Tumblr Repair Work

Broken World Confessions, Elections, and Meltdowns

Abstract

This paper analyzes the actions and attitudes of Tumblr users as a form of repair (cf. Jackson 2014) integral to the continued inhabitation of the platform in the wake of multiple waves of population and de-population. Qualita-tive interviews conducted in 2021-2022 are paired with multimodal discourse analysis of selected Tumblr metafandom trends (Tumblr posts about Tumblr) referencing significant moments in recent Tumblr history. First, on -November 5, 2020, users fervently discussed the United States Presidential Election and Castiel confessing his love for Dean Winchester on Supernatural (2005-2020). This moment has lived on, especially through the ‘breaking news‘ meme format generated from still images from the episode. Second, in February 2024, Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic and by extension Tumblr, publicly engaged with allegations of transphobic moderation occurring on the platform in a way that was characterized as ‘having a meltdown,‘ leading to fan art production depicting various ‘scenes‘ from the incident. Third, on April 1, 2024, Tumblr’s yearly April Fool’s feature allowed users to ‘boop‘ one another by hitting a button on other users’ posts. The booping feature was generally well-regarded, and users both lamented the loss of the button and reminded others that the ‘like‘ and ‘reblog‘ features should be utilized more often going forward. The metafandom content under discussion, originating both before and after the interview period, echoes participants’ responses that continuing to create and share content on Tumblr some fifteen-plus years after its initial launch requires labor and repair, not innovation. The platform is in a state of disrepair and depends on user intervention to continue to function. However, this is repair work that users found worth the effort, as Tumblr continued to be their preferred social media experience when assessing alternatives.