Clouds over Tumblr: Decline of interest in variety and curiosity

I am actually not going to say “Whatever” this time; scrolling down my dash and hushing my concerns about Tumblr fashion community. Some people like Nick and Amelia also touched upon the problems regarding the community, giving voice to their own opinions.  

I try to contribute to the Tumblr fashion community as much as I can since July 2012. As an active user of this website I am not really happy with the way things they are for a quite while. My intentions are not to slander people, not at all. I don’t know them. I’ve never held a face to face conversation with them.  

Well, yet I am annoyed by the mentality of mindless consumption of ideas and visual elements without actually trying to searching the meanings behind them.  

I have started to use this social networking website frequently since July 2012 and mostly blogged about fashion, followed people who had the same interests as me. Let me say this though, the one and only website I used sometimes nurtured my curiosity for fashion but lately I am feeling too uncomfortable to be on Tumblr.  

“Why fashion blogging on tumblr, then?” The answer is simple. Easy to access via laptops and smartphones. Immense visual content about anything. A diary with a coherent structure. In short a website to cultivate interests and quench curiosity to some extent.  

As people are interested in fashion blogging, so is the group to benefit from Tumblr. You could ask how it could be that there is a marketing on fashion blog? Well, there is. With immense funds. One and a half year ago, 16 bloggers went to NYFW with all of their expenses covered. The whole price of Tumblr NYFW and Fashion page on the time of the fashion week are priced at 150.000 $ and 350.000 $ respectively. So there are marketing clouds over fashion tag. Obviously.      

The price of NYFW and Fashion tags on Tumblr, taken from mashable.com    

I have actually never thought fashion on Tumblr costs that much. Wow. Let’s not forget the brands and retailers that promote their products on Tumblr. Fashion houses that share their latest campaigns. Models ranking at the top of the list of models.com that share their portfolios.  

Why did I move on to mention the marketing side of the fashion? Here is the reason. I believe there is a decline of the culture of learning about how fashion works. Since this marketing power pushes the particular publications and brands to the spotlight most people tend to build a blog to appeal to the motives of these groups. What happens at the end of this and continue in a vicious cycle? A group of fashion bloggers or fashionistas as described by some mechanically posting and reblogging posts. And yes, I am opposed to this mentality and am already fed up with reasons promoting this endless insanity about getting popularity and followers by posting unvarying stuff to only to appeal to some masses.    

The fashion tag is literally the embodiment of this horrendous mentality I’ve come across. Not once or twice. Multiple times. I believe fashion tag is only becoming a toy of some publications and main brands. I am not against that these publications should be ever featured on the tag or anywhere but people only post content related to them so that their blogs get featured. So what? What does being featured on any tag on Tumblr mean? Getting more notes and followers. Yes.  

I am not alright with this kind of mentality because the culture of “reblogging without learning or understanding” is spread out on a huge mass. Again this became a culture of its own and seems like it’ll never ever stop if Tumblr (staff and blogs) doesn’t make effort to change it. This mentality produces people who are actually devoid of seeking for the insight and depth in the visual content they are posting. People become the toys of a greedy mentality that is pushing them to post stuff to make them look knowledgable about fashion that they actually have no idea about. People hate on the same brands, models, garments to look like they belong to a community where only sharing particular kind of posts is acceptable. Post a designer, model, runway look to bring you the most notes and your hunger for more acceptance and popularity gets awarded by notes and followers. I call this a product of consumption culture. It doesn’t feed you but it feeds the powers who create the culture. Nothing else.  

Tumblr staff is happy with the situation of the fashion community and the tag that leads to a homogenous and repetitive posting habits though. As the founder of Tumblr David Karp said how almost 200 blogs out of the top 1000 blogs are fashion based, it seems like this vicious cycle of Tumblr will keep going. I have no idea if Karp is happy with the fact that the posts to go viral the most are fashion posts without noticing how those posts are mostly viewed as nothing but a tool to be popular. I don’t think if most of the people to click on that post to like or reblog it are actually on a pursuit to know more about that post. Where that post came from? Who created it? (Originally) What else is there behind that post to make them think?  

I have nothing to say people who are eager to learn more about fashion by researching, reading and sharing it with others to enlighten them. I have nothing to say people who find uplifting visual content or info and gets featured on any tag. It’s not up to me that I criticize people who know about what they are posting and why. It’s just that in a world where technology is in our pockets and Tumblr a great opportunity to be familiar with the latest news I just want a less manipulative community.

2:07 pm ◊ 04/25/2013