Tumblr

by Katrin Tiidenberg, Natalie Ann Hendry, Crystal Abidin

Overview

Launched in 2007, tumblr became a safe haven for LGBT youth, social justice movements, and a counseling station for mental health issues. For a decade, this micro-blogging platform had more users than either Twitter or Snapchat, but it remained an obscure subculture for nonusers.

Katrin Tiidenberg, Natalie Ann Hendry, and Crystal Abidin offer the first systematic guide to tumblr and its crucial role in shaping internet culture. Drawing on a decade of qualitative data, they trace the prominent social media practices of creativity, curation, and community-making, and reveal tumblr’s cultlike appeal and position in the social media ecosystem. The book demonstrates how diverse cultures can – in felt and imagined silos - coexist on a single platform and how destructive recent trends in platform governance are. The concept of “silosociality” is introduced to critically re-think social media, interrogate what kinds of sociality it affords, and what (unintended) consequences arise.

This book is an essential resource for students and scholars of media and communication, as well as anyone interested in an influential but overlooked platform.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781509541096
Publisher:	Polity Press
Publication date:	10/25/2021
Series:	Digital Media and Society
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Katrin Tiidenberg is Professor of Participatory Culture at Tallinn University.

Natalie Ann Hendry is Vice-Chancellor's Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Digital Ethnography Research Centre and School of Media and Communication at RMIT University.

Crystal Abidin is Associate Professor of Internet Studies, Principal Research Fellow, and ARC DECRA Fellow at Curtin University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Introduction: tumblr, with a small t

1: tumblr structure

2: tumblr sociality

3. Fame

4. Fandom

5: Social justice

6. NSFW

7: Mental health

Conclusion: ‘beautiful hellsite’



References

Notes

Index

Editorial Reviews

The book absolutely delivers on this premise, serving as an excellent primer for the uninitiated, while carrying out a useful analysis of its sociotechnical features that allows one to position tumblr within its historic role in the social media platforms landscape alongside the more popular Facebook and Twitter. … Through flowing writing, humorous anecdotes, and extensive signposting, the authors constantly unpack yet another aspect of the platform, often grounding it in specific spaces and/or periods, yet without losing sense of the broader picture. … It is a timely, interesting, and profoundly enjoyable volume on an object which is oft overlooked in platform and social media research yet has great bearings on both fields.”
Internet Histories

From the Publisher