An undercover look at the design elements used to construct Tumblr’s close-knit anonymous community
Tumblr is a microblogging and social networking platform with over 450 million registered accounts in 2019. Although many other social media platforms exist and flourish today, the reason for Tumblr’s continued existence and popularity stems from the manner in which it creates the feeling of a close-knit community and gives its users the autonomy to create blogs that entirely reflect their interests and remain largely unaffected by outside factors such as popularity. However, Tumblr’s perception as a safe and secluded community isn’t by accident or coincidence — its structural and visual design incentivizes interactions that lead to the creation of small interest-based communities that retain a sense of privacy even on a widely used and open platform.
As many avid Tumblr users frequently use the mobile app rather than the desktop website, my paper focuses primarily on the mobile app in terms of design.
The Creation of a Private Space:
Tumblr’s sense of privacy stems from its visual interface as well as the information flows that this interface facilitates. A notable feature about the color palettes that Tumblr offers is that almost all of them have dark blue as a staple color and a majority of them can be considered dark UI. Furthermore, the majority of the content on Tumblr tends to be in textual format, primarily because Tumblr affords text-based posts rather than media.
The dark palettes and the largely textual interface contribute to the coded, journalistic feel of the interface. This creates a disconnect from the “outside” internet world and quietens the visual atmosphere of the application in an era where most social media is characterized by flashy portrayals of one’s life.
Beyond the visual design, the app itself facilitates privacy by displaying very little personal information. For one, a quick look at my account page reveals almost nothing about my identity outside of Tumblr.
My real name is not revealed, nor needed for registration, and although I have the option of putting details such as my gender or age in the description, it is not required or even necessary. In fact, even my follower count is invisible to everyone but me. On this platform, I am not Shruti Jain, but rather memeshmoo.
Apart from the profile, however, the biggest difference between Tumblr and other social media apps is the design and function of the Dashboard. As a novice Tumblr user, I was initially very confused by Tumblr’s dashboard. Unlike other social media apps, Tumblr’s dashboard shows a relative lack of algorithm dependency. Instead, it shows content only from blogs and hashtags that a user follows. As I could not exactly rely on an endless stream of curated content like I was used to (on Instagram and Tiktok), I initially found it rather difficult to explore more content on Tumblr. First, it was hard to find blogs to follow, especially since there were very few blogs that were well known across the entire Tumblr community, and celebrities and influencers held little power on Tumblr.
Because I was not following very many blogs or tags at first, no matter how many times I refreshed my dashboard, it showed the same content — much of which constituted my own posts and reblogs. My initial conclusion was that I hadn’t used the app for long enough and that therefore the algorithm had been unable to understand what interests I had. However, some scouring on the internet as well as a lengthy conversation with a friend who is an avid Tumblr user soon made me realize that my approach to this platform was entirely wrong.
On Tumblr, it turned out that the best and most common method to discover new content was by searching using tags. After I searched for tags of specific fandoms (ex: Harry Potter, Miraculous, EXO), or topics (cats, design), my experience significantly improved. Searching for tags about specific fandoms allowed me to not only find new content, but also encounter creators that posted about topics that interested me. Following these creators certainly did improve my dashboard, however, it was clear that searching for tags was an important part of getting any sort of information (content) on the platform.
At first, it seemed that Tumblr’s dashboard was simply bad design. However, a closer look revealed that the relatively complex methods of content discovery served a purpose — they furthered the “sense of privacy” and user control, excluding unrelated content from dashboards (Kurtyka). This attracted users as it created a very personalized enclave — people would only see what they explicitly followed and liked.
The privacy afforded by the search feature, however, is only possible because of the extensive role that tags play on Tumblr — both in discovery and commentary. Because of the manner in which users discover new content on Tumblr through tag searches, tagging is crucial to getting visibility for posts. Furthermore, for accounts like mine that have relatively few followers, tags become the sole way to be conveniently featured on the dashboards of users who have never interacted with my blog. For the above reasons, posts with relevant and popular tags on Tumblr clearly tend to fare better in terms of notes (popularity).
