Of course Tumblr is used also as a social networking platform, but I see it as more of a 'lookbook' like website where individuals share their fashion styles and flaunt the good things in their lives etc. When I first joined the community, I treated it a tool for building up an archive of artistic photography, an upgrade to deviant art and myspace combined. In the end it turned out to be pretty much a reblogging experience of thinspo girls in rad clothes and makeup posing in weird 'oh-im-so-dope-and-thin' positions. Of course a lot of the times I'm indeed intrigued by the artistic quality of what Tumblr users upload, like its gifs and landscape images, but most of the time it's the human photography that gets the most views and attention.
Right now, I still believe and hope that Tumblr will remain to be a sort of lifestyle/fashion blog where people show their individualism in their pictures and posts. However recently after extensively exploring the ever so popular site I began to have some doubts.
Taking a VERY stereotypical stance, the average girl from Tumblr is roughly below legal age, wears vintage/boutique brands, follows the 'hipster' culture, wears unconventional makeup such as black lipsticks and blush under their eyes, dyes their hair into pastel pinks, lilacs, blues and greens (etc), reblogs explicit material about love, sex and drugs
And I say the word 'average' for a frustrating reason. There was never a clear reason why the hipster culture became so big and how young people became so obsessed with vintage/independent things, yet all these Tumblr users appear to be fully fledged, going for generically the same look and style. So I think it's obviously unnatural and man-made: people were made to accept and embrace the culture because everyone else is doing it.
To be honest, there is nothing wrong with this and personally I think young people taking more notice of their personal styles is a very good thing. Also, a lot of people on Tumblr really do know how to wear their stuff and most importantly they do it with confidence. But my problem with this is how people are too overconfident to the point that they believe independence is something they can flaunt. They begin to take their freedom of speech, dress, whatever for granted and act based purely on their emotions. You often find people saying how they 'don't give a fuck', how they 'only live once' or how they want to live for the moment in the way that they want to without any consideration for others. What I think is dangerous about this is that originally not everyone started off wanting to rebel and be different, but sites like Tumblr are making them think that this is the way forward, in other words Tumblr is almost promoting egoism and narcissism. 'This is the way I am, haters gotta hate' is a concept that is all too familiar.
There are so many signs visible through Tumblr media of how people have 'too much fun'. I don't want to sound like a grandmother, but it's true. People live to make themselves look good, with no consideration for any others. For example people would take these coloured gas tubes and spray them across woodlands. They set fire to things, pose in front of dead animals, have radical opinions of everything and says 'fuck you' to everything. They want and desire everything, complains about everything and wants to break out of the system. These people live having no respect and thought for the environment, other people that care about them or are affected by their behaviour, and no priority other than themselves. To me, these people are pathetic, because they could have originally been unique individuals with smart ideas and untainted intelligence, but instead they give themselves up to the internet. It's not a fashion platform anymore, but a factory for the mass production of single-minded beings with no apparent interest in anything but how to look and act independent (or so what appear on the surface). They say 'fuck the system', but do they know what the system even is? Do they have any idea how much freedom they already have but take for granted? Somewhere in the world a person their age could be restricted from the internet and is living with no knowledge of fashion. They say 'I don't care', but what more can they not care about? There are people out there their age who have miles more responsibilities and worries, like how they can survive, afford to go to school, make their family united.
It's such a shame, because these people really ruin the name for the people who are truely passionate about fashion, are not wannabes and do care about the existence of other things as well as themselves. I often facepalm at how loads of people ask about why their lives are so depressing, when all they do is post pictures of themselves and expecting masses of anons to comment on it.
Everyone knows that individualism is a beautiful thing, so why does everyone still mindlessly copy each other? and worse, trying to become something that is unoriginal and that they can't relate to?
Human beings are such puzzling creatures.
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