OPINION – Helena – 4th Wave Now
Helena
Helena is a 20-year-old woman who identified first as nonbinary, and later as a transgender man, from 2013 through 2018. In 2016, she began medical transition by taking testosterone, and detransitioned two years later. Helena was an avid Tumblr user during the time she thought she was trans. In retrospect she can see the profound influence the social media platform had on her life and the development of her trans identity — and the impact it continues to have on many young people. In this article, Helena dissects Tumblr as a platform, explaining to the uninitiated that its very structure lends itself to the self-referential ruminations of troubled teens–teens attempting to navigate and find their place in the identity-besotted cyber-culture that has all but replaced in-person interactions in the 21st century.
This piece will is the first of three that analyze aspects of Tumblr Helena has observed as detrimental to the massive numbers of youth who call the site their virtual home. Part 2 can be found here. Helena can be found on Twitter @lacroicsz and is a member of the Pique Resilience Project. She is available to interact in the comments section of this post.
Part 1
HELENA – 20 March 2019 – 4th Wave Now
We’ve all read Lord of the Flies, right? A bunch of tween boys get stranded on an island and all of their deepest, most repressed urges surface as they desperately attempt to organize and manage the tiny preteen society they’ve found themselves in. The novel ends in bloodshed, as the author theorizes that the immaturity, communication breakdown, and decision making difficulties one would find in a group of adolescent boys would create a chamber of destruction. How would it have ended differently, some have asked, if the story was one of a stranded group of girls? What would happen if every troubled, isolated, self-loathing, depressed, and emotionally overwrought teenage girl in the world wound up alone on an island?
Tumblr. Tumblr would happen.
Tumblr: you either love it, hate it, or have no clue what it is. Tumblr is the microblogging platform that has given birth to some of the most intensely devoted fan bases online, with over 456 million registered accounts as of 2019. While known widely for fandom-related art, writing, and discussion, there is another, darker aspect of Tumblr that requires a better acquaintance with online communities to understand. In many corners of the internet, Tumblr is known as the core of a certain brand of leftist ideology, not-so-affectionately dubbed the “Social Justice Warriors.” It is these “SJWs” that have taken the site from a platform for fan content to a highly influential ideological powerhouse.
However, an analysis of Tumblr as simply a bunch of “crazy SJWs” does not do the site justice. To understand Tumblr and its influence in youth mental health, culture and politics, you must realize that Tumblr is not simply a site some people visit to share their opinions or look at pictures. You must stop viewing it as merely a website, but as more of a dimension: it has its own social rules, hierarchies, ideologies, and interconnected communities. As a site where millions of people, mainly teenage girls cut off from the outside world, maintain constant daily connection, it has developed into a true culture–the mammoth hub of alternative teenage lifestyle.
Most people are aware of the new challenges our increasingly online culture presents to us. The internet has given rise to a slew of new concerns about psychological impacts, particularly pertaining to previously nonexistent and more covert forms of predatory or manipulative behavior. Tumblr is, of course, just one website out of many that raises these concerns, so why does Tumblr specifically matter? It matters because Tumblr, to millions of its users, is not simply a social media platform. It is their world, the place where these teens make their deepest friendships, express their most vulnerable selves, and begin to develop their own identities. It is also the world from which a surprising amount of our modern-day social justice ideology emerges.
The internet is the 21st century town square, and it is no secret that the discourse that takes place on it is at the forefront of every aspect of our society and politics, Twitter being perhaps the most notable example. On Tumblr, there is a running joke that “Twitter is everything Tumblr was three years ago;” in other words, whatever social justice topic is fashionable on Twitter at any given time has long since been beaten dead on Tumblr. As someone who spent 2011 to 2016 on Tumblr, and 2016 to 2019 on Twitter, I can confirm this as true–the discourse we see on the liberal sides of Twitter would have been seen on Tumblr three years ago.
