I've been gone from tumblr for over a year now, and sometimes I'm reminded of what my mindset used to look like and how insanely unhealthy that place is. The site is (or was) in its supposed 'golden age', secluded away from the rest of the internet enough to be mentioned occasionally by outsiders and yet still active as ever. The general consensus from within was always that it was one of the last "good" social media sites, because there wasn't as much drama as twitter, it didn't have an algorithm, and as long as you blocked the terfs you'd be relatively safe from seeing bigotry all the time. From my experience, it was definitely one of the better ones. I left it for a reason. this is all taken from the perspective of 2020-2023 era tumblr, after blocking extensive amounts of people and tags, only following people that dont start shit, and yet still ending up bitter.

One of the first things that I really noticed bothered me about it was that no, blocking the people spewing hate did not make the hate go away. A very very common type of post is "look at this clown saying bigoted stuff" and everyone ripping into them in the reblogs. The original hateful rhetoric is still being spread in the first place. You cannot go to tumblr to get away from transphobia in particular when every other post is "look at this transphobe on twitter". You can follow all the right people and still get exposed to this kind of stuff constantly. It bothers me because of how the site parades itself as this haven away from all of that stuff that people go on about on other sites because "you can curate your dash" and yet they bring it back to tumblr anyways. it used to upset me and now it just annoys me.

Wanting to stay the fuck out of politics is something that is simultaneously encouraged and unacceptable. I've seen posts saying "its okay to block all the political tags if they upset you take care of urself!!" and "you/they/ect better fucking reblog this post [in regards to awareness about current events, social/political issues that the poster is frustrated about, ect]" reblogged by the same person in the same timeframe.

people on tumblr have generally well-meaning ideologies but the reputation of it being taken to extreme levels has not changed. honestly, its kind of acknowledged and sustained by some people under the guise of the other party deserving it. depending on what side of the site you're on, there is an "Objectively Moral Right" that most people in your circle will ascribe to and constantly get into fights over. grey areas are constantly being argued about as if there is 1 answer to everything and anyone who disagrees with it is a bad person.

labels are a big thing and theyre really fucking annoying and the pressure to be put into a box is so fucking huge despite any number of users saying you dont need labels. I think people saying one thing is okay and then still condemning it to adhere with the site's culture is probably what bothers me the most.

you have to take an active stance against everything your side of tumblr disagrees with, even if its the most basic obvious shit. i'll see in peoples bios "i am anti-pedo" actually you are a normal person!!! this shouldnt be stuff you feel like you need to tell people off the bat. if you are assuming people support pedos if they dont explicitly say they dont, thats not their fault, its yours. Everyone has assumptions cast on them immediately with how they present themself, and if you don't spell every letter of what you are/believe, their assumptions will be taken as truth because if it wasnt true you wouldve bothered to put it in your carrd! or whatever. also if you like a piece of media that's deemed problematic, you can avoid being attacked by putting "i consume my interests critically" in your bio as if that actually changes anything. its all just performative to look like a moral saint so you have grounds to attack people that dont go out of their way to do shit like this.

everything is for attention and everyone pretends its not. every time someone posts something about activism its just because they want people to agree and they want to look like the good guy. nobody actually cares, and people will point this out in an attempt to look like they care.

the entire site is just looking for mistakes to prove someone is "bad" so you can shit on them. the funny thing is they also shit on people who do this. what a garbage ass site.

ive seen people compare the culture to christian puritanism (who then subsequently got attacked for belettiling religious trauma) and i dont know the exact definition of puritanism but i can absolutely see what that means. Besides the whole witchhunt type mindset, tumblr is very much an "all sins are equal" type of place. i legit remember that one time a tumblr admin was found to have reblogged harry potter fanart and was painted as this horribly transphobic terf supporter who is the very reason the site doesnt take action against bigotry.... like????? of course people were getting banned for straight up attacking that person and it was taken as a sign of confirmation. its not helping anyone, its not solving transphobia, its just giving a bunch of users a pedastal to stand on and feel like theyre getting rid of the bad guy.

actually, for fun im going to list some things that i have literally seen people condemning and/or attacking people for:

• letting your cat outside
• being on ao3
• not appearing lgbt enough (e.g. being bi and in a straight relationship, being nb and presenting as your birth gender, ect)
• having a japanese word in your username without being japanese

people in the real world are never going to be perfect, but if you talk to them you'll find they generally have good intentions. i still feel frustrated with these expectations of perfection that i was expected to show on that site just to avoid people assuming random shit about me.

that was my rant. its been on my mind for a long time and i really wanted to put it into words. i am not going back, fuck that place, there is nothing worth that kind of energy.