Tumblr: Survey Appearances, Find a Self

Introduction:

Tumblr is blogging platform that allows users to post text, images, video, links, quotes, and audio to a personalized tumblelog, a short-form blog. I have watched my roommates spend hours reblogging photos— their open obsession is common in the millennial generation. Many college students will joke saying, “I am tumbling so hard right now.”  Mesmerized, I set out to see what underlies the appeal. Tumblr also has an addiction-like quality that fascinates me. When relaying a story about my day only to be met with under-the-breath grunts because my roommates were too busy “tumbling” I decided if you can’t beat them, join them! As I created my Tumblr I had a few questions about the way tumblr mediates interaction by encouraging surveillance. I wonder: do the users of Tumblr see it as platform for sharing private emotions in a public space or do they tunnel vision on their own blog and feel unaffected by surveillance?  Does the knowledge that others will survey my Tumblr impact the type of sharing that I do as a user?  Lastly, what types of space does Tumblr provide its users: is it a Goffmanian Stage? How does the organization of the space implicate meanings for the images reproduced on Tumblrs?

Field Experiment:

My field notes are from different Tumblr sessions, on different days, during different times of the day.  (i) Monday February 21st: afternoon 1:30-4:00pm; (ii) Tuesday February 22nd: evening 7-9:00pm; (iii) Thursday February 24th: evening 5.00pm-11pm  I have engaged with over fifty Tumblrs during this time from all over the U.S., Latin America (specifically Argentina via obvservando.tumblr Europe (specifically Sweden via chanelbagsandcigarettedrags.tumblr)

Tumblr Types: First Impressions

The ratio of women to men on Tumblr makes the typical college campus of 60:40 seem closer to 50:50 than it has ever felt.  On the site there are mostly women, actually to be more accurate, girls. The girls seem to invest in these images as evidence of their identity.  The “likes” listed on their profile blurb often indicate the types of images I will find in their space.  The depth and emotional nature of their posts was shocking to me—at age 14 or 16 to be quoting Oscar Wilde, posting sexualized images, quotes about broken hearts. But the platform of Tumblr allows for infinite exposure to ideas and concepts, which expands the realm of what one knows.

Screen Grab from Emma's Tumblr

 

For example, one girl (who I learn from her profile is named Emma, sixteen, from Western Australian but living in Singapore) has the header “Only Dull People Are Brilliant At Breakfast” which is from Wilde’s An Ideal Husband, 1893, Act I.  The reclaiming of territory as one’s own is common on Tumblr: from the reblogged images to the lifted quotes-- I note countless examples of mixing and borrowing and getting "inspiration" from other Tumblrs. The creation of a self through this carefully selected grouping of visual media is how one uses Tumblr-- which is inherently dependent on surveying other people's space's for inspiration.

Visual Over Verbal

I am posting my own photos and keeping to myself for the first few days. By using images from my desktop I feel I am best representing my likes, until I experience the ability to track complete strangers by “following” them and see images that expand how I would symbolically represent myself.  I learn on day 2 (from my roommate) if I want to “reblog” someone's photo over and over I can do so without ever speaking a full sentence them. With the absence of verbal exchange, the information that I have about them is purely implicit and visual -- but mostly irrelevant because I never need to learn about them, only borrow parts of thier screen-self to better assemble mine.  The platform Tumblr is to Blogspot as the use of Facebook is to Twitter. To make this social media analogy a bit more clear I will explain the relationship pattern I see and then outline a few examples of its occurrence: when using Blogspot posters often type complete sentences; in contrast, Tumblr users seem to almost exclusively use the "photo button" on their dashboard but seldom touch the "quote button." 

Screen grab of the dashboard: note photo button and quote button along top strip.

Tumblr, like Twitter, operates on the “less is more” attitude.  As I join the Tumblr-bloggers I find myself (a lover of quotes and words) disinterested in posting them. Perhaps it is the stream of images flowing constantly below the "photo button" that conditions visual presentation?  Regardless, I enjoy communicating through these images and occasionally posting icon-images of typographically decorated quotes. It seems that users are only interested in posting bits of prose that appear in this stylized form.  I notice that besides aesthetic, these words have existed before the user obtains it, and there is a knowledge the words will exist after you post it (images are tracked by notes: see image below)—meaning one will never be isolated by the post, but instead connected to others. I think the emotional (vulnerable) nature of the prose is what causes people to refrain from typing it themselves, but I am also wondering if this has something to do with feeling “watched.” 

The notes for this stylized quote: 333. The life of the image is different in each space it inhabits.

The format of Tumblr is such that the way to get material for your blog involves a diligent survey of the blogs you “follow.” While you can follow strangers it is common to also follow friends. I notice some Tumblrs do not even caption the images—I elect to post un-captioned images as well.  I notice my friend whose URL is mmcarbs.tumblr is captioning her images and I see how the pithy comment informs the image, but the real “read” on the image is based on context and the other images around it.