Recursive antiterf virtue signaling
When I check up on some of the current Twitter topics (such as queer theory) on Tumblr in 2019, the conversations are far more intricate and removed from reality than they are currently on Twitter. As time progresses, the seriously confused debates and ideas cooking within the Tumblr echo chamber find their way to other platforms and push those user bases in the same direction. This is scary because, unlike Tumblr, Twitter is taken very seriously. Citizens can converse with politicians, celebrities, and influencers in a way that was never possible before, and activists can reach a spectrum of people who would have otherwise never listened to them. Now, when I think about the kind of ideologies I subscribed to as a teenager on Tumblr, and as I see them being played out on Twitter and in the real world years later, it deeply concerns me. My concern about this trend is exacerbated even further when I realize that most people do not understand the planet from which many aspects of online activism emerge. And this lack of understanding is shared by a wide demographic, including professionals, parents, and confused Leftists and Liberals blindsided by the turn activism has taken in the last half decade.
Now, before I begin the first installment of this adventure through the space-Tumblr continuum, I must issue a disclaimer: I am no expert in psychology, sociology, or social media. Research into the complexities of social media and the various platforms’ effects on human communication and mental health is a growing field, with new empirical studies emerging rapidly. My observations as a former daily user of Tumblr are purely that: my observations. This being said, I have insight into the site that gives me an advantage over those who may be curious from the outside, experts or not. When I look back on my time spent on Tumblr, I am overwhelmed by the many malignant qualities I see reflected in my own actions and beliefs, and those of the site’s current and former user base. After mulling it over (and spending way too much time scouring the site for visible patterns of dysfunctional behavior), I have identified three crucial aspects that make Tumblr the problem it is, the first of which I’ll discuss in this article.
#1 Tumblr is designed in a way that fundamentally enables extreme groupthink, manipulation of information, destructive interactions, and distorted ways of thinking.
Information on Tumblr is shared in two main ways: posts and reblogs. Posts are content that users share on their Tumblr blogs. Posts can take the form of text, imagery, quotes, links, audio, or video. Reblogs are posts that users share that originally appeared on the blogs of other Tumblr users. If you are familiar with Twitter, the concept of “tweets” and “retweets” is a good comparison. When a user reblogs a post, they have the option to add a comment that will appear below the original post’s text. Other users may reblog the content further, each time adding their own comments. Eventually, you may have a long comment chain emerging from a single reblog.
Above is an example of Tumblr’s reblog and caption system at work. At the top is the original post, and the bottom two comments are the comments that existed on the version of this post at the time the person who reblogged the chain onto my dashboard chose to reblog it. There may be countless other versions of this post that others are reblogging, with different captions added onto it, all under the same original post. All the interactions, including likes, reblogs, captions, and replies that exist for this post can be seen by clicking the “notes” indicator on the bottom left hand side.
Innocuous as this may seem from the screenshot above, it is this very feature of Tumblr that I find to be one of the most problematic. On posts that are more emotionally or politically charged, it’s not uncommon for users to reblog full blown arguments that, by the last visible caption in that particular version of the post, arrive at a conclusion, often reflecting the beliefs of their established social circle. This prevents the reader from ingesting the point the original poster was trying to make and coming to their own logical conclusion, because they have a certain version of a back and forth dialogue laid out for them, often expressed in a very intense and polarized way that makes the final conclusion seem more correct simply because of the way the argument is framed. Unless one has the self awareness to check the full amalgamation of comments in the notes section and attempt to decipher the jumbled mess of heated additions to the post, one isn’t going to get every side of the argument. Unbeknownst to the reader, there could be yet another comment after the “conclusion” that could completely flip their view on the topic once again.
After months, or years of developing opinions and a worldview through spoon-fed arguments that disengage the mind from processing the information at hand autonomously, critical thinking skills can take a serious hit. When one listens to a live debate or has an engaging conversation with another human being, information can be shared back and forth, enabling all parties present to grow from the debate, learn from each other, sharpen their critical thinking skills, and refine their own arguments and world views. On Tumblr, this necessary form of communication and intellectual development is often lost to this new sort of “factory farmed” way of forming opinions and debate (or lack thereof), resulting in highly opinionated youth who have never actually thought about what they believe and why they believe it. I once passionately held beliefs that I believed were my own, but when I tried to describe them in my own words, I would often arrive at a sort of mental barrier. As my peers and I exchanged scripted rationalizations, we were unable to connect the dots between the intellectual blind spots in our own minds.
