With each new year, I try to come up with a content gameplan for the year. With an ever-increasing number of ways to express yourself online, it’s impossible to actively keep up with every social network and app. One that has been top of mind this year is Tumblr.
Some of you may know that I’ve run my OG site –
ParisLemon – on Tumblr for a number of years now. But if I’m being honest, I haven’t really kept it up actively for a few years. Between
500ish,
Twitter,
Instagram,
this newsletter, and a few other things (email, ugh), there just isn’t enough time or will. I’ve been half-assing it.
As such, I always debate simply
shutting it down. But then I go to do that and get sad. Because Tumblr used to be such a great tool, source of content, and network. But in the years since the Yahoo acquisition (which is now buried under a couple more acquisitions – Aol -> Verizon) it’s an understatement to say it has fallen into disrepair.
The recent porn fiasco (
and worse) just highlighted what many of us already knew: Tumblr is dead, but doesn’t realize it yet.
And that’s incredibly sad both because of what Tumblr was, but also because there’s nothing else that has come to take its place.
It’s weird. If you wanted to start something as simple as a link blog these days, there’s no good way to do it. Sure, you could set up a WordPress site, but it will undoubtedly be
overkill. Medium has gone in
another direction. And other things such as the newer
Micro.blog are almost too predicated around mobile and simplicity. There’s just no good way to do what you could do on Tumblr.
Some combination of Instagram and Twitter is actually probably the closest thing to it now. But it’s not the same. It’s just not. And that’s sad. RIP, Tumblr.