USER URLS: Screaming Secrets

The Tumblr users I have interacted with have one thing in common: the URL domains they choose penetrate through any social filter one might possess. The URLs are often scandalous, deep and shocking: please see screen grab below. The type of information you would never volunteer at a job interview, might glide over if asked by a friend, and would never say in front of family members (unless you want to openly rebel) are being selected as URLs:

A Screen Grab of the notes of an image I reblogged

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The URL is going to be typed into the browser a myriad of times by the blogger herself, and by her followers—which is why some of these names shock me: pepsiorcocaine is one that implies hard drug use (the user’s name is Katie and she appears to be a young girl from Detroit.)  eatingstraycats is a alarming URL and when I first started reblogging I tried to avoid reblogging from URLs that I thought didn’t represent me. I soon became more adapted to the Tumblr experience and ignored these URLs reblogging at will.  I took a screen grab a list of the notes for one of the images on my Tumblr, with the url names in bold, reading through I soon realized that this space is filled with characters who will stop at nothing to get attention—and are so busy looking at their own page I don’t really need to concern myself with reblogging from a URL like dicksanddorkss which I did on Feb 25th.

I find myself attempting to represent my more off-beat interests in image form on day 3 on Tumblr.

Tumblr: A Space to Make Meanings

The Giraffe Image I needed to find, screen grab from my Tumblr

Beyond getting to name the URL whatever wild and thought-provoking idea you can come up with (provided it isn’t already taken, which I have noticed prompts a lot of people to extend the last letter of the name they want) Tumblr provides a place for you to put all the images that you connect with. I find myself drawn to two types of images: those I can relate to my “self,” my friends, or my life experiences and then those images I can not directly tie to my current reality but can tie to an emotional response that feels good and I know I will want to look at the image again later—in both of these cases I reblog, like or save the image. I can do what I want with my space and find myself feeling more free the more time I log on Tumblr.  The first few days I was struggling, trying to find the image of a giraffe to show to my audience of followers that it is my favorite animal, the image of a great manicure, to show my affinity for them.  I also became conscious of reblogging too many images from one site, I tried to strike a visible balance.  I became alarmed when I took stock of all the images I reblogged of “pretty thin models” (which in my defense are everywhere on here!) so I tried to add in images of science and food-- to appeared balanced.  I seem more aware of the fact that my friends are surveying my blog then they are-- the more time I spend on Tumblr the more innoculated I become to the feeling of being watched. I get used to gmail alerts that my images are being reblogged (though I always find it a compliment).

Visual Diary: Vent, Process, Repeat…

A very telling quote from itookadeepbreath

 I notice a person I am following who blogs from itookadeepbreath unashamedly posting image after image that indicate her struggle dealing with a bad-breakup. I realized that without knowing the situation I can rather effortlessly come to the same meaning (minus proper pronouns) understand her narrative through images.   This Tumblr account doesn’t seem different from the others, in the ease of stringing together the thoughts that live under the images.  Everyone on the site seems comfortable putting their private emotions and feelings in a public sphere. The posters appear unaffected by the constant surveillance of their followers, perhaps because whatever judgment goes on when viewing a Tumblr is in silence.

Analysis:

The way that Tumblr is structured puts users at increased exposure to people and ideas, something I noticed immediately with Emma at thetruthisrarelypure was her ability to appear much older than she is based on the many complex references in her account. Emma is perhaps an example of a type of performer Goffman observed that “may attempt to give the impression that [their] poise and proficiency are something they have always had” (47).  But Emma is not divergent, she is merely using the format Tumblr offers to her benefit the way I did when on the site and the way I observed other users did.  Nothing better creates the illusion of grace like the clean and crisp flow of even-bordered thematically arranged images. 

The images I selected from my archive and reblogged come together to represent me in a extremely favorable light. The idea of reblogging is almost like running the image through a “socially-acceptable filter” since the image already has a group supporting it that you can view before you reblog it (by looking at the amount of “likes” and notes).
The organization of the images posted on Tumblr implicates meanings for them each time they are reproduced. The same image of the girl atop a guy on mmcarbs has a romantic softness whereas on the blog she got the image the poster's penchant for dark brooding male models is most prominent.  The image is in a stream connoting a different type of passion for each of the two bloggers.  John Berger’s Ways of Seeing works with the idea of context where he says “In this book each reproduced image has become a part of an argument which has little or nothing to do with the painting’s original independent meaning” ( 28).

There is an effortlessness in reblogging and an effortless satisfaction given to the user by the feature—which is a triumph for interaction design. The satisfaction is in the simplicity.  

Seeing becomes believing-- the self that you idealize is the self that you present to the audience.

Posters feel empowered to create an appearance that is their real self or imagined self (but mostly everyone is striving for what Goffman would classify as an authentic performance). 

The most succinct expression of the Tumblr experience is in Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition when she states "appearance becomes reality" (50). Tumblr is a site that encourages the construction of a visual-self through a post-modern pastiche approach that relies on Arendt's idea that once something exists in the public realm it is in the space of appearance.  As Arendt explains the term polis as "a space where I appear to others as others appear to me" it seems that Tumblr is a modern polis (198).

 Therefore, Tumblr simultaneously encourages the destruction of walls-- the goal being to heighten visibilty.  Interaction on Tumblr revolves around surveying others, so actions speak volumes about you, since when you reblog images on Tumblr you are assembling your identity markers.

