Tumblr is a microblogging, social networking service that was founded by David Karp, under “Davidville, Inc.” (now “Tumblr, Inc.”), on February 19, 2007.¹⁾ It was inspired by the tentatively named tumblelog, now called a microblog, which appealed to busy internet users.

In 2013, Yahoo had acquired Tumblr for $1.1 billion,²⁾³⁾ but this did not pan out^4)5)6)7) as Yahoo fell to Verizon in 2017⁸⁾⁹⁾ who later enacted a ban on adult content.¹⁰⁾ Then on August 12, 2019, Automattic acquired Tumblr for under $3 million.¹¹⁾¹²⁾

There are seven post formats (i.e. text, photo, quote, link, chat, audio, video) that the user is able to make a post with. Like most social networking services, users may change up their dashboard by following and unfollowing blogs. From there, a user can reblog (similar to sharing or retweeting) and like other posts. They can also add a response to a post in a reblog or leave a reply if the original poster allows it.

A single Tumblr account is attached to a primary blog that messages can be sent from. It's possible to make additional, secondary blogs that can be set to private or managed by multiple accounts if the owner wishes, but asks and submissions can't be sent from these accounts. Also, users can adjust, modify, and edit a blog's HTML theme, but there are obviously limitations and certain guidelines in place.

Tumblr is a casual, entertaining website that has more features than Twitter and, despite losing a third of its users in 2018 and remaining somewhat obscure, it's still popular with teenagers and young adults.¹³⁾¹⁴⁾ Historically, it was a bustling hub for fan communities after LiveJournal¹⁵⁾ and DeviantArt's declines. Arguably, it still upholds this title, but the culture and humor is constantly changing and evolving over time.

In one way or another, you'll be subjected to news and politics, ranging from leftist to liberal with a couple of outliers due to the website's flexibility. However, the rabid, self-righteous activists have migrated to Twitter, ironically making Tumblr significantly more pleasant than it's been historically. In all honesty, while it is slower, there's still an active community and the new management isn't as dead on arrival.

Tumblr initially carried adult content¹⁶⁾¹⁷⁾ until it became clear that Apple¹⁸⁾ and various payment processors didn't approve of it, threatening their mobile revenue.¹⁹⁾²⁰⁾ In the past, they tried to circumvent this with the “Safe Mode” setting²¹⁾ and NSFW toggles,²²⁾ then the CSEM fiasco²³⁾ and slew of prudish mobile app reviews forced Tumblr to ban adult content on December 17, 2018,²⁴⁾²⁵⁾ which was very unpopular.²⁶⁾

With the 2019 acquisition, Tumblr introduced “sensitive content” toggles,²⁷⁾²⁸⁾ paving the way for the “sexual themes” community label being added on September 26, 2022.²⁹⁾ Sadly, this just meant that Tumblr allows images with artful nudity while certain acts are still prohibited, then Mullingweg would reiterate that Tumblr was not in a position to unban pornography anytime soon.^30)31)32)

“the petulant whims of Mullenweg inflict harm to its business and the community that has embraced it.”
– Attorneys for Plaintiff WPEngine, Inc.³³⁾

In contrast to prior owners being passive about staff critique, Automattic became rather abrasive by outright terminating blogs and calling them internet trolls.³⁴⁾³⁵⁾ This became noticeable around May 27, 2022 after users pointed out that a staff member liked Attack on Titan and Harry Potter despite their reputation,³⁶⁾ so the post was purged³⁷⁾ and the blog was terminated for “harassment of Tumblr staff”.³⁸⁾

Then in September 2023, we'd see Mullenweg allegedly terminate blogs for hopping on a “Kung Pow Penis” reblog chain against him, claiming that they've broken their “non-genuine social gesture schemes” rule.³⁹⁾ Mullingweg would later speak on behalf of himself and his team, pointing out that such attacks have impacted their health,⁴⁰⁾ but he believes these “super-trolls” can brushed aside.⁴¹⁾

Prior to the Yahoo acquisition, the GNAA exploited an XSS vulnerability in their war against blogs around late 2012,⁴²⁾⁴³⁾ then a data breach from early 2013 wasn't discovered until May 12, 2016.⁴⁴⁾⁴⁵⁾ During the Yahoo era, people were concerned due to Yahoo's poor track record with data breaches and malvertising, but they actually remained clean with Tumblr up until their formal merger into Verizon.⁴⁶⁾

After Tumblr's designer resigned, Yahoo made several controversial design changes like full-width posts to match the app,⁴⁷⁾ neutered post editing,⁴⁸⁾ abandoning nested blockquotes,⁴⁹⁾⁵⁰⁾ removing replies,⁵¹⁾ etc. During this era, criticism was largely ignored, except for replies which returned after nearly five months.⁵²⁾⁵³⁾ Under Automattic, Tumblr began actively collaborating with the New XKit staff.

During July 2018, a child exploitation issue on Tumblr was discovered⁵⁴⁾ and went viral among the users.⁵⁵⁾ Tumblr allegedly responded to the original poster's concerns⁵⁶⁾ and evidence of their post was deleted. However, the Tumblr app was later removed from the App Store on November 16, 2018 for CSEM on private blogs,⁵⁷⁾ suggesting that the team under Verizon never actually resolved the issue at hand.

