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Teens on Tumblr

In the early 2010′s, Tumblr was a popular microblogging platform among young teens, especially teenage girls. It is different from many other social media platforms because it follows the format of blogs, however, the range of the type of media posted is a lot wider. Through the site, one can access many posts made by other blogs without having to do outside searches. With so many different types of posts, people are able to curate their blogs to fit a certain side of the site by tagging their posts and making it easier for them to be found by their targeted audience.

One side of Tumblr that received a lot of attention by young girls, including myself, in the 2010′s is ED Tumblr, short for “Eating Disorder Tumblr,” which supported and promoted eating disorders. I first accessed Tumblr when I was in middle school, around the age of thirteen or fourteen when I was most impressionable by things that I saw. At the time, I thought the posts being shared on this side of Tumblr were normal and healthy, because of how normalized sharing such dangerous posts were at the time. I would “reblog” unhealthy posts and spread them even further. It allowed for young teens to adopt unhealthy habits they saw online because they thought it was normal. This is one of the negative effects of “participatory culture,” which allows consumers to also participate in the media being created as discussed by Jenkins in “Worship at the Altar of Convergence.” Users on Tumblr are able to see one post and either make their own version of it or reshare the post to their own followers.  

What makes Tumblr different from other blogging sites is that it gives users the ability to post in a variety of formats while still maintaining the aesthetic and format of a traditional blog. In a way, it can be seen as a form of convergence of social networks and traditional blogging. Some of the ways in which users on Tumblr are able to share and create posts is through regular text posts, photos, audio files, videos, or even posting questions in which anonymous users visit their blogs to ask. It also makes access easier to younger generations because it does not require knowledge creation of professional blogs, like HTML coding or programming. They simply edit their blogs through the website, share any type of post they wish to, and add taqs so that it reaches a certain audience. In some instances, users began to use tags to share messages they don’t necessarily want in their caption. Below is an example of what some of the tags might look like, specifically in ED Tumblr.

(Tags from Tumblr user confortableinmybody)

The most popular tag on this side of Tumblr is “thinspo,” which is short for “thin inspiration.” The post usually includes body checks, or images of ideally “perfect” bodies that can be dangerous for young teens, especially if their bodies do not look like the ones in the images. I have also reblogged some of the posts that have gained popularity by ED Tumblr onto this blog and can be seen under this post. Some of the posts are tips and tricks for people to continue and keep up with dangerous eating habits. Within their blog posts are also messages that are misinformed and spread negativity like the one below.

“Never forget that you are what you eat, if you choose light and low calorie foods then you will be light and thin but if you choose to eat hamburgers which are heavy and fat then you will be heavy and fat. Make the right choices” – from Tumblr user beckyskinnyan

Though there are less people on this side of Tumblr today, the effects of such a culture are still prevalent today. Blog posts from during this time are usually never deleted and people are still able to search tags like “pro-ana” or “thinspo” to find the same posts I looked at when I was in middle school. With the posts still being shared and left on Tumblr, it makes it easy for the community to grow again and spread to other, more popular platforms today.

(sources: Converging Media: A New Introduction to Mass Communication by John V. Pavlik and Shawn McIntosh, “Worship at the Altar of Convergence” by Jenkins)

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What you can eat and drink on your diet :

- seaweed (seaweed salad, seaweed leaves etc..) - black coffee - mint tea - chamomile tea - water (of course) - turmeric - cabbage - zucchini

Never forget that you are what you eat, if you choose light and low calorie foods then you will be light and thin but if you choose to eat hamburgers which are heavy and fat then you will be heavy and fat. Make the right choices