Gentrified Tumblr

The Laptop Chronicles

Tumblr is an expensive social media network that encompassed art, music, knowledge, and of course, sex. The platform was used by millions of people worldwide and was great for networking and finding common interests. However, Tumblr was set to be bought by several corporate media giants and thus, sexual explicit content had to be purged from the site. In this purge, users with and without sexually explicit content found their individual posts and pages restricted or deleted completely and thousands of other users voluntarily left the site. Many saw it as just another corporation mining the internet and taking over where they saw fit. I recently read a post that compared the purge of Tumblr to social gentrification; artists from all walks of life (gay, straight, Black, non-binary, Latina, et. al) being allowed to create in their own respective and collective spaces while being watched by a largely White, socially advantaged, and financially advantaged crowd and then having those spaces taken from them and pushed out for the social, financial and political advantage with no respect for the cultures they have overtaken. This episode I read a response that compared the gentrification of Tumblr to that of what is happening in a lot cities. And the news for this episode is about the Pornhub Awards 2020 coming to a computer screen near you.