As users read through the captions on a contentious post, especially if they are unfamiliar with the topic, it’s not uncommon for their opinions on the matter to flip back and forth with every comment they read as they go down the post. The reader then eventually arrives at the stern conclusion, which they are likely to adopt as their own. Readers may also feel pressure to agree with the dominant opinion in that particular snippet of the conversation, as the person framed as being “wrong” or the “loser” typically is indicated to be bigoted or stupid, often receiving backlash or public humiliation based on the particular version of the post a certain circle of users is reblogging.
When you try to navigate the world of Tumblr posts, the task of separating fact from fiction is herculean. A major part of the online experience for people with better critical-thinking skills is the constant effort to contextualize and cross-check events, claims, and sources. Children and teens often do not have these skills just yet, and it seems that Tumblr’s developers have failed to compensate for this at all. Sites like Facebook have claimed to take a stand against “fake news” while many users on Twitter and other sites encourage others to refrain from knee-jerk reactions to “news,” and to cross-check claims before letting the starving Rottweiler of outrage out of its kennel. Tumblr, however, has neither the self-aware user base to encourage such attitudes, nor a team of developers who seem to care about whether or not the confusion of Tumblr users is affecting their mental health, let alone influencing international public discourse.
Users can also interact more interpersonally in the form of “asks” (direct messages that can be answered either publicly or privately and have the option to be sent anonymously), as well as instant messaging via the Tumblr chat function. “Asks” will appear in the inbox, and are more often than not a variety of different types of messages as opposed to actual questions. The option for anonymity has allowed for this feature to be used as the primary method of bullying or harassment, as well as, interestingly enough, a method for users to send themselves messages, often hateful, to gain sympathy or manipulate discourse happening within their social circle.
When a user makes a statement that another group considers “problematic”, it is not uncommon for that user to be absolutely obliterated with anonymous messages demanding changed behavior, apologies, or simply exercising the sender’s desire to decimate someone online. When someone is harassed like this over a heretical statement, the entire situation, along with the mental state of the user being attacked, often descends into complete chaos.
It is expected that when you are called out, you immediately and calmly apologize (flog yourself) and promise to never do whatever it is you are being called out for again. Even then, it is hard to satiate the hungry mob. People who appear too calm can be accused of not taking the situation seriously or disrespecting the feelings and concerns of those who were offended. It is always a lose-lose-lose-lose….lose… situation, and as you may have already discerned, critical thinking in this atmosphere is nearly impossible. Without the anonymity of the ask feature, and the capability for one user to send multiple messages causing an illusion of a mass attack, mole hills would not be perceived as mountains as often as they are. What is in reality more likely to be an individual perceiving your words as offensive begins to feel like you have stepped on a mine that has just decimated the peace and order of your entire community, even if it really is just one or two people sending dozens of anonymous hate messages (often including to your friends and followers) and calling enough attention to the situation that your entire social circle is pressured to stand up and persecute you for your crimes…
How Mental Illness Becomes Identity: Tumblr, a Callout Post, Part 2
HELENA – 13 August 2019 – 4th Wave Now
In Part 1, I described a few elements of Tumblr’s design that compromise the perception and communication of its users. Now we will take a look at some of the ways Tumblr’s unique atmosphere has given life to dangerous subcultures that have engulfed the lives of countless young people, mostly girls, in the last decade.
Introverted, angst-ridden, struggling adolescents across the globe are now faced with the risk of becoming inundated with content from self-harm blogs, pro-anorexia blogs, social-justice blogs that encourage self-diagnosis of mental illness, the use of mental illness as social currency, and gender identity ideology that is even more logically flawed and emotionally driven than in the mainstream. In this piece, I will discuss the self-harm community, and the pro eating-disorder community, both of which I have had personal experience belonging to. The community surrounding gender identity and dysphoria, the one with which I am most familiar, will be discussed in depth in Part 3.
