"Isn't it the truth? Whoever we are, we might be princesses somewhere else. Or writers. Or scientists. Or presidents. Or whatever the hell we want to be that everyone else says we can't."
~The Carrie Diaries
If you haven't already heard of Tumblr already...well, I don't know what to say to you. I mean, it's easily one of the most popular social media websites out there, not so far behind Facebook and Twitter and all that jazz. I mean, even I've had an account since July 2010. Where have you been? Just kidding. I've only recently (read: yesterday) started to use it properly, what with liking and reblogging posts that I think are kind of cool. But you should probably know that I'm not leaving Blogger any time soon.
I'm not entirely sure when Tumblr became so "cool" in my grade. Maybe it's because I go on maybe only once or twice a month when I have a fashion post I wanted to "advertise," but suddenly, I noted a lot more personal blogs of people in my year. Wait a minute. Since when did so many people in my grade blog?
If you can call tumblelogging blogging. I don't want to make any big, sweeping generalizations about the types of posts on that site, but I don't believe reblogging photos and posting three line rants about your personal life is real blogging. Instablogging, sure. It's sort of like Twitter, except with way more pictures and very little text, with a dash of Formspring-esque "ask" boxes to satiate the need of reader curiosity.
Perhaps what puzzles me most about Tumblr is why so many of these aforementioned peers would keep their "blogs" a "secret." Maybe I'm just a really creepy super sleuth, but almost all of these personal Tumblr accounts that I've stumbled upon weren't linked through Facebook, the king of friendly stalking. How do you find out more about a person? You click on the info tab of their Facebook profile, and hope they have something under "website" in "contact information." (Where do you think I get the most "referring sites" hits from?)
Just last week I overheard one of my peers talking about how she set her Tumblr to "private" (which, to my knowledge, you can't do) so that no one can find her "blog." At first, I didn't get it. Isn't part of the fun of having a personal blog having friends to share it with? But after my Tumblr escapade yesterday, I think I get it now.
It's the perfect medium to express yourself. Something about the internet compels people, especially teenagers, to express themselves in ways they never would have before. When you reblog something that relates to you, be it something that looks delicious or a quote or saying that pleases you or something beautiful, you're free to express your dreams and your secret desires. And underneath all of that, you hope that someone else, a stranger out there, or someone you weren't close with before, understands and likes the same things as you do.
Maybe, in a world of misfits, we all hope and dream we will one day fit in. And if I don't fit in, then goddamnit, I'm going to attempt to be something extraordinary. I know I grew up thinking that nothing is impossible--this is a world where everybody can make it, and everybody can be a rock star/supermodel/astronaut/princess/stinkin' rich. All you had to do was call the number on the TV screen and you could win a sweepstakes package to stay at a fancy mansion with your three best friends! (Does anybody else remember those commercials on Cartoon Network? Or Nickelodeon?)
At some point in time, we realized we couldn't all be rock stars/supermodels/astronauts/princesses/stinkin' rich. We grew up, and saw the near impossibilities of life. It was too big for our dreams, and somewhere along the lines, we lost sight of what we used to want with what we think we need. Empty dreams go unfulfilled, and the darkness of the real world becomes too much. And when that happens, when the world outside of this fragile world wide web built on big personalities and personal niches becomes too real, we retreat into our anonymous internet personas.
Maybe, after the years of childhood make-believe has disappeared, the internet gave us that last bit of hope for our unsubstantiated dreams, where we could one day be famous and have a group of followers who think we're cool/fabulous/gorgeous/interesting, things we never seem to be enough of in the real world. Or maybe we just wanted a secret world to escape to once again, after our imaginations failed us, where everything is a sugar spun fairy tale.
Keep dreaming, mes chéris.
xoxo, vivian
0 comments:
Post a Comment