What Tumblr Was

The future of Tumblr’s thriving Autistic community is in jeopardy. This is a recap of nearly a decade of organically Autistic-led culture and advocacy.

Tum­blr, the quirky, con­tro­ver­sial, noto­ri­ous­ly unprof­itable social media plat­form, may final­ly dis­ap­pear. Verizon’s deci­sion to clear the site of adult con­tent has gone over bad­ly with users, in part because Tum­blr has always housed sig­nif­i­cant amounts of adult con­tent, in part because hap­haz­ard enforce­ment of the new rule has affect­ed SFW blogs. A sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of users have already decid­ed to leave. It is pos­si­ble, though by no means cer­tain, that Tum­blr could sur­vive with­out peo­ple who use Tum­blr as a source of adult con­tent, but many believe the depar­ture of fan­doms is a fatal blow to the social net­work. Users are back­ing up their con­tent and gath­er­ing oth­er con­tact infor­ma­tion for their friends, even if they intend to main­tain their accounts if pos­si­ble, because of wide­spread pre­dic­tions of Tumblr’s demise.

Since Ver­i­zon announced the new rule, peo­ple who have used, loved, and hat­ed Tum­blr have been eulo­giz­ing it. In the com­men­tary on the social net­work, its past, and its like­ly-lim­it­ed future, autism comes up as a theme among crit­ics and mourn­ers alike. Some of the tweets are by peo­ple who have iden­ti­fied them­selves as Autis­tic:

Twit­ter users who iden­ti­fy them­selves as Autis­tic dis­cuss the mass-pull­out

Oth­ers are ableist and undig­ni­fied uses of autism as an insult:

Like Tum­blr mourn­ers, the social network’s detrac­tors asso­ciate it with autism

The asso­ci­a­tion of Tum­blr and Autis­tic peo­ple is not just a mat­ter of coin­ci­dence or insult. For years, Tum­blr has been home to a large, robust Autis­tic com­mu­ni­ty which has played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the Neu­ro­di­ver­si­ty Move­ment. Now, its is in doubt. Some very notable par­tic­i­pants have already announced their depar­ture.

A pro­lif­ic activist who has explored the inter­sec­tion of dis­abil­i­ty, race, and sex­u­al­i­ty has left Tum­blr

This com­mu­ni­ty, known as Autis­tic Tum­blr, is not the old­est online gath­er­ing place for Autis­tic peo­ple, but it is dis­tin­guished in its diver­si­ty, acces­si­ble entry-point to the com­mu­ni­ty, organ­i­cal­ly pro-neu­ro­di­ver­si­ty pos­ture, and suc­cess as a start­ing point for younger Mil­len­ni­al activists. Whether or not it con­tin­ues to exist, what hap­pened there will rip­ple through, at least, the Eng­lish-speak­ing Autis­tic com­mu­ni­ty for years to come.

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Originally published at autisticfuture.com on January 2, 2019.