In 2025, 50% of Tumblr’s monthly active users were Gen Zers, as were 60% of new users signing up, according to data the platform shared with Business Insider. So why are young people “hanging out on old social media platforms,” as Hoover puts it? Part of it, she says, is that “there’s nowhere new to go.”
But some of it is just good old nostalgia. Amanda Brennan, an internet librarian who spent seven years at Tumblr before leaving her role as head of content in 2021, told Business Insider, “Gen Z has this romanticism of the early-2000s internet.” We’ve seen this Y2K revival all over the place, really, from fashion (gasp, the return of the low-rise jean) to flip phones, and yes, even “old” online platforms.
Interest in these older platforms, Hoover notes, is fueled by “a longing for a time when people could make mistakes on the internet and move past them.” Maybe that’s Tumblr’s real appeal. In an age where posting online can mean agonizing over a draft only to delete it altogether, it still feels like the kind of place where you can be a little weird, a little earnest, and a lot unfiltered. And judging by these posts, its users haven’t lost their touch.
#28 As Long As A Magic System Can Be Understood Or Explained, Then Its Not Convoluted. As Long As It Has Internal Logic To Go With It. Just Because A Magic System Is Not Fully Explained, Does Not Equal Bad Writing
