because of what it’s brought to the fore

marauders4evr:

“Of course this is how tumblr reacts in an election.”

No, it’s not.

This isn’t even close to how tumblr reacts in an election.

How do I know?

Because I was here. I was right on this website in 2012, when we didn’t have messaging or replies, when the ‘t’ was different and the tea was different and we said “what is air” way too much.

I was eighteen, in my first semester of college, unable to vote because nobody told me how to register until it was too late.

And I saw the occasional posts. Tumblr is a pretty liberal website so you mostly had videos and photos of Obama doing adorable/cool things. A few of us laughed at Mitt Romney’s attempt to say that he was diverse because he picked a lot of women to be on his cabinet. There was some panic. There always is.

But it was nowhere near this bad.

Now I’m 22, in my fifth year of college, and you have bloggers pleading to vote for a specific candidate because they don’t want to be deported. You have posts upon posts upon posts where people are freaking out because they won’t survive going to conversion therapy. You have posts from people wondering if they’re still going to be allowed to called their partner their husband/wife. You have post after post after post talking about the latest black/Muslim/Latinix/etc. person to be harassed or attacked by a Trump supporter. You have posts about people already committing voter fraud and people threatening to show up to the polls holding guns. What we went through in 2010 is nothing compared to what we’re going through now. Both on tumblr and in the nation.

The fact that tumblr is reacting this strongly to this election is terrifying in and of itself. Because I can tell you that this is not how tumblr has reacted to elections before. Not even close. Because we knew that Mitt Romney would have been a bad president but at least millions of lives weren’t going to be in danger, at least millions of families and homes weren’t going to be broken up, at least there would still be some positive aspects, at least we could make the best out of a bad situation.

Tumblr’s posts are ugly right now because this election is ugly, one of the ugliest in history.