What is a Tumblr?

First of all I want to explain how difficult it is to have to blog like this. Like I mentioned in my first blog, I am a very "unshary" person. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy collaboration and spreading ideas, but I am more of a listener, not a talker. So this makes this blogging business kind of strange to me, but I digress.

What I really wanted to talk about was Tumblr. For another class of mine, I have had to create a study of people on Tumblr, specifically how they use it within their "fandom." A "fandom" is a community of people who discuss and share ideas and media for a specific show. Sorry, for people who are apart of "fandoms" as a person who is pretty far removed, that's the best I could do.

Anyway, the study asked questions about why they chose Tumblr over other social networks and also asks what kind of stuff the users post or "reblog."

I am not a person who uses Tumblr or knows much about it so again, if anyone actually reads this, uses Tumblr, forgive me/inform me if I say something that isn't true. As the results came in I found something very interesting. In the words of one of the people who responded, there is a sort of paradox as to what draws people to Tumblr. Users enjoy the anonymity allowed on Tumblr. They say that you don't have to tell people who you are and a lot of people feel like that is something refreshing compared to other sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The other common answer given in the study was that they enjoyed the "small village" community feel that they get from other users on the site. I found this interesting because like I mentioned before it kind of goes against the whole anonymous thing. It was explained that even though people may not know your name, they may recognize you from the content you post.

I think this sort of community feeling, is something that Facebook and Twitter lost a long time ago. While Facebook constantly tries to make you easier to find, asking for more details about your life, Tumblr gives you the option to make your identity virtually invisible. I know that you don't have to put all your information on your Facebook page, but I think the creative style of Tumblr gives the opportunity to make the focus about the content and not who is posting it.