Tumblr, I love you
Thanks for not giving me FOMO
I have a very love-hate relationship with social media at the moment, particularly Instagram, and I know I’m probably not alone in that. The FOMO I experience watching the stories of people I’ve never met and the feeling of constant pressure to create and engage has left a bit of an unsavory taste in my mouth. I care a lot about the opinions of myself from others and I’ve been craving not feeling the pressure to post, create, and constantly stay on your feed so you don’t forget I exist. So I’ve turned back to Tumblr.
If 15-year-old Ashley would have known I’d still be using the same Tumblr account 12 years later, I probably would have thought I finally made it big on the platform. Hello brand deals! Hello thousands and thousands of strangers interested in me! Wrong. It’s been 12 years and I’m still sitting at just a little over 500 followers, most of which are inactive users. But for once, I’m not complaining about a social media platform. In fact, I wish that was the only platform I had most days like I had in high school. There’s really nothing quite like not knowing the person behind the profile name and obscure photo you consistently reblog uncredited Pinterest photos and random book quotes from and vice versa. The anonymity is something I’ve been longing for with the relief of not feeling like I constantly need to make content of some sort. Not saying now that I really make content, but I like posting pictures of my apartment as I rearrange it almost monthly.
Tumblr has created a safe little home in my creative bubble and at this point I don’t know if or when I’ll ever part with it. It brings me a sense of comfort in the fact that no one knows me and I don’t know them, and we’re all okay just reposting the same picture of a Matisse painting until it has well over 100,000 notes. Much like Twitter, I like giving my followers a little play-by-play of my life as well as creating one giant mood board of my ever evolving interests, but now I have a place where I don’t really care if you see it or not. I feel free to post my pictures of my recent paintings or a picture I took that I thought was super aesthetic and not feel like I’m lacking in something. Sometimes I just want to reblog 100+ photos of scandinavian inspired homes with the same $6000 couch or black and white pictures of scantily clad women reading philosophy books on the beach while I try to romanticize my own life. Sometimes I just want to post snippets of poems that feel ~deep~ and convince myself that I have some form of mystique.
I’ve found it’s good for the soul and the creative process to stop participating in your FOMO and posting just so someone you follow will follow you back. I still exist but I don’t have to prove it and it’s a relief.
And no, I won’t give you my Tumblr.
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