Tags on Tumblr, however, aren’t simply for gaining visibility in the algorithm. They also serve the purpose of commentary — a custom I found unique to Tumblr users. For example, commenting tags on Tumblr can be divided into “opinion”, “reaction”, and “aside” tags — which are usually much too long and complex for any user to search them up (Bourlai).
Whether the tag feature on Tumblr was an affordance designed to be used in such a way is questionable, but this unconventional use of tags certainly furthers Tumblr’s private and close-knit community feel. On a platform almost purely content-based, where other users can reblog exactly every word another blog has posted, tags are one of the few things that leave little trace — they are not carried along when a post is reblogged.
Tags on Tumblr, therefore, provide a private refuge for whispered commentary — blending its’ journalistic blogging aspects with aspects of typical social media. They make certain aspects of posts simultaneously hidden and discoverable, further creating a creative and hidden space for its users. But why is Tumblr built in such a way that requires the extensive use of tagging for content curation and creation?
Unlike other social media platforms, Tumblr is not meant to amplify current social connections, and many Tumblr users do not prefer their real-life friends and connections to discover their Tumblr. Most of the interactions between bloggers on Tumblr consist of parties that have never met each other before they interacted on Tumblr. Even my personal experience attests to this — my acquaintances showed hesitancy in giving me their Tumblr URLs and letting me view their Tumblr account (even though it was obviously public), while they had no such qualms about almost any other social platform that they were active on. This means that most users cannot go off of existing social connections for networking on Tumblr, and therefore, to attract users without a traditional networking model, Tumblr relies on content and tagging.
Users instead are able to build new connections as they enter the community of their interest without ever having to rely on outside social networks.
Beyond need, however, tagging also is a method to promote specific fandom communities. Tagging ensures that content about a specific show or interest remains largely undiscoverable by non-fans (as they are unlikely to search tags corresponding to those fandoms), and yet very popular among fans (as they are quite likely to search for interests upon encountering a bland dashboard). This furthers the personalization and privacy for users — they are not pestered with content that they do not relate to.
The above design explanations make it clear how Tumblr is made to be a private yet open space unlike any other. But what is the benefit of such a space, and why does it attract so many users?
The Importance of Anonymity on Tumblr:
The Watchers sums up very well why privacy is important for users — even beyond Tumblr. When people are watched, they tend to behave much more differently, self-censoring to avoid criticism (Shaw). On Tumblr, however, the private design and lack of real-name association create an environment that has less surveillance. Obviously, this is not to say that Tumblr does not partake in the same data-collection techniques that other platforms do, however, Tumblr allows people to not be watched by those they know in real life.
This means that users are able to almost entirely disconnect from existing social positions in the real world, which translates to their Tumblr persona being entirely based on content such as interest and humor. This disconnect creates an unparalleled “safe” space for individuals that may feel targeted or alienated from mainstream society.
Much of the harassment that marginalized groups and women face online is linked to unchangeable parts of their identity rather than their actions on the internet (Karaman). However, on Tumblr, because real identity remains largely unhidden, it is much harder for harassment to prevail. For example, on Tumblr, it is much harder to dox someone, because although Tumblr may give any follower of an account a detailed view into interests and/or personality, it keeps potentially private information (such as full name or location) private.
Furthermore, since Tumblr is very content-based rather than focused on user identity, it can prevent other bloggers from attacking users for the most vulnerable parts of their identities.
Because of the anonymity that Tumblr encompasses, it also attracts a very specific audience. For example, Tumblr tends to have many users that are LGBTQIA — in fact, many young people claim to have discovered their sexual orientation because of the Tumblr community (Byron).
This alternate user base does not mean Tumblr is a safe space exclusively for LGBTQIA people. Rather, the presence of such a user base creates an adequate online climate that shows relatively more acceptance to many people that may feel targeted for their identity in other spaces — creating a virtuous feedback loop promoting tolerance.
