Be The Gay You Want to See in the World

"She was very beautiful. And I loved her. Oh, yes, I loved her. I won’t deny it or belittle it now. It was a lonely, romantic boy’s first passionate love, and it was very real. And I thought she loved me. I was fool enough to think that. I was wildly happy when she promised to marry me. For a few months. Then—I found out she didn’t." - The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery

We’re making a big change to how account deletion works on Tumblr, and we’re really excited about it, because this is something that some of you have been requesting for… well… a literal decade.

Before today, when you deleted your Tumblr account, it was immediate and permanent. Occasionally, this resulted in Very Sad Times. Even though we’ve tried to make it super difficult to accidentally delete your account, this is something that still happens a lot. Like, a lot. There’s also plenty of folks who delete their account on purpose, but then regret it shortly afterward. Worst of all, if your account was hacked, and then deleted by the hacker, there was no way to get it back. 

All of these problems are *poof* no more. As of today, when you delete your account, we will keep your data for 30 days. Your account will remain recoverable during that time, and you can contact us within that 30 day window if you’d like us to restore your account.

Eventually, we hope to make this process a bit easier, and allow you to restore your account with a single click of a button. For right now, though, you’ll need to contact us via tumblr.com/support and choose the category “Account Access” > “I have deleted my account or blog by accident”. 

FAQs

How do I delete my account? Does that process look different now?

You can follow the steps here to delete your account on the web or through the mobile app, which works pretty much the same way as before. You’ll notice we’ve updated the confirmation screen to reflect the new process, though.

Does a deleted account still appear on Tumblr during this 30 day window?

Nope. As soon as you submit the request to delete your account, all of your blogs will no longer be accessible (they’ll 404), no one will be able to message you, your posts will no longer appear in search results, and you won’t be able to log in anymore. This happens right away, not 30 days later. Deleted accounts still behave exactly as they always have.

What about my email address and username? Will those become available again immediately after account deletion, like they did before?

Notably, no, they will not. In order to make it possible for the account to be restored during the 30 day window, the username and email address must remain associated with the account during that time. So they won’t be available to register again until 30 days after you’ve deleted your account.

If you’re deleting your account, and you already know that you’d like to use the same username or email address on a new account immediately afterward, we recommend that you change your username and email address before deleting the account. That way, they will become available right away, instead of being on hold for 30 days. 

What if I’ve accidentally deleted one of my sideblogs, but not my entire account?

If you delete a sideblog, it will be deleted right away, and cannot be restored. We can only restore an entire account (which will restore all of its blogs along with it). 

Is this feature retroactive? Can you restore the account I deleted two years ago?

As much as we would like this to be possible, the answer is no. We still haven’t perfected the art of time travel, so all accounts deleted before today are still deleted for good. This new change will only apply to accounts which are deleted after this announcement is posted.

Where can I learn more about the account deletion process?

remember, every time this information appears on the internet, he has to pay his "reputation management" firm a whole lotta cash.

part of kayapó’s speech during this event

also! she’s still alive! that sort of thing is always worth pointing out to show that we really aren’t too far removed from events like this! here’s a 2019 photo of her:

Here's what I need you to do:

If you see a post with a "mature content" label, and it's 2026, DM me a link to the post.

Yes, that's really it.

I am hoping to collect several thousand such posts, so that I have a decent sized dataset. I do not care what the post is about; if it's labeled as "mature content", I want to add it to my dataset.

What's your hypothesis, OP?

I am not talking about that unless I have results to share. That would bias the results.

I did write them down and I did share them with a trusted contact who can prove that I wrote them down the same day I made this post. (While I did so before I made this post, I am not sure they will be able to provide proof of that, because I did so on the same day.)

OP are you interested in...?

Do you have to click through to see the post? Does the clickthrough contain the words "mature content"? Then yes.

OP are you interested if the post is about...?

Should I reblog this for reach?

Yes, please. I felt really silly when I noticed I forgot to include that in the original post.

Is it okay if I send you my own posts?