Self-Harm Tumblr
The community of bloggers that filmed and shared photos, gifs, and written glorifications of self-harm behavior, often called “self-harm Tumblr” or “self-harm blogs,” was nearly eradicated when Tumblr prohibited the practice in 2012, but the long-term impact of such a dark and abnormal presence on the character of the site–and the teenagers who use(d) it–are still very evident. During their heyday, these blogs permeated Tumblr with graphic, slow motion, black-and-white gifs of razors slicing through flesh or dramatic quotes about suicide that were available simply by typing “self-harm” or “suicide” into the search bar.
Here’s how it worked: Imagine you’re a sad teenage girl circa 2012. Maybe you hate your body, or you’re conflicted about your sexuality, or you don’t fit in with your peers, or your home life is disordered. You’ve started using Tumblr a lot; you love that you can search anything you’re thinking of in the moment and instantly be gratified with awesome fan art of your favorite characters or updates on your favorite TV shows. But on this day, it’s not your teen idol or some BBC show that’s on your mind. Instead, it’s painful thoughts of self-hatred or even suicide. Maybe it’s the crushing feeling that your parents don’t love you. Maybe they’re too busy fighting to reassure you they probably do. Whatever it is, it’s not good, and like with everything else, you don’t have many places to turn to with this kind of thing. Your parents won’t understand, you don’t want to bother your best friend with your complaining for the umpteenth time that day, and listening to emo songs isn’t hittin’ like usual. So you do what you always do when you’re lonely and stimulated: you go on Tumblr. You type “depression” in the search bar, and a thousand posts like this come up:
Feels good. Feels validating. All that energy vibrating in your chest is matched by the black-and-white moving picture on the screen in front of you. You scroll down, and what do you know, there’s more. An infinite supply, always updating, because thousands of people just like you are posting more and more of these depression-aesthetic memes every day.
Now let’s say that at some point you do begin to self harm. Maybe you saw it in a music video, or your best friend started doing it, or you even saw it in a Tumblr gif, but through whatever means, the thought of venting your feelings into your own skin with a razor blade finds its way into your head. Or maybe you want to self harm, the desire is burning within you, but you’re scared. Not to worry, go back to Tumblr and type in “self harm” or “cutting.” You’ll get another infinite supply of addictive, dopamine machine guns. But this time, they’re bloody. A lot of them are matched with captions that strike you as relatable. The gore is mesmerizing, you can’t look away. There’s something about watching blood pour or ooze (whether from your own self harm or from one of these gifs) that feels analgesic. Before you know it, you’ve been lying there in your bed for hours, body limp except for your thumb stroking your smartphone’s screen as you scroll through these countless images.
If you’ve never self harmed before, this might make you wanna try. Click here to view some examples of Tumblr self-harm posts, but be warned–they are graphic. These images, and the act of self harm, will make you feel better for a moment by flooding your body with endorphins as it resonates with and then tries to cope with the stinging pain, but the second another stressor, another hopeless thought comes your way, you have to go back again. It’s a deal with the devil, but there’s a reason so many kids have been seduced into shaking his hand.
No one is born with the desire to slice their flesh every time they feel upset, and previously, self-harming behavior was seen only in the most severe psychiatric cases. Ordinary teenage girls were not cutting themselves to the point of hospitalization a few generations ago, and the statistics reflect that. According to a study released in 2017 which evaluated ER visits for nonfatal injuries amongst adolescents from 2001 to 2015, rates of ER visits among youth “showed no statistically significant trend until 2008, increasing 5.7% annually thereafter and reaching 303.7 per 100 000 population in 2015. Age-adjusted trends for males overall and across age groups remained stable throughout 2001-2015. Overall age-adjusted rates for females demonstrated no statistically significant trend before 2009, yet increased 8.4% yearly from 2009 to 2015. After 2009, rates among females aged 10 to 14 years increased 18.8% per year—from 109.8 per 100, 000 in 2009 to 317.7 in 2015. Rates among females aged 15 to 19 years showed a 7.2% increase on average per year during 2008-2015.” (Mercado et. al.)
