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*pounds fist on the table* YOU KNOW WHAT PEOPLE DON'T TALK ABOUT ENOUGH?
THE HIPSTER SIDE OF TUMBLR.
Like, the biggest thing that's associated with Tumblr is the SJW side of it. And that's easy to make fun of, sure. But, when you make fun of SJW Tumblr, you run the risk of the following things happening:
Now, most of us are aware that this 'SJW Tumblr' is a vocal minority, yes? Not all of Tumblr is like that, and not everyone who uses Tumblr is an SJW. Ok, that's good to keep in mind, but most of us already knew that.
But that raises the question, what is the majority of Tumblr like? Fandom stuff? Mmmm you're getting close, but not quite. Because, you see, if you look at the "trending" section on Tumblr -- which just shows you posts that are currently popular, regardless of your personal tastes and browsing habits -- a lot of the fandom stuff and social justice stuff is rather drowned out by one other big category:
~HIPSTER POSTS~
And hipster posts are just so easy to laugh at and yet... hard to explain... which is perhaps why they are not nearly as popular of a joke as SJW posts.
But I'm going to attempt to explain it anyway.
This is a typical photo from a Tumblr hipster blog. I'd source it, but I'm fairly certain the blog I got it from in the first place isn't the photographer and they didn't source anything either. In fact, these hipster blogs don't typically provide anything to go along with their images. No sources, no descriptions, no comments... nothing. Just an isolated image with no context.
This is another typical image from a hipster blog. Now, at this point, I think you can get a feel for the general aesthetic that these hipster blogs go for. These images are... nice, I guess. There's not a lot of substance to them, but you just sort of get the feeling that it's supposed to be... deep, you know? It's hard to put into words, but hopefully you understand what I'm getting at.
But, after a while, this stuff starts to get... weird. And it blurs the line between "this is a cool image and I can understand why people would like the aesthetic of it even if it's not for me" and "this is just a normal-ass photo of nothing interesting and I don't understand what I'm supposed to be getting out of it".
These are donuts. Just... donuts.
This is a fucking neon street lamp.
And yet, these things will still be tagged as "hipster" and "grunge" and I just don't see why.
And I don't even know what to say about this image.
But wait!! It gets better...
Remember what I said about how these images are posted with no sourcing, no comments, and no context whatsoever? Just isolated images? Well, that allows for things like this to happen:
Now, to fill in those of you who aren't picking up on the joke... that is an Undertale reference. And it's not even anything that's supposed to be meaningful in Undertale. It's a reference to one quirky line of dialogue spoken by a ketchup-eating skeleton who makes puns and speaks in comic sans. Someone must've photoshopped a picture of a stop sign to make it blue like this as a joke in reference to that one moment from Undertale.
BUT THE HIPSTER BLOGS DON'T KNOW THAT.
They're just grabbing "deep" images and tossing them up to show other people how grunge they are. There are other hipster blogs who probably unknowingly reblogged this, just thinking that it was so cool and interesting and being completely clueless as to what this image was supposed to be.
And even if it wasn't an Undertale reference, I think we should all step back for a moment and ask, "What is so hipster or grunge about a blue stop sign...????"
Now this last one I don't even have an image for because it happened a long time ago, but, I remember this one time when I saw a hipster blog just post a picture of Pete Townshend's face. ...Yeah, the lead guitarist for the Who. Just a normal-ass picture of him, with no comments, no indication that the person posting it even knew who he was. It was just tagged as a "grunge" image like everything else, and I just, don't see what's so grunge about it...
And what's weirder is that Pete Townshend is known for smashing his guitars. You'd think they would've posted a gif of him doing that and made it "grunge". That would've made some sort of sense to me. There's still a good chance that they wouldn't even know who the guy is, but, I don't even care about that. At least I can understand how it would fit into their hipster aesthetic. An ordinary photo of Pete's big-nosed face mixed in with a bunch of unrelated images does not.
SO THE POINT IS, hipster blogs are fucking weird, taking an incredibly diverse bunch of photos and making them indie and grunge and interesting when a lot of them just... aren't...??? And it makes them easy to laugh at.
Now, here's the really interesting part.
