Its been a long time coming…
As the two people who regularly check my Tumblr have noticed, I haven’t been around as much as I used too. We had a good run together. There was a good six month span or so when I frequently refreshed my dashboard and tried admirably to include myself in the tumblr world. I actively looked for stories and ideas that would make interesting posts. I even got into feuds with some of the local tumblr idiots for others enjoyment.
But, as with any less than solid relationship, the small things that I noticed in the beginning have resurfaced and our bond just isn’t strong enough to overcome them.
I still hate the narcissistic nature of tumblr that encourages completely uninteresting people to document their life as if they are a member of the Continental Congress. Never once in my life have I wanted to know what the day to day life of a web page designer entails, and that feeling is only stronger now that I have seen it is everything I expected.(I have said it before and I will say it again. A picture of an empty plate and a caption below reading, “Good donut” is not a post. Its not even a picture. If I saw that in someones photo reel I would assume that the camera went off by mistake.)
I cant stand the sheep like mentality of the Tumblr masses. Eveyone is always in such willing agreement with one another on complex political and social ideals. The constant oversimplification of problems and their solutions is bothersome. Linking an article exposing a recent Bush blunder through a photo-shopped picture of Obama curing cancer while shitting out economic growth isn’t forward thinking. It is just a nice example of pandering for reblogs.
But I guess what I hate most about Tumblr is that its not you, its me. I have posted dumb things. I have reblogged garbage that I knew was the toast of the Tumblr world that day. I am admittedly just as uninteresting to a stranger on the street as anyone else on the web. What it all boils down too is that I just cant give you what you want Tumblr.
I will never take photos of myself before and after a haircut and ask for comments because I don’t care. I don’t need backdoor compliments from the internet to feel good about my appearance.
I will never recant the minutes of my personal life for anonymous strangers to read. If I have a rowdy night out with the boys and wake up 20 miles away from my car next to a girl I don’t remember meeting, the only people that need to hear the details are the ones I speak regularly to because what my friends and I do stays between my friends and I.
I will never have a career where I can bitch about how “tough” and “busy” my day is even though I am posting and reblogging things every ten minutes. People who are actually busy doing important things rarely have time to take a picture of themselves comically pretending to pull out their hair.
The thing is I get you Tumblr, but I am afraid you don’t get me, and that is not your fault. I don’t want you to understand me. I am too private a person. So I think it is best if we just go back to how we started. I will stop by every once in a while and post something that only I and maybe one or two of my close friends will find interesting, and then I will be on my way.
So with that, I am posting pictures of my niece and I at a wedding we went to this weekend in NY. I know full well that I am the only one who finds these picture interesting, but fuck it.
I don’t think that’s tumblr’s fault. It could easily be blogger or wordpress. The difference is that there’s a community here; yeah a community that is not re-inventing the wheel (for the most part) or being very original with their opinions and/or rants, but a community nonetheless. Like everything else out there, its what you make of it, tumblr will be for you what you want it to be. Just like facebook, just like twitter, just like everything else. Tumblr is not equal to “the tumblr community”; for me, its the circle of friends and acquaintances that are part of it. So instead of sending tons of emails a day back and forth with each other to show a link, we put it on tumblr. It easier to share this way. If I meet other interesting people in the process, then its a bonus. Plus, looking at my dashboard offers me a brief brake from my day —which may I add does involve being busy and actually working. But then again, that’s just my opinion. :)
