Tumblr is a platform with countless mini-blogs that include pictures, poems, art, advice, and more. The app was most popular from 2011-2018 when knee-high socks, fishnet tights, and smudged black eyeliner were all the rage. While I was only five years old when its popularity began and twelve years old when its popularity ended, its impact on Gen Z is hard to ignore. One of the main issues with Tumblr is the general pattern of romanticizing extremely toxic and unhealthy behavior. If you scrolled on Tumblr during 2015, you would undoubtedly see a few posts with Lana Del Rey lyrics, Alex Turner performing on stage, a poem about how they don’t know how they are going to live without their soulmate, and tall, skinny, sickly pale girls smoking cigarettes, doing drugs, writing about how depressed they are and sharing suicidal thoughts with the rest of Tumblr. In recent months, I have been seeing celebrities go as far as to use “Ozempic”, a drug for diabetics, to lose weight. Not only is this extremely selfish to those who need the drug, but it’s also very disheartening since these celebrities have fanbases filled with young kids and teenagers. Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner, two sisters who are known famously for their curves have been seen recently embracing this new fad of skinny. This is damaging to so many young girls who found comfort in seeing top celebrities being praised for a body similar to their own, as unnatural as they may be.

While Tumblr is a huge app, there are two main “aesthetics” found on it. One is “Coquette”, a term coined to represent an ultra-feminine, flirty girl who wears pastels, lace, and bows. While this aesthetic seems quite innocent, there is a very dark undertone found once you dig a little deeper. Those who consider themselves “Coquette” famously support extreme age-gap relationships and abuse, one example being the extreme romanticization of Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita”, a story aimed at disgusting readers but instead inspired many to wish for a perverted and toxic relationship like what was being portrayed in the book. On the other side of the spectrum, we see a more “edgy” and “rebellious” side of Tumblr, usually including white girls with messy hair, smudged eyeliner, Doc Martens, and a cigarette in hand. These girls famously romanticize mental health problems such as anxiety and depression with poems insinuating that depression makes them who they are. They also promote drug use by showing beautiful young people having fun and partying with other beautiful young people. Although this era isn’t that long ago, we see these damaging trends reemerging in our social spheres. One example of this is artist G-Eazy’s song “Tumblr Girls” gaining traction on platforms like Tiktok, with lyrics like “Cause I’m in love with these Tumblr girls with skinny waists and drug habits”. Going off of this lyric, the number one requirement of fitting the “Tumblr” aesthetic, is being dangerously skinny. There are countless pictures of “meal inspo” an example being four grapes, a rice cake, and black coffee done with a cigarette. There has been an undeniable increase in eating disorder statistics from those years and I think it would be ignorant to not acknowledge Tumblr’s part in that. Another one of the many characteristics portrayed by a “Tumblr girl” is paleness or whiteness in general. During this time, it wasn’t common for people of color to be properly represented in these social spheres, and that caused a lot of damaging insecurities to take over. If you were an avid user of an app with the most beautiful people you’ve ever seen and don’t see anyone that looks like you, undoubtedly you would want to change yourself and gain a level of self-hatred. Arguably one of the grossest romanticizations on the app is that of abuse. There are pictures of girls wearing pink fluffy dresses or lacy sleep gowns with bruises covering their legs and a text overly reading “He shows how much he loves me”. When young girls see these images, they begin to think that it’s normal and might even strive for a relationship that looks like that.

While no social media platform is perfect, the most disturbing one I have come across is Tumblr. The amount of toxic behavior romanticized for young girls or even grown adults to see is frankly disgusting. We should be advocating for healthy relationships with partners, food, substances, and our identities instead of supporting toxic behaviors.