This has allowed for many communities, such as female sports fandoms to emerge on Tumblr. For instance, 94% of the soccer fandom on Tumblr was female (for reference, only 42% of all soccer fans are female). For women sports fans, who have been typically excluded from many male-dominated discussion spaces (or been subjected to harassment and unwelcome advances), having such a secluded and mostly female space for discourse has important implications in potentially creating the internet as a more equal and welcoming space across genders (Kunert).
But Tumblr, although welcomes people from minority communities and women, is by no means limited to them. In fact, Tumblr is one of the most equally used platforms in terms of gender, with almost a perfect 50–50 split between male and female users. However, all Tumblr users reap the benefits of anonymity.
Since anonymity ensures that users cannot be judged by real-life acquaintances, individuals on Tumblr have the ability to express opinions that, even if not offensive or controversial, may be considered weird, or mildly disturbing. Not only does this make people less hindered in what they say on the internet (as their actual identity isn’t attached to their Tumblr one) but the presence of such posts also makes it even more acceptable to post such content.
Weird is not only accepted as a part of Tumblr culture but also actively encouraged. Much of anything is considered acceptable, as long as it does not hold enough coherence or relevance to be truly considered threatening. Tumblr is a place to unwind in the flow of an unhinged meme pool where all that matters is the capacity of a post to gain notes and go viral (Gleick). Virality on Tumblr has little ties to the OP’s real identity. This creates a huge incentive for contribution — anyone, anyone, can make contagious information.
The above establishes how anonymity creates an equal platform for all (those with or without social capital in real life) and encourages users to create and contribute with the hope that they may be rewarded with notes. It also explains the creation of niche communities through tagging. However, the question remains — beyond anonymity and tags, how exactly does Tumblr incentivize the interactions between users necessary to make such a community?
Most social platforms require an initial critical mass as well as networking between users to create the benefit of an adequate social circle in which new users would want to take part (Jorgenson). It may seem that Tumblr evades this concept as users do not have an incentive to join Tumblr just because people they know use it. However, Tumblr follows the concept of networking and critical mass in a unique way — it requires multiple critical masses for each big fandom/topic for users that relate to that content to join. If there are enough people on Tumblr that appeal to any user’s interest or humor, there is enough reason for a person to create their own Tumblr blog.
Once on the platform, users are incentivized to actively contribute to it by the system of notes and reblogs. As mentioned above, users cannot view the follower count of any other blogs, but they can view how many notes the posts on a blog have. This allows Tumblr to shift the focus of its users on meaningful content creation rather than follower aggregation.
Content sharing is also heavily encouraged. Since reblogged content is given a spot on a user’s own blog, this incentivizes people to reblog interesting posts to pass off others’ content as partially their own contribution.
Reblogging is important because it creates a booming network effect — every reblog exposes a post to every follower of the reblog — allowing posts to flourish since exposure increases exponentially with every reblog. Reblogs, therefore, sustain Tumblr and essentially keep it active even with minimal user effort needed.
The combination of tagging, self-curation, reblogs and privacy make Tumblr the silent but alive platform it is. A seemingly undiscovered place with a thriving culture, there is no doubt that Tumblr users take pride in simply being part of the platform.
Tumblr’s design supports anonymity and fosters a unique culture that appeals to the niche, but accepts all those that choose to partake in its language. Through its use of a limited dashboard, content-driven philosophy, and tags, the app provokes purposeful interaction among users and functions as an effective social platform even with unusual connections between users that are strangers in the real world. Therefore, although Tumblr’s user base does not constitute the majority of internet users by any means, it creates a seemingly tight-knit community of people with specific interests and humor that hold a sense of loyalty to the app. While it may not be everyone’s tumbler of tea, Tumblr’s unique design and interactions make it unlikely to die in the near future.
