12th
I’m pretty sure Tumblr makes you stupid.
I never entirely bought into the idea of blog years, but I’m not sure what else explains the nostalgia I feel for the pre-Tumblr era. At the risk of sounding as if I am pining for some discursive never-never land, like I was some Frankfurt School refugee who wound up beached on a Great Lake, the internets were smarter before Tumblr:
1) Reblogging — The ease of reblogging creates an echo chamber effect, and works to ossify conventional wisdom when it is still far more convention than wisdom. Rather than quoting and responding, it makes it possible to participate in the conversation in the same way that snapping indicates agreement among some sororities.The reblog without comment is a discursive action stripped of content, kind of like poking in Facebook.
2) The feed — unlike Bloglines or Google Reader, it all comes at you in a single torrent. I follow about 30 people, some of whom are rarely active, but returning to the computer after even a few hours feels like shoveling the driveway during a blizzard. At the same time, it is rewarding, as there is almost always something, when after five minutes of actual work at your computer, you crave distraction. It may be a dozen pictures of Strawberry Switchblade, scanned from mid 1980s issues of The Face or NME, posted by someone you keep meaning to unfollow, but there is almost always something. With regular RSS feeds, there is at least the ability to opt to look at what you want, when you want, but still keep track. It may be me, but Tumblr makes me feel more like a rat hitting that little bar over and over than the rest of the internet does.
3) Follow/unfollow — the social networking aspect always seemed like a distraction, and something that offered the limitations of both RSS feeds and social network, with few of the rewards of either.
So I plan to keep posting now and again, as it’s convenient for things that don’t really make sense on the blog, but I plan to unfollow on Tumblr, and then add some back as RSS feeds.
I imagine none of this is of much interest, but I’m wondering if I’m alone in feeling this way.