I may be ranting now, but it's really only out of bewilderment. It's not like I'm legitimately upset at the actions of these hipster blogs -- I don't really have any reason to be. That is not the case with SJW posts, as even talking about SJW's can give people plenty of reasons to be legitimately angry about the world. Jokes about hipster blogs don't do that -- all we're doing is laughing at silly blogs making deep images out of hardly anything. And it also doesn't poke at any hot button issues, unlike jokes about SJW's, which make it easy to trivialize any 'Tumblr-ish' social justice movement in its entirety, even if it's coming out of the mouths of sane people.
What I'm saying is, jokes about hipster posts are 100% harmless, kosher, and FDA approved. There is no one to offend or alienate -- at least not in regards to anything remotely important or that people would have deep feelings about. The worst I could've done with this rant is insult someone's taste in photography, but I'd say that's a lot more forgivable and more difficult to get angry about than insulting someone's sociopolitical views. It is something that everyone can enjoy.
And the best part is, they're actually a majority on Tumblr. SJW's are a vocal minority -- and, sure, I've seen plenty of screencap compilations of really over-the-top SJW posts before, but you kind of have to really dig to find actual examples of them in their natural habitat. Hell, even straight up searching "social justice" on Tumblr yields more search results of people making fun of SJW's than any SJW's themselves, as well as any actual sane comments about social justice. Not only that, but the top three autofill suggestions on the search bar after typing in 'social justice' are 'warrior', 'whiner', and 'bullshit'. The actual Tumblr community at large makes fun of the stereotypical SJW Tumblr more than it actually embraces it.
Hipster blogs, though?? Hipster blogs are real things with real people supporting them, in sizable numbers. They're always present on the "trending" page (social justice posts of any kind, meanwhile, are much fewer and further between). And the top three autofill results upon typing 'hipster' in the search bar are 'fashion', 'lifestyle', and 'style'. The sincerity outweighs the mocking.
So if we really want to make fun of Tumblr, then making fun of the hipster side of Tumblr would be more accurate.
...I hope this post gave you all something to think about.
THE HIPSTER SIDE OF TUMBLR.
Like, the biggest thing that's associated with Tumblr is the SJW side of it. And that's easy to make fun of, sure. But, when you make fun of SJW Tumblr, you run the risk of the following things happening:
- People getting legitimately angry talking about the actions of SJW's. Yeah, cracking jokes lightens the mood I guess, but, as soon as you bring it up, you know someone'll turn it into an opportunity to rant about how much they hate PC culture or whatever, and then you just have a bunch of people legitimately riled up about shit. Now I'm not saying it's wrong to voice those kinds of opinions, but, the point remains, you're just reminding people of things that they don't like in the world and giving them a chance to be angry. Even if there's no actual debating going on and people are just ranting on the same page, you're still adding anger to the situation.
- Possibly trivializing the issues that SJW's are built off of, and/or making people afraid to speak up about them. Yeah, SJW's take things way too far a lot of the time, but the jokes about them turn all the issues they care about into jokes, meaning that sane people who actually care about these things and who might have valid points to bring up about them are alienated and made to feel like a joke, as well.
Now, most of us are aware that this 'SJW Tumblr' is a vocal minority, yes? Not all of Tumblr is like that, and not everyone who uses Tumblr is an SJW. Ok, that's good to keep in mind, but most of us already knew that.
But that raises the question, what is the majority of Tumblr like? Fandom stuff? Mmmm you're getting close, but not quite. Because, you see, if you look at the "trending" section on Tumblr -- which just shows you posts that are currently popular, regardless of your personal tastes and browsing habits -- a lot of the fandom stuff and social justice stuff is rather drowned out by one other big category:
~HIPSTER POSTS~
And hipster posts are just so easy to laugh at and yet... hard to explain... which is perhaps why they are not nearly as popular of a joke as SJW posts.
But I'm going to attempt to explain it anyway.
This is a typical photo from a Tumblr hipster blog. I'd source it, but I'm fairly certain the blog I got it from in the first place isn't the photographer and they didn't source anything either. In fact, these hipster blogs don't typically provide anything to go along with their images. No sources, no descriptions, no comments... nothing. Just an isolated image with no context.
This is another typical image from a hipster blog. Now, at this point, I think you can get a feel for the general aesthetic that these hipster blogs go for. These images are... nice, I guess. There's not a lot of substance to them, but you just sort of get the feeling that it's supposed to be... deep, you know? It's hard to put into words, but hopefully you understand what I'm getting at.
