tumblr history: the era of being tumblr famous
today on tumblr history we discuss what it took to be "tumblr famous"
If you were on Tumblr during its peak (2012-2015), then you know how coveted and cool it was to amass a following on the platform. At least I wanted to at age 13. Urban Dictionary defines tumblr famous as “a person who reaches 1,000 and stops following back.”1 These people not only acquire a lot of notes (i.e., reblogs and likes) on all their posts; they also have a personal fanbase of some sort, which usually means a full inbox of asks and only responding to a select few. There was a weird exclusivity around these blogs too. In fandom circles, if you’re part of the “in” group of famous Tumblr blogs, you got some sort of clout for being one of the select few that the user talked to.
The most famous user on Tumblr was pizza.tumblr.com, the first blog to reach a million followers. Jess Miller, the owner of pizza.tumblr.com, was also one of the first influencers on the site, peddling diet pills, much like the Kardashians and other Instagram influencers were doing at the time (anyone remember Sugar Bear Hair Gummies?). Tumblr deleted the blog sometime in 2014 due to its ad policy forbidding users to endorse products via links.2
On my side of Tumblr (the anime one), the most popular blogs were the ones that drew fanart. These blogs amassed thousands of followers right off the bat and became fandom celebrities within Tumblr. Sometimes fanfic writers would get the same treatment if their fics were popular enough, but I’ve seen some really bad fanfics get popular. And I’m not just saying this because none of my fanfics became mega popular; I’m talking about grammar mistakes and out-of-character galore; like, writing things about a character that they canonically would not do. These popular fandom blogs sat high and mighty, almost untouchable to 13-year-old me, which is insane to think about 10 years later because these people were also nerdy teenagers like me.
I remember wanting to be one of them so bad. I used a bajillion hashtags on my posts. I wrote Attack on Titan and Free! Iwatobi Swim Club fanfic in hopes of getting noticed. I even convinced my parents to buy me a drawing tablet for Christmas. That dream I had never come to fruition. I think I maxed out at 300 or 400 followers, but I did produce some pretty good fanfic that makes 23-year-old me envious of my teenage writing skills.
While that blog is long gone, I have still yet to gain a massive following that I would have liked back then. Maybe that’s for the best.3
tumblrrrrr. “tumblr famous”(2011). https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=tumblr%20famous
https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/rise-and-fall-of-jess-millers-pizza-empire-20160512-gotftv.html
You can follow my new blog https://xanaxspritz.tumblr.com/ where I’m happily being cringe online and indulging in Jujutsu Kaisen smut and fanart