Nowadays, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook dominate the social media landscape, so it’s easy to forget how influential Tumblr was back in the day. But one community that hasn’t forgotten is r/tumblr on Reddit. This group shares curated content from the site that everyone deserves to enjoy, whether they actively blog on Tumblr or not. This community has a whopping 1.5 million members, and they diligently share the funniest posts and interactions they come across on Tumblr.
But if you’re not familiar with Tumblr, or never were an avid user of the social media site yourself, let’s first pay homage to this platform that was once a mammoth on the internet. As I noted before, Tumblr was launched in 2007 as a free-form blogging site. Users could create their own blogs, share content that they created or reblog posts from others and discover all sorts of art that they hadn’t seen elsewhere online.
At its peak, even many celebrities were on Tumblr, such as Lady Gaga and President Barack Obama, Business Insider reports. And plenty of indie bands and musicians skyrocketed in popularity due to the site, such as the Arctic Monkeys, Lana Del Rey and The Neighborhood. Within only five years, Tumblr hosted over 42 million blogs and was valued at $800 million.
In 2013, Yahoo! acquired the platform for $1.1 billion, and it only grew in popularity from there. The site saw a 32.8% increase in number of users in 2014, and by 2015, Tumblr had over 260 million blogs. Today, it’s still the 103rd most visited site on the internet, and around the world, about 366 million people visited the blogging platform in February 2024.
One aspect that without a doubt contributed greatly to Tumblr’s success was how unique the site was. At the time that it was created, social media was mainly for having a profile, such as Facebook and Myspace, and sharing content about yourself as an individual. Tumblr, however, allowed for much more creativity. Users could share a variety of forms of media, and there was no expectation to reveal your identity if you didn’t want to. “Long before Instagram launched, in 2010, Tumblr was a home for curated imagery,” Kyle Chayka explained in the New Yorker.
Trends spread like wildfire on Tumblr, and many of us who used the platform during that time will instantly be hit by a wave of nostalgia after seeing someone with the classic 2014 Tumblr aesthetic. Dr. Marten boots, checkerboard clothes, cigarettes, ‘90s grunge band t-shirts, flannels tied around the waist, records like Lorde’s Pure Heroine on vinyl, the list goes on and on… But despite Tumblr’s decline in popularity over the years, Stony Brook Press and Vogue say these trends are already making a comeback.
Tumblr has made a lasting impact on the internet that we’ll never forget. And you can still use it today, although you might think that the site looks a bit outdated at first glance. According to Allegra Rosenberg at The Verge, part of the reason why Tumblr has been left behind is because it couldn’t keep up with the ever-changing landscape of social media.
Well, it probably could have, but Tumblr users are notorious for being resistant to change. “It’s a long-standing inside joke that users will immediately reject any change to their precious Tumblr, taking a long time to finally adjust and accept it,” Rosenberg writes.
Tumblr actually does have an option for infinite scroll, a feature that has been cited for making TikTok so addictive, but aside from that, it has its own unique layout and look. In fact, every user can have their own unique experience on the site as well, as there are plenty of options for customizing your theme. Even third-party themes are available for purchase or download. It’s easy to feel like we’re all just cogs in the wheel of the internet, but at least on Tumblr, you can feel like you have your own special wheel.