But, after a while, this stuff starts to get... weird. And it blurs the line between "this is a cool image and I can understand why people would like the aesthetic of it even if it's not for me" and "this is just a normal-ass photo of nothing interesting and I don't understand what I'm supposed to be getting out of it".
These are donuts. Just... donuts.
This is a fucking neon street lamp.
And yet, these things will still be tagged as "hipster" and "grunge" and I just don't see why.
And I don't even know what to say about this image.
But wait!! It gets better...
Remember what I said about how these images are posted with no sourcing, no comments, and no context whatsoever? Just isolated images? Well, that allows for things like this to happen:
Now, to fill in those of you who aren't picking up on the joke... that is an Undertale reference. And it's not even anything that's supposed to be meaningful in Undertale. It's a reference to one quirky line of dialogue spoken by a ketchup-eating skeleton who makes puns and speaks in comic sans. Someone must've photoshopped a picture of a stop sign to make it blue like this as a joke in reference to that one moment from Undertale.
BUT THE HIPSTER BLOGS DON'T KNOW THAT.
They're just grabbing "deep" images and tossing them up to show other people how grunge they are. There are other hipster blogs who probably unknowingly reblogged this, just thinking that it was so cool and interesting and being completely clueless as to what this image was supposed to be.
And even if it wasn't an Undertale reference, I think we should all step back for a moment and ask, "What is so hipster or grunge about a blue stop sign...????"
Now this last one I don't even have an image for because it happened a long time ago, but, I remember this one time when I saw a hipster blog just post a picture of Pete Townshend's face. ...Yeah, the lead guitarist for the Who. Just a normal-ass picture of him, with no comments, no indication that the person posting it even knew who he was. It was just tagged as a "grunge" image like everything else, and I just, don't see what's so grunge about it...
And what's weirder is that Pete Townshend is known for smashing his guitars. You'd think they would've posted a gif of him doing that and made it "grunge". That would've made some sort of sense to me. There's still a good chance that they wouldn't even know who the guy is, but, I don't even care about that. At least I can understand how it would fit into their hipster aesthetic. An ordinary photo of Pete's big-nosed face mixed in with a bunch of unrelated images does not.
SO THE POINT IS, hipster blogs are fucking weird, taking an incredibly diverse bunch of photos and making them indie and grunge and interesting when a lot of them just... aren't...??? And it makes them easy to laugh at.
Now, here's the really interesting part.
I may be ranting now, but it's really only out of bewilderment. It's not like I'm legitimately upset at the actions of these hipster blogs -- I don't really have any reason to be. That is not the case with SJW posts, as even talking about SJW's can give people plenty of reasons to be legitimately angry about the world. Jokes about hipster blogs don't do that -- all we're doing is laughing at silly blogs making deep images out of hardly anything. And it also doesn't poke at any hot button issues, unlike jokes about SJW's, which make it easy to trivialize any 'Tumblr-ish' social justice movement in its entirety, even if it's coming out of the mouths of sane people.
What I'm saying is, jokes about hipster posts are 100% harmless, kosher, and FDA approved. There is no one to offend or alienate -- at least not in regards to anything remotely important or that people would have deep feelings about. The worst I could've done with this rant is insult someone's taste in photography, but I'd say that's a lot more forgivable and more difficult to get angry about than insulting someone's sociopolitical views. It is something that everyone can enjoy.
And the best part is, they're actually a majority on Tumblr. SJW's are a vocal minority -- and, sure, I've seen plenty of screencap compilations of really over-the-top SJW posts before, but you kind of have to really dig to find actual examples of them in their natural habitat. Hell, even straight up searching "social justice" on Tumblr yields more search results of people making fun of SJW's than any SJW's themselves, as well as any actual sane comments about social justice. Not only that, but the top three autofill suggestions on the search bar after typing in 'social justice' are 'warrior', 'whiner', and 'bullshit'. The actual Tumblr community at large makes fun of the stereotypical SJW Tumblr more than it actually embraces it.
Hipster blogs, though?? Hipster blogs are real things with real people supporting them, in sizable numbers. They're always present on the "trending" page (social justice posts of any kind, meanwhile, are much fewer and further between). And the top three autofill results upon typing 'hipster' in the search bar are 'fashion', 'lifestyle', and 'style'. The sincerity outweighs the mocking.
So if we really want to make fun of Tumblr, then making fun of the hipster side of Tumblr would be more accurate.
...I hope this post gave you all something to think about.