aesthetic “Sad Girl”, and yes with a capital ‘S’. Following on from the romanisation of being ‘sad’ and the ‘sad girl’, it brought along the Tumblr users glamourising mental health issues, drugs and addiction.
Along, with the distinct look, and aesthetics it birthed, the users of the site took a strong liking to Arctic Monkeys, The 1975, and Lana Del Rey.
I thought the easiest way to describe what the ‘Tumblr aesthetic’ is, was to ask on my Instagram and Twitter followers “What is the first thing you think of when you hear ‘Tumblr’?” Some of The responses included: “Arctic Monkeys, Knee socks, Fish nets, The Neighbourhood, Ultraviolence by Lana Del Rey”, “2013-14 Indie” and “Grunge aesthetic”.
Bands like The 1975 used tumblr as a way to listen to their fans in between them putting music out. The obsession with everything being black and white, and THAT screenshot from the ‘Robbers’ music video was all from the bands debut album, ‘The 1975’. Matty Healy has said that after the colour dodge of that era, afterwards the fans on Tumblr started to colour photos with a pink haze. This is one of the reasons behind the similar cover art, on ‘I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it’. The cover arts simple change being, just now in pink and white, compared to the black and white.
If there is anything that signifies ‘Tumblr’ especially 2014 coming back it would be Arctic Monkeys and The 1975 headlining Reading and Leeds festival this year.
Matty Healy, the lead singer of The 1975, referenced this all when he addressed the crowd speaking; “Did you enjoy Arctic Monkeys? Wow Arctic Monkeys and ‘75 in the same week, get your Doctor Martins and your fishnets and your vinyl and your Tumblr aesthetics. Get them all out!”
Whilst, I’m not convinced the site Tumblr will revive itself. Tiktok’s has definitely taken the distinct music, fashion and aesthetic over!
By CAITLIN
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