Yes, those are perfect for what I'm looking for. I actually need to do some processing on a post to make it useful for testing my hypothesis, and this makes it easy.

Are you looking for "potentially mature content" also, or just "mature content"?

I want both, please. Anything that throws up a blocking screen that you have to click through. The distinctions between them are one of the things I am hoping to study.

Does it matter when the post was made originally?

Technically no. There's no way to respond to this without introducing some bias in the results, and I don't want that. However, I do collect some data on a post as part of making it useful to me, and that data is easier to collect if the post is recent.

What if I request content label review on a post after I send it to you?

I need to see the mature content label to be able to use the post. Because the mature content label hides the content of the post, it is very hard to use a post that no longer has a mature content label. You could send me a screenshot, but people could use that to lie to me.

Basically, it's more work for you to make it usable to me.

OP are you a transphobe? It would ruin the experiment for me if you're a transphobe.

posts created during 2026, or posts shared with you during 2026?

Posts shared with me during 2026.

It is easier to use a post if it was made in 2026, but it doesn't have to be made in 2026.

Some posts are labeled mature content by Tumblr, and some posts are labeled mature content by the person making the post. Won't that change the result?

That's actuality what I'm studying!

Is there a way I can follow updates, without having to follow you?

As of this FAQ post, I am using "iamthelowercase science project updates" as a tag on all my posts about it. I am considering whether to use tumblr's "community" feature to create a dedicated place to follow about it, as well.

OP are you secretly rounding up a bunch of posts to report them and get them deleted?

This question comes in two parts. Part one: well if I were doing it secretly, I wouldn't tell you that, now would I? I promise I'm not doing that, but like, isn't that what I would say if I were lying to you?

Part two: LMAO if you think Tumblr doesn't already have the ability to nuke all posts marked "Mature Content" just as thoroughly as they nuke trans women's blogs. Now like, a mass reporting campaign targeted at this dataset could still have negative effects, if nothing else by getting employee eyes on the posts. Which is why I'm going to have to be careful who I share the full dataset with. But that's antithetical to my goal here.

What if I have tumblr set to not show me the mature content clickthrough? Do I still send you the post if I notice it?

Yes please. I am studying the clickthroughs themselves, more than the content of the post; but for the same reason I am looking at the clickthrough myself. You don't have to look at the clickthorough if you don't want to.

I am specifically comparing posts labeled "potentially mature content" to those labeled "mature content". Some people have turned the clickthrough filter back on so that they make sure to notice when posts they would not consider mature got flagged. I am very grateful to these people.

What if the post is from a few years ago?

Go ahead and send it. Some of those will prove useful to me, and some of them won't, but the only way for me to know for sure will be to check them.

I should have done a trial run before blazing the post. Oops.

Apparently there's some sort of scam where people need to trick you into messaging them first? And this does look like it would be one of those. I promise it's not one, but of course you have no way to know.

You can just. Tell people the null hypothesis without having to worry about it corrupting your data.

Just how much work data entry is.

I should have provided some way for folks who are interested in this project to receive updates on it without resorting to following me. Sorry if you followed me for information about this project and were disappointed in my regular posting.

Whether or not a pinned post can be a reblog (this is the test case!).

You can paste markdown into the "create post" form on web, and the formatting gets automatically applied. Handy.

That doesn't work on the Android app, though.

In the 1920s, the last Eurasian bison were hunted out of existence in the Azerbaijan region. Efforts to restore the species began in 2012, and the first 12 European bison were released back into their native habitat in 2019.

Well maybe I don’t WANT to work double as hard as abled people!! Maybe I deserve a BREAK!! Maybe I’ve been working MORE THAN double as hard for MY WHOLE LIFE and it’s led me to immense burnout & caused me to develop several MORE disabilities!! Maybe I should be ACCOMMODATED so I don’t have to KILL MY BODY AND BRAIN over trying to do what abled people can do!! Maybe I DON’T have to work double as hard!! Maybe if there’s the option to let me NOT work double as hard, I should have it, because I’m already working double as hard JUST TO SURVIVE!!