• Tumblr Savior (2008-08-01⁵⁸⁾ –)
  A simple, decade-old, blacklisting extension that is still receiving updates!
• Missing E (2011-03-15⁵⁹⁾ – 2012-12-04)⁶⁰⁾
  The original all-in-one extension, abandoned in 2013.⁶¹⁾⁶²⁾
• XKit (2011-08-05⁶³⁾⁶⁴⁾ – 2015-01-29)⁶⁵⁾
  The alternative all-in-one extension that came out on top, then the developer was smeared.⁶⁶⁾
• New XKit (2015-07-17⁶⁷⁾ – 2022-11-05^?)
  A fork of XKit 7 that became an unofficial successor to XKit. Mostly abandoned for XKit Rewritten.
• XKit Rewritten (2021-03-01⁶⁸⁾ –)
  The rewrite of XKit, maintained by the New XKit team.

• tumblr-utils
  The Python 2.7 script for making local backups. Refer to the Beginner's Guide for setting up and review the tumblr_backup.md file since it mostly relies on command prompt.
• TumblThree
  The one with the GUI, if you're allergic to command prompt, that mostly dumps stuff into a folder and doesn't generate a neat HTML page. Named as a TumblTwo rewrite, which was a TumblOne fork.

• The early years of Tumblr is typically described as this mixture of hipster content (e.g. aesthetics, quotes, photography) and fandom content (e.g. fan works, memes, reaction images) which had a friendly rivalry. As time would tell, fandom content would end up dominating the scene, but these years came to a close as Homestuck peaked and we had the DashCon fiasco in July 2014.
  • During this, 4chan declared war on Tumblr over “meme theft” in 2010, but their skirmish famously backfired,^69)70)71) ended up introducing new users to 4chan who influenced their early 2010s culture, and “4chumblr” was born. Of course, it's important to note that 4chan and Tumblr both had different vibes before the whole “culture war” shift of the mid-2010s.
• We would see the userbase mature in the mid-2010s with a noticeable surge in social justice and identity politics, which opened the door for increasingly radical politics. However, not everyone rode this wave and you'd occasionally see complaints about the website's neo-Nazi problem.
• In 2016, all inactive Tumblr blogs would get “-blog” tacked onto their URL if their account was inactive for over a year,⁷²⁾⁷³⁾ which has led to some blogs humorously having a “-blog-blog-blog” attached if you knew where to look. This also meant that Tumblr was starting to enforce a policy that discouraged the URL hoarding phenomenon from how easy it was to make sideblogs.
  • By the way, if you happen to be suspended for this: you'll have to contact Tumblr Support, not the Tumblr Abuse email that gets sent to you, and don't offload the URLs onto another account.
• Around 2018, the website stealthily added nine font colors that were named after sit-com characters: Joey Red Orange, Monica Pizazz Orange, Chandler Electric Violet, Phoebe Broom Yellow, Rachel Dodger Blue, Ross Malachite Green, Niles Hot Pink, Frasier Midnight, and Mr. Big Blue-Charcoal. The font colors were not easily accessible as they were in a beta stage.
  • When these became publicly available, it was reduced to Red, Orange, Green, Blue, Pink, Purple, and the default color, which was once Black until they realized they had dark color palettes.
• From December 2022 to January 2024, Automattic and The Meet Group entered a contract where The Meet Group's “LiveBox” was white-labeled as “Tumblr Live”,^74)75)76) which came with a “snooze” feature that annoyed everyone since it couldn't be permanently turned off.⁷⁷⁾ It was so unpopular that the official Tumblr account posted a meme as the contract expired.⁷⁸⁾
• ⭐ If you're creating (or recreating) a new Tumblr account: Go to your dashboard settings, then toggle off “Best Stuff First” and all toggles with “Include” to remove the algorithm bullshit.

• Tumblr Alternatives

• Tumblr - The front page of Tumblr.
  • Tumblr Staff and Changes on Tumblr - The only staff accounts that you need to know.
  • @tumblr and @tumblrsupport on Twitter - Same as above, but on Twitter.
• Post Limit Checker - An old tool that once told you when your blog is close to the 250 post limit.
• Tag Replacer - Self-explanatory tool. An alternative to New XKit's Tag Replacer extension.
• Find Untagged Tumblr Posts - Self-explanatory tool. For people who want every post tagged.
• trntbl-clone - A fun tool that scans your blog for audio posts and composes a playlist.

It's actually quite tolerable after people fled in droves.
　　　　　　　　　　　　　∧＿∧
　　　　　 ∧＿∧ 　　（´<_｀ 　）　At least, some erotica
　　　　　（　´_ゝ`）　　 /　　⌒i　　occasionally passes by.
￣＼　 ／　　 /￣￣￣￣/|　|
￣￣| /　　　./　Tumblr. / |　|
￣|　|（__ﾆつ/＿＿＿＿/　.|　|＿＿＿＿
田|　|　＼＿＿＿））＼　￣（u　⊃
ﾉ|||　|　　　　　　 ⌒￣