The secret lives of Tumblr teens

I found the discussion of the culture of Tumblr interesting, but I was left wondering more about the broken business model of Tumblr. They really don't seem to want to share with their influential users the value they generate. The lack of transparency into Tumblr's actions would also be worrying to me if I was involved in the platform. Watching Twitter drop the ball in similar ways makes me think there is a market opportunity for a social network that gives its users basic rights that we demand in our offline world. I'm growing more to like the "social network at a utility" model that I believe some in Twitter unsuccessfully argued for in its earlier days.

I like this quote from the article:<p>&quot;At first you loathe the teens, because you know nothing about them and think they’re idiots, beneath you. Then you love the teens because you figure out they are smarter than you, and you make peace with the death of your cultural relevance, because you know you’ll be in good hands. Finally, you recognize the shape of the adults they’ll become, corrupted by money and vanity and hubris just like everyone else.&quot;<p>And so the world goes &#x27;round.

I think tumblr excels because, lacking a front page like reddit, the user&#x27;s that hate each other never interact. And I&#x27;m increasingly sure that this is the only method for obtaining non-dysfunctional societies online- non-overlapping tribes of users. Why should the subscribers of &#x2F;r&#x2F;stormfront try to coexist with &#x2F;r&#x2F;BlackLivesMatter? It&#x27;s like trying to house wolves and sheep in the same pen. Give each their own echo chamber.

I have a feeling nobody really understands Tumblr (definitely not its own staff). Of all the social networks, it&#x27;s the absolute champion at connecting you to people who think alike. So for you, whoever you are, Tumblr will be a particular thing. And it won&#x27;t be a bit like that for the person next door. Every variation of &quot;Tumblr is full of ...&quot; just lays bare who it is you choose to find and follow.

Didn&#x27;t read the article yet, but whoever designed&#x2F;coded the styling on this page deserves a gold star. The parallax was smooth and really cool.

Teens need a &quot;hangout&quot;...some place to be themselves, away from adults, with like-minded friends...a place where they are &quot;understood&quot;...<p>There&#x27;s nothing wrong with that...it&#x27;s been a need for that age group for centuries...<p>Let them breathe...

One of the best articles I&#x27;ve read about modern Internet culture I&#x27;ve read in a long while. I enjoyed Tumblr as a place to post photos...I&#x27;ve stopped using it but I&#x27;m glad I at least tried it because I don&#x27;t think there&#x27;s any other way to understand Tumblr than to just jump in and use it. This article reminded me of the kinds of articles that were written when the Web was new, about teens making worldwide reputations and untold thousands of dollars doing some nichey tech thing while their parents were completely unawares.<p>Good to know that kind of thing can still exist in today&#x27;s Facebooked world.

This reminded me of both the amazingness of the culture of Tumblr and a lot of the reasons about why I left. I could create useful, informative, viral things there, but there was no way I could make a decent amount of income on the large amount of work I was putting in.<p>I never went so far as to do any of the things mentioned in here—no raspberry ketone treatments ever came from ShortFormBlog—but the closest I got was a one-time sponsored post deal I did with Federated Media. That was nice—and the advertiser was also legitimate and high-profile—but it was just a one-time thing.<p>By choosing for years not to do anything to help creators make money off their websites, Tumblr created a situation where some of their best users did questionable things just to make money from their websites. It&#x27;s too bad—had Tumblr been more decisive, it could have been a YouTube-type situation—allowing both them and their users to make lasting revenue.

Tumblr always seemed to me like IRC in the 90&#x27;s or BBS&#x27;s in the 80&#x27;s. It exists as its own subculture. It&#x27;s not influentially creative - there&#x27;s very original works - but just exists as more of a commentary subculture.

This was a surprisingly good overview of the very complicated and nuanced site that is tumblr.

I feel like I don&#x27;t understand social networks, Tumblr included, at all. Having had Tumblr account since way back doesn&#x27;t help.

Pretty sure some federated social network is gonna win. Enclaves that are run by some tech-minded friend like BBSes, I dunno.

As a friend of many of the people in the original thread, I find it hilarious that the New Republic assumes they&#x27;re all &#x27;teens&#x27;, especially when one has an icon in which he&#x27;s holding his child.