@sfmoma Is Hosting Online Screenings Each Week Of September As Part Of Their #MuesumFromHome Efforts.

WHOA 😳

Equal parts expected and terrifying. The entire study is here: https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/tiktoks-algorithm-leads-users-transphobic-videos-far-right-rabbit-holes

Media Matters for America

TikTok's algorithm leads users from transphobic videos to far-right rabbit holes

TikTok’s “For You” page (FYP) recommendation algorithm appears to be leading users down far-right rabbit holes. By analyzing and coding over

Black Panther (2018) — dir. Ryan Coogler

Tumblr In The Wild

Have you ever seen a meme floating around somewhere in the great beyond—your family group chat, your friend’s Instagram story—and you’ve thought quietly to yourself, I saw that on Tumblr first, ha! Or maybe you even said it out loud. And then everyone looked at you funny. 

Well, this is a post about those special moments: seeing Tumblr in the wild, when a meme or trend or really good post breaches containment like a particularly powerful cryptid. 

First and foremost, in 2021, there was gaslight gatekeep girlboss, a meme that sprouted in Tumblr’s native soil early in the year. Following its spread to Twitter, it took the whole internet by storm until it became part of everyone’s standard vocabulary. 

Then there was the whole #2014tumblr phenomenon on TikTok, which continues to be a Whole Thing. Basically, people are obsessing over the historical aesthetic of this very website. From a mere seven years ago. Which has been WILD to see for all the people on Tumblr who were around to invent it.

In 2020, iconic Tumblr account @thatsbelievable, a compendium of Victorian-aesthetic jokes with a modern twist, had a successful post in the form of The Best Gorilla Joke of 1897. But when it went viral on Twitter in 2021, people uninitiated in Tumblr vibes believed it really was from 1897, and others had to jump in to clarify. 

We all had a good laugh at the Tumblr post about “vertically oriented igneous intrusion,” but many of you took a non-zero amount of offense at an aggregator website kicking off their reporting on the meme with the sentence, “Tumblr’s no longer popular, but that won’t stop content from spreading on other platforms.” Because come on! 

On Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, there are a bunch of accounts devoted to reposting Tumblr screenshots, the most impressive being @exaltiora’s Twitter thread which runs to over 11,000 continuous screenshots of Tumblr posts! But as a Tumblr user so winningly put it, this is akin to selling bootleg tickets to the clown carnival. 

Finally, to cap off the year, we had the feminine urge meme. Like gaslight gatekeep girlboss, this one began on Tumblr and then flooded the channels on many other platforms. But WE know that a meme this good could only have come from one place: right here. In other words: do not cite the deep magic to me, witch. I was on Tumblr when it was posted.

Exploded Console Posters made by Angerinet

Tumblweeds with Joseph Gordon-Levitt

We got into the weeds with actor and filmmaker Joseph Gordon-Levitt (@hitrecordjoe) about HITRECORD Class Projects, creating a character based on himself for Mr. Corman, and memories from the making of 10 Things I Hate About You and Inception.

Questions from: @pcedamercn, @pleasepleasepleaseme, @scoobysnack, and ~Anonymous~

🔥🔥🔥

gave him a bit of a facelift... happy moon knight dayyy🌙✨

A MESSAGE FROM THE PRINCIPAL

Dear Reblogs, Welcome to Hellsite High. As your principal, I’m excited to share my tips on navigating this wonderful hellsite we call Tumblr.

There’s something here for everyone. For new students, I suggest you check out tips on getting started and exploration. For returning students, see my tips on creating content and getting noticed. We recommend you continue your education by checking out some of these in depth resources.

Watch out for Pro Tips which are a collection of Hellsite High tips for advanced users.

Hellsite High Glossary offers definitions for common Tumblr terms.

Help Center offers website updates and technical troubleshooting support.

I look forward to seeing your success. ✨

Once a reblog, always a reblog!

Cat Frazier Creator of Animated Text

The Gif Set

The gif set is one of Tumblr’s most renowned native flora. Its essential orderly cellular structure, each gif divided from the other by a neat strip of white space, is unmistakable.

Prior to the emergence of the gif set, Tumblr users were restricted to one image per post. Hard to imagine now!

Once unbound, creativity reached an apex. Able to capture fleeting moments and showcase them in alignment, the linear strictures of digital video were broken down. Gif-makers built a craft out of beautifying and arranging their instances of choice.

This is a prime example of Tumblr’s unique and irreplaceable ecology. Where else can one access the nearly limitless possibilities a gif set provides?

Images in motion propagate widely without any limits in many many places, but only on Tumblr are they able to all be viewed at once, in full. This simultaneity-simulacrum, silent but evocative—I believe it to be a pillar of Tumblr’s continued survival.