#noonereadsthis

People don’t need to write in sentences, not on Tumblr anyway. Which all leads to the point that this blog is ill-suited for this platform. But then again, it’s all about being in the wrong place and the wrong time - life’s true 99%.

dat1%tho:

Tumblr makes such excellent use of multimedia integration that the  user needs no patience to string to ideas together. Between gifs, comment strings, one-liners, pictures, movie clips, there are thousands of words that are unspoken, unwritten, but expressed.

Despite this site’s creator’s concern for the direction his product has taken (in that his userbase is filled with mobbing, angry, internet ‘activists,’ who take offense at everything), I find Tumblr to be a fascinating social platform. Each brand essentially performs the same function - connects people, hence the word ‘social.’ Still, whether it’s 9GAG or Tickld, Youtube or Vimeo, Tumblr or 4Chan, Instagram or Flickr, Squarespace or Wordpress (this can go on for ages), each brand has a unique set of values which are represented by the userbase that each platform has attracted.

Which is to say, that the sentence is becoming obsolete on social media, because each site has grown further in specializing a unique method of communication, or user connection. These ‘methods’ are like a painter’s style of brushwork, except the brush is held by millions of users. Power users grow with the platform, finding unique techniques to creatively express themselves through the limited method that is given to them.

This in itself is not surprising - if people use the same words everyday, they begin to find new ways to express themselves, even with the same words. Creativity has a way of finding itself through repetition, like hitting a dead end in a maze, over and over again, only to finally notice an open route not taken before.

What is surprising though, is how fiercely each userbase defends itself. The justifications, the competitions, insults - it’s the high school cafeteria all over again. 4Chan would be the hardcore, vindictive nerds that pulled passive aggressive pranks on everyone. 9GAG is where all the class clowns hang out. Tumblr, all the emo goths. Instagram, all of the artsies, Wordpress, the bookworms, and finally - Twitter, the jocks. The kids, who could barely string two sentences together, but had it all.

Not that everyone just sticks to one of course, but what’s particularly curious goes back to words, or the distinct lack of them. There’s a base internet vocabulary, lol and all that jazz, but then there are also certain words you wouldn’t find in many places except particular sites, and it all goes back to the culture of association, and what words are meant to accomplish in the first place - identify our thoughts, communicate ourselves.