The Great Tumblr Exodus is Gathering Momentum
Ever since Tumblr appeared on the web back in 2007, people have wondered what to do with it. For many it was a life-streaming scrapbook of sortsa place to quickly record random photos, quotes, conversations, and notes about anything and everything. Before the word “meta” became ubiquitous, the growing community began re-blogging and re-purposing contentoften to share an emotion, a hope, or a dream.
Among the many millions churning content through the Tumblr servers, a small group formed, dotted all over the globe. There have never been more than perhaps a thousand of them, and I count myself fortunate to have been among their number. They didn't typically re-blog, and they didn't populate their feed with influences and aspirationsthey wrote about their daily life. They shared the quiet moments, the happy moments, the raucous moments, and the grief stricken moments with each other, and formed an unlikely circle of far flung friends. They supported each other, asked after each other, and shared a slice of their lives with each other that few of their friends or family in the real world knew about.
You might wonder why I'm writing this in the past tense.
Two weeks ago Tumblr removed the ability for people to comment on each other's posts. Regardless of rumoured promises to re-instate a commenting system (which in reality appears to be instant messagingnot the same thing at all), the effect on the communityparticularly the small group of bloggers at the centre of the maelstromhas been seismic.
Day after day, the Tumblr I have know for the past several years has grown increasingly quiet. The charactersthose that lived and breathed spirited interraction with the community surrounding themhave almost without exception fallen silent.
While I know our little island within the raging Tumblr river was always a tiny minority (the rest of the river is filled with teenagers sharing viral content in perhaps the biggest pissing competition ever seen), it's still a shame to see it die.
I wonder where people are going as they fall silent. Will they adopt a new platform? Will they continue blogging? Or is this a turning point for the admittedly self-absorbed activity I have taken part in for so many years ? A part of me wants to beg them to follow me to WordPress, but I've used up all of the influence I might have had by switching blogging platforms myself so often over the years. I could certainly climb atop a virtual soap-box, and start shouting “COME TO WORDPRESS, THE WATER IS LOVELY”, but I would almost certainly be met with comments such as “isn't that the platform you left last year, and the year before that, and the year before that?“I need to trust that everybody will find aplace that is most suitable for them in the days, weeks, and months aheadand try a little harder to keep in touch with those that matter.
Perhaps this whole debacle is a reminder that those we forge bonds with matter far more than the methods we might employ to communicate with each other.