Tumblarians

Sherry Turkle says that technology is making us more alone. We need to put technology in its place. It keeps us from being completely invested in a conversation.The way I see the concept of "Alone Together" is that we can be physically isolated, yet maintain a sense of community and togetherness via technology. It is not a substitution for actual human interaction, but rather a supplement.

I think that the Tumblarian community is a sense of being "alone together" because many of the Tumblarians are from varying cities, states and countries. It allows for users to come together via a social media platform while remaining in our respective beds in our flannel pajamas with our respective cats. It is a different type of interaction than IRL interaction I get by discussing librarian things with my professors at SILS, but it still creates a sense of togetherness.

There is an ongoing debate of whether the Internet is making people smarter or dumber.

Clay Shirky believes that the Internet is an outlet for "cognitive surplus" and is therefore making us smarter. The Tumblarian community is definitely a product of this surplus. It is helping to create a "better more cooperative world" amongst librarians everywhere. The surplus is helping to extend Tumblarians' networks and create new projects that would otherwise not be possible.

NIcholas Carr alternatively argues that the Internet is making us stupid. It is making users shallow and have shorter attention spans. It also causes us to divide our attention amongst the articles, the tags, the advertisements all at the same time. This causes us to multi-task which makes the brain less able to fully process and encode information. It makes it more difficult for Internet users to learn and remember information.

Tumblarians are not attempting to create a community that is all about learning and memorizing information. The user interface of the "tumblarian" tag has a relatively smooth interface and allows for the reader to skim posts without an intense amount of multi-tasking. The general idea of Tumblarians is that it is a social platform, making the posts less about memorizing and more about casual, incidental learning.

Kirby Ferguson argued that everything is a remix of something else.

The idea of Tumblr as a whole is basically a remix. Users reblog posts and can add their own comments, thus making it new material that has not been done previously. This is a way that ideas and projects are remixed and potentially improved.

The idea of a tumblarian is a remix. It is the words Tumblr and librarian formed into this new idea. Below the semantics, Tumblarians are the remixing of traditional librarians with a social media platform. 

The lack of total anonymity amongst Tumblarians creates a more transparent environment. This is not to the extent of Hasan Elahi's radical transparency with his website.

Roger Dingledine discussed anonymity. Tumblarians cannot be completely anonymous while blogging. There is an avatar of some sort attach to their account, as well as a blog URL. This URL is what people often refer to others as because it is how users identify each other. For example, my friend Sara ran a popular Tumblr for an extended period and everyone called her "Pearls" because her URL was "pearlsandcurls." She did not place her name on her Tumblr because she preferred to remain more private.

So, rather than anonymous, Tumblr users, including Tumblarians can be pseudonymous. They can create a persona online that may not be them IRL. A librarian stereotype is that they are quiet, and if a librarian is actually quiet IRL (HAH) they can have a voice online in the Tumblarian community.

There is a small way of being anonymous on Tumblr. If users choose, they can have an "Ask Box" open on their blog with two options: URL or ANON. Tumblarians can receive messages from an anonymous source which appears with the avatar of a gray face. They are either called "Anons" or "Gray Faces."

A large portion of our discussion of danah boyd's lecture was devoted to advertisement. Specifically she talks about Target and it's tracking of purchases.

Tumblr is essentially ad-free, so there is not as much of an ad-tailoring based on past clicks (as is the case for many websites). The only things that pop up as far as advertisements were a recent addition of "promoted posts." These are posts that are integrated into a user's dash and appear just as any other post. However the ones I have seen are displayed by the official Tumblr for the upcoming movie The Great Gatsby. They are simply promotional pictures that can be reblogged and therefore reach a wider audience.

Albert-László Barabási says that humans are vastly interconnected and influence others' behaviors.

This is definitely the case in the Tumblarian community. Tumblarians use this form of a social media outlet to gain knowledge and as a sounding board for ideas that are heavily influenced by the response from other Tumblarians.

Mrs. Banks from Mary Poppins brings up an excellent point that is made more universally scientific by Duncan Watts.

While a person may be intelligent, collectively people are stupid. There is a change as the group being described grows larger. Watts claims that rules that apply to individuals cannot effectively be extrapolated onto larger populations. This is why personalized and individualized marketing is much more effective than that which is a generic marketing campaign.

Duncan Watts argues the “6 Degrees of Separation,” which aids Tumblarians because their internet presence may help them meet people they otherwise wouldn’t meet, thus making the community smaller and potentially reducing the number of degrees between individuals.

Tumblarians use this network for more than just socializing. It is actually a productive means for gaining knowledge and help regarding library topics. Future librarians, like myself, have elicited help from other Tumblarians for projects such as user studies. Tumblarians have also used the community as a sounding board for ideas to gain feedback from other librarians. This assistance is a social capital. It is a sort of currency amongst the Tumblarian community, and makes the network smaller. Everyone is expected to both give and receive, which makes it an effective system. During class, we discussed social constraints vs. contractual constraints. Social constraints are much more effective than contractual constraints, and this is part of why the Tumblarian community works.

The science of networking is the main topic of Nicholas Christakis' book, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks. His book is more focused on IRL connections and influence, but the online community is changing. He argues that your friends' friends have an influence on you, whether you know them or not. This translates into the Tumblarian community quite well. A Tumblarian may be influenced by someone in their life, and they blog about it. This may influence you, despite potentially living in different countries.

Robin Dunbar says the magic number is 150. Humans can have 150 friends. I think that Tumblarians lie on the outskirts of Dunbar's calculations, closer to being between 500 and 1500 users. There are currently 770 posts on "This is What a Librarian Looks Like."These are only the Tumblarians that want their face on this particular website, so there are numerous more.

Obviously this is larger than the Dunbar's 150 interactions, but I think it is more of an acquaintance issue than genuine "friendships." Most of the Tumblarians will casually send another an "ask" or will follow other Tumblarians, but even mutual following should not be considered a true friendship. Many Tumblarians refer to others by their URL because they do not know the other's real name! This pseudonymity creates a barrier that blocks someone from creating a true friendship.

Barry Wellman's talk about individualized networking.

Networks are making things easier. There are less geographic barriers structuring the networks which allow for more individuals with a niche interest to group together. Tumblarians are a smaller group of individuals but Tumblr allows for them to group together across oceans. The users are basically strangers but the energy is so positive and there is a strong sense of community.

Nancy Baym discussed the potential of new technologies in terms of communication. These new connections are making it easier to make communities that are not simply based on locational issues.

Hippies were outcasts so they created their own culture. Everyone was trying to rebel against "the man." The nerds of the time were the same way. They created their own counterculture with the Whole Earth Catalog.

Librarians are often thought of with the stereotype of being uptight older white women with wrinkles, glasses, a bun and a frown. This being said, Tumblarians are rebelling, just as the hippies did, from "the man." Although "the man" in this case is a stereotype. They have created their own culture to help show that librarians are loud and wear things other than cardigans (sometimes). The Tumblarian community is one where users can break free from the stereotypes and be as nerdy and unique as they please.

Tumblarians are very cutting edge and are helping carrying libraries into the future.This is exactly what Tim O'Reilly and Larry Page are discussing in the articles.