The year is 2014. If you’re anything like me this means that you were most likely spending your time at home or middle school, trying desperately to fit in or obsessing over the fact that you just can’t seem to. If you’re also like me, this is the year where you were introduced to the internet for the first time. As MySpace slowly lowered itself into a coffin, a new internet entity rose to take its place: Tumblr.
As a social media hub, Tumblr had it all: blogs, photos, videos, social engagement. And in 2014, it reached its peak. Scrolling through the site, you were able to get a sense of what years later will be remembered as the “Tumblr aesthetic.” This meant lots of heavily edited photos, grunge and vintage aesthetics, Lana Del Ray edits, and then suddenly, out of nowhere a post about toxic relationships. Pictures and glorification of drug abuse. Posts that romanticize suicidal ideation or eating disorder culture. As with most things, hiding behind the less harmful “grunge” aesthetic of 2014 was an incredibly dark side of the social media site.
How did this site that marketed itself as a place for engagement about music and culture manage to hide such a dark side? More importantly, why did this Tumblr aesthetic hold such an influence over people’s behavior during this time?
Part of this answer lies within the context of the year that this was happening. In 2014, the internet was a relatively new thing. Mostly garnering towards millennials, Tumblr and other social media sites at the time were serving an audience that was brand new to social media, that didn’t know what to expect or what kind of influence social media might have on their mental health. More importantly, Tumblr’s audience was and remains very young, with the majority of the demographic being teenagers or young adults. I was only 12 when I first found out what Tumblr was. Because of this, the majority of people posting and engaging with this site were highly impressionable young people who had never experienced the internet or social media before.
That still doesn’t answer the question of how this aesthetic that was popularized as surface-level grunge somehow translated to an overwhelming amount of posts about drug abuse, suicide or other problematic issues that were passed off as normal or romantic. For starters, Tumblr at this time had no restrictions on what could be posted on their site. Parents of teenagers who were on the site had never had to restrict their kids’ internet access before. Above all, there is the social desire to fit in with your peers that becomes overwhelming at a younger age and especially on social media, where every post is a comparison to someone else’s life. If suicidal ideation, drug glorification, and hating your body are the popular things, which is clear to tell on a site that shows you how many likes every post gets, then the large market of young individuals who want desperately to fit in are going to follow suit before realizing how problematic these issues are.
It’s interesting to think about this Tumblr aesthetic within the context of how it would fit into a 2024 version of the internet and culture. Culturally, we have evolved a lot since 2014 and seeing problematic topics that were openly shared on Tumblr in 2014 being openly posted on popular social media sites has become relatively rare. With popular social media sites like Instagram or TikTok, the overwhelming scroll is not flooded with pictures of heroin needles or “romantic” stories about the time my ex-partner beat me up to show how much they loved me. But is it safe to say that the dark side of Tumblr no longer threatens us? That it aged out and is no longer a problem?
Recently, there have been a lot of articles and discussions released about a possible resurgence of Tumblr’s 2014 dark side taking shape in more present-day social media sites. These articles caution against the dangers of social media that has no filters on what is posted, that romanticizes and normalizes heavy and harmful content. What I would argue is just as problematic is the insertion that the 2014 Tumblr trends ever left social media.
While it’s true that social media looks drastically different than it did in 2014, popular sites like Instagram or TikTok adopted their content from Tumblr. Just like MySpace’s transition to Tumblr, everything that was previously on Tumblr transitioned to these modern-day sites. It is ignorant to assume that the dark content would miraculously disappear in this transition. Rather, they shapeshifted: saturated filters become TikTok beauty filters, problematic ‘thinspiration’ posts now take the shape of ‘what I eat in a day’ posts, and girl dinner videos with little to no food. And even more problematic content went underground to different platforms that still offer anonymity, like Reddit.
So yes, the possible resurgence of Tumblr’s dark side is problematic. But not because it threatens the resurfacing of trends that have been dormant for 10 years. The problem lies instead with an open acceptance and normalization of these problematic trends rather than any kind of pushback. What is more problematic, however, is the belief that social media in 2024 is cured of these problems and that in comparison to Tumblr in 2014, the problematic content from Tumblr has fundamentally disappeared. It is this very thinking that was complicit in the creation and continuation of Tumblr’s dark side. And, if we are not careful about the media we consume, if we are not mindful of the way we let social media affect our thinking, the control that 2014 Tumblr had on culture, on mental health, and social life, is always going to be a threat.
Kalysta Donaghy-Robinson is a senior journalism and english double major and wants us all to be conscious of the lasting effects of the harmful 2014 tumblr aesthetic. They can be reached at [email protected]