What puzzled me was how this didn’t create anxiety in the million on Tumblr users. I realized that the lack of verbal interaction makes the exchange feel safe. In The Fall of Public Man Richard Sennett mentions that when “everyone has each other under surveillance sociability decreases, silence is the only form of protection” (Sennett, 15). The space created by almost 80% of the blogs I surveyed was entirely visual, save for a small 150 word profile blurb of quirks and interests. This lack of verbal posts makes sense because silence is power—by communicating via visuals the posters are assuming an audience will infer facts about them—which are not concrete. Therefore, the more emotional posts are never directly explained and a certain anonymity cloaks the blogger. 

The power is in the ability to communicate without using words. This type of communication is increasingly prevalent and extremely powerful. Visual Presentation of the self is trans-cultural. I reblogged a few images from users who did not speak English, but appreciated a good sunset or geo crystal.  Tumblr obliterates the distance that humans need from intimate observation in order to feel sociable; so as community-dependent as the setup is (reblogging is the lifeblood) the experience is deeply personal and non-social (Sennett,15).  This personal experience can be rewarding, as Tumblr can be the stage to conglomerate all of a person's masks, and see the roles we play because it is "through these roles we know ourselves" (Goffman, 19).

Tumblr users are all creating virtual selves through their image diaries, but some are decidedly more popular than others.   This prompted me to ask what makes a popular Tumblr? The most popular Tumblrs have a ratio of Followers that outnumbers the amount of people they follow—in a semantic sense they are leaders. In Goffman’s eyes they are practicing diligent impression management. They are the users who exert a “synecdochic responsibility” and make sure that they are blogging the same types of images consistent with their original screen identity.  These bloggers have predictable, concrete hobbies and opinions. For example at areyouhigh the blogger posts all pot-smoking related images and doesn’t deviate from her theme of marijuana-worship; she has followers who expect this from her and often reblogg from her site.  The interaction between the poster behind areyouhigh and her followers is a sort of information game that encapsulates a "cycle of concealment, discovery, false revelation and rediscovery"(Goffman, 8).

Another example is Laurie Beth, who blogs at talkpreppytome and lists her love for preppy fashions from J-Crew to Ralph Lauren and her image selection reflects that. Laurie refrains from posting images that deviate from her theme on her carefully curated space. Goffman describes how seemingly “inconsequential events” convey impressions that could shift the audience toward skepticism. In Tumblr terms, you see someone blogging a bunch of fashion images and follow them, but when they sprinkle in images of skiing and outdoors and personal images of friends you unfollow because these images are not consistent with the over-all definition of the person (Goffman, 51).

Laurie Beth: Poster with "synecdochic responsibility"

The successful Tumblrs are curated by those who love to consume images and crave a new way to experiment with what Appadurai Arjun calls “self-making” in Modernity at Large (80).  The people who really invest in the meanings of their images draw in followers.  The meanings of each image depends on the context, so to succeed on Tumblr one must learn to read the ever-shifting messages of the images they select (Arjun, 82). The work of this type of consumption is to link fantasy with a postmodern sense of making new bundles of commodities (82).   Appadurai speaks about “new resources and new disciplines for the construction of the imagined selves and imagined world” with Tumblr a new way to present the self in visual terms emerges (80).

Tumblr is perhaps best explained as an “experiment with self-making” but the self that you create is hard to describe without relying on huge assumptions. The self that Tumblr displays is more theatrical than the one we speak aloud.  Goffman’s notion of the self we “give off” seems to fit best here. Goffman describes the impression we give off as being a “contextual kind of symbol that is non-verbal and presumably unintentional” (Goffman, 4). The Tumblr icons are perhaps more theatrical than one would “give.” 

In my space at selfasight each of the reproduced images has become part of an argument, an assertion of my identity.  The images I post are a list of evidence supporting the validity of the quirks and likes I have, sometimes users list these in a profile blurb; I have declined.


Tumblr is a place to reproduce a stream of images, like writing a narrative of ones likes in a line—so like a permutation in mathematics the order of the group becomes very important. “The reproduction becomes a reference point for other images. The meaning of an image is changed according to what one sees immediately beside it” (29). 

To use Tumblr is to use a form of technology as a platform to play out the different cinematic versions of the self. The curator of the images in this visual presentation is also a surveyor. The role of surveillance in Tumblr is more prominent than when walking down the street. The concept of public has become confused and Tumblr operates on the premise that is a technological echo of Arendt's idea: the space of appearance is the reality of a space.  Basically, if you can reblog it, you can be it-- because it becomes public and associated with you. So in the ever-watching eyes of Tumblr bloggers Arendt was right when she said the "greatest thing a man can achieve is his own appearance" (208). 

                         WORKS CITED:

Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Public Worlds, Vol. 1. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1996. Pp 82

Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958. pp 199-208.

Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting, 1977. 8-36. Print.

Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York [N.Y.: Doubleday, 1990. 4-47. Print.

Sennett, Richard. The Fall of Public Man. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. 8-15. Print.