A look back at my mid-2010s Tumblr, because apparently, it’s now an ancient artifact
I’m at the age where the Internet is starting to make me feel old. I know that’s ridiculous for me to say as a 21-almost-22-year old, but between TikTok and Twitter, everyone seems to be wishing we could return to “simpler times.” And by “simpler times,” I mean 2010s Tumblr. While I feel incredibly seen by this trend, it’s still a little strange seeing a time that you lived through be romanticized so heavily, especially when it doesn’t feel like it was that long ago.
Maybe this is how middle-aged adults feel when they hear me dreaming of a life in the 70s.
I made a Tumblr in 2012 after a friend showed me her own page. She was a year older than me and, her being 13 as opposed to my 12, I felt she epitomized “hipster” and “cool.” I was just beginning to explore a world outside of top-40 hits and Disney Channel, and making a Tumblr felt like the perfect platform to learn about all things grunge and alt. I excitedly made a URL entitled ‘vipersnap’ — what it means, I still do not know — and spent the next six or so years curating the perfect representation of my eccentric, maturing self.
I finally grew tired of the site around 2018, after it got overtaken by Verzion and changes to the community guidelines censored content that used to run freely through everyone’s dashboards. It just wasn’t the same platform I grew up on. What is Tumblr without softcore nudity and cigarettes?! The answer is, apparently, not much.
Some of the current content romanticizing mid-2010s Tumblr is made by people around my age, nostalgically longing for the past, but much of it is made by current teens who wish they could’ve gone through their formative years under the reign of this aesthetic as opposed to whatever influencer-driven Instagram-minefield we live in now. And I can’t say I blame them.
Tumblr was a wonderful place to grow up. Having a little anonymous existence to curate your favorite photos, dream about a life you wish you had outside the borders of suburbia, and connect with people from all over the world taught me a lot about life that I wouldn’t have known about within the walls of my 14-year-old existence. I learned about The 1975, Marina and the Diamonds — both of which turned into obsessions and multiple concert attendances — fan fiction, the wonder of neon lighting, Doc Martens, poetry, fishnets, liquid eyeliner, vinyl, the list could go on for days.
I’d spend hours mindlessly scrolling, commenting, and reblogging, never once getting bored by what would show up on my dashboard. The magic of Tumblr was that you could post and reblog basically anything, regardless of what you had, dressed like, or looked like in real life. So what if you didn’t have a bedroom with black and white checkered floors and a picture-perfect collage of band posters plastered on your walls? That didn’t mean your Tumblr couldn’t be filled with photos of the alt bedroom of your dreams, complete with neon signs, ivy hanging from the ceiling, and a framed Arctic Monkeys A.M. vinyl signed by Alex whats-his-face himself. Tumblr was a place for imagination and daydreaming, a place to exist how you wish you could in the real world. It broke down a lot of barriers and allowed teens to explore their truest selves.
In honor of the rebirth of all things Tumblr, here are a few of my favorite sections from the vipersnap.tumblr.com that I believe today’s teens and nostalgia seekers would drool over.
Sky Ferreira, Harry Styles, an existential quote in cutesy-rainbow-banner form, The 1975, and a bedroom aesthetic I’m still envious of. Can’t say I’m mad about anything in this chunk, Young Cassidy knew the look she was going for.
Some scattered thoughts about this group of posts: My freshman year of high school, I made a speech about why Perks of Being a Wallflower should be added to the ninth grade English curriculum and it was so traumatizing and embarrassing that I can’t watch the movie anymore without getting war flashbacks (top left). I had not watched Freaks and Geeks at the time that this was reblogged, but I eventually did and can confidently still say that I’d die by that show, and it deserved more (bottom right). If I Stay is the movie I watch when I’m in need of a good cry but I tried to read the book and never made it past the first chapter (middle right). My predilection for an all-black wardrobe throughout high school was a direct product of my Tumblr dashboard (center).
What’s a Tumblr without a 90s Johnny Depp/Winona Ryder film photo? Bonus points for Depp bumming a cig (top left). All things American Apparel, especially the tote bags, were quintessential pieces of a 2010s Tumblr-user’s wardrobe (top middle), but I’ll shamefully say I never owned a pair of their famous Disco Pants. While I can’t say I’d ever confidently rock those chunky black heels in public (middle right), the muted edit reminds me of when I discovered the T1 VSCO filter and proceeded to make it my identity for the next three years. Although some of the posts are cringe-worthy or stereotypical, I do like the array of quotes in this section. I remember chuckling at the ‘Are your kids turning punk?’ one (top right), even though anyone that is truly punk would look at me and laugh. I also know my Cancer Sun and Moon felt seen by the ‘Intellect versus emotion’ photo, as 70% of my teens were spent in tears. I think this is a very standard section of my page that shows the general vibe I was constantly trying to maintain.
There are some things I hate about this section, and some I love. Starting with hate, I don’t think it was possible for me to go five reblogs without including something The 1975 related (bottom right), and I’m convinced their stage lighting going viral on Tumblr is what made them famous. I’m also not crazy about that random shirtless black-and-white teen (top middle), but I know I reblogged it just because he was smoking and I thought it was cool (it’s not). I still love the photo with all the flowers surrounding the model (bottom left) and support the photo poking fun at paintings in museums (top right) because, call me uncultured, but to this day I can’t make it through an art museum without multiple breaks.
The pièce de résistance, though, is the photo of Michelle Phillips at the 1967 Monterey Pop Music Festival (middle right). It’s funny and serendipitous to me because I know for a fact that when it was reblogged I had no idea who Michelle Phillips was, let alone who The Mamas & The Papas were, but I now watch videos of their set at this festival multiple times a month and long to have been in the audience. It’s almost like my alt-emo-grunge teen self was anticipating the eventual 60s-70s-hippie obsession of my 20s.
The Alt-J concert poster, the multiple neon signs, the Friends screencap, the array of black combat boots. I don’t think I could sum it up better. A perfect place to get off the train whizzing 100 miles per hour down memory lane.
I haven’t gone this far back in the archives in a very long time and I will admit, it made me feel weird. I now understand why people long for this so much. While I can’t say I’d reblog the same things I did in 2014, I can clearly see how my aesthetics and interests evolved and how I matured on the platform over the years. It’s strange and wonderful and awkward to have a permanent mood board of your ever-evolving interests engrained in the internet, but it’s nice to be so easily transported back to those times just by scrolling.
Tumblr was wonderful for what it was at the time, but we as a society have definitely progressed past these trends and aesthetics. Aside from y2k, which dare I say I don't remember incredibly clearly, 2010s Tumblr is the first chunk of time that I lived through that I have an immense recollection of. I don’t even really think I realized it had ended. It kind of just happened, which is why it was so shocking and uncomfortable first seeing people wish for this time back. It seems like just yesterday I was staying up until 3 am in my cave of a bedroom reblogging and refreshing, making sure my page looked as close to perfect as possible before allowing myself to sleep.
It’s weird to say a website had a profound impact on who you are as a person, but Tumblr definitely did that for me. It helped me find people with similar interests and introduced me to new things I wouldn't have known about otherwise. These teen interests directly impacted how I went about life in my later high school and early college years. I might be looking too deeply into it, but if you ask others that were on the platform at this time, I’m sure they’d look back fondly and have a similar response. Or maybe they wouldn’t! And now I’m also just stuck romanticizing the past! I guess we’ll never know.