Note the statistic that the rates of female self-injury hospitalizations were stagnant until 2008, when they suddenly began increasing. Keep in mind that correlation does not equal causation, and cultural phenomena seldom have one clear explanation, but the fact that Tumblr was launched in 2007, and really picked up speed in 2008, should not go ignored in this discussion.
These self-harm blogs were not simply the online diaries of depressed teenagers, but a thriving community in which mental illness became identity. The images, and the captions that accompany them, often reinforced depressive ruminations, such as: No one cares about the self harmer, the self harmer will be depressed forever, and suicide and self harm are justifiable ways of coping with negative emotions. It is this way of thinking, this immersion in depressive thought, and the resentment and alienation that results from suffocating yourself in this maladaptive coping mechanism on a constant basis, that paved the way for later subgroups surrounding mental illness.
Pro-Anorexia Tumblr
“Pro-Ana” culture existed years before Tumblr, with the first pro-Ana websites emerging in the 1990s, when the already existing real-life pro-Ana movement moved online. The issue was brought to public attention in 2001 when Oprah Winfrey discussed it on her television show, and the world was shocked to learn that not only was anorexia a prevalent threat to young girls, but that many of these girls seemed overjoyed to be suffering from it.
Since the pro-Ana movement has been so widespread for so long, there’s actually quite a bit of literature and research on the topic of social contagion and eating-disorder “symptom pooling,” that is, when sufferers of the same mental illness band together and form an echo chamber that exacerbates the symptoms of the illness. This article from the Social Issues Research Centre gives a good introduction to the inner workings of popular pro-ED websites, and much more information is available online. Pro-Ana culture is known for its users’ belief that they are not sick, but simply being themselves and making a lifestyle choice to be more “disciplined” than people who do not choose to be anorexic. The name “Ana,” as opposed to using the terms “anorexia” or “eating disorder,” personifies the illness almost as a goddess to be worshipped.
Pro-Ana ideology is one contradiction after the next, with users glorifying the illness, how it has empowered them, how in-control and serene they feel when they starve, how much better their life is since finding their pro-Ana friends, and how they “trigger” each other to victory–yet, in the next breath, advising that “if you don’t have an ED, turn away now. You don’t want to be like me.” It is a highly addictive formula of community, purpose, coping mechanisms, and a simultaneous god and victim complex.
While all of this is pretty standard for pro-Ana communities, the Tumblr pro-Ana community is unique. It doesn’t (and never did) have the same degree of vitriol, and has always been heavier on victimization. While some pro-Ana communities see themselves as a quasi-political class who have the right to starve themselves because that’s what they believe is right for them, the Tumblr pro-Ana community treats anorexia more like the mental illness it is. This doesn’t come close to solving the problem, though, since Tumblr has some twisted attitudes towards mental illness in the first place. Whereas other pro-Ana communities focus on the sheer act of starvation as fulfillment through self-mastery, the Tumblr pro-Ana community sets its sights on the end goals of the perpetual diet. Many of them view it less as a lifestyle choice for the rest of their lives, but more as a necessary evil to achieve a standard of living that is tolerable to them. They focus on what they will be able to do when they are thin, how they will look, and how much better life will be. Then, they can stop starving (or so they believe)– almost as if their anorexia is a transition to a different existence, a new body, a new life (the parallels with the trans/gender dysphoric Tumblr communities are quite obvious here).
There is a heartbreaking air of hopefulness in the anorexic community on Tumblr. They are not pro-Ana because they chose it to feel superior, they are pro-Ana because they feel they must be. They cannot survive another day seeing their reflections, and the fat they see on their bodies (even when there is none left) is more than aesthetically displeasing to them: it contains the very cause of all of their suffering. Every moment of pain since birth has been because they are too fat, they eat too much, they’re too out of control–as if losing a dangerous amount of weight would resolve the mental patterns that drove them to take such self-destructive measures in the first place.
Tumblr pro-Ana is a much more hopeful, naive pro-Ana culture than others online. It was born of the original culture in the 1990s, but influenced by the unique attitude Tumblr has developed towards self-harming behavior and mental illness. Users will repeat again and again, “no one chooses to be anorexic…” “if I could stop being this way I would…” and to a certain extent, this is true. No one can “snap out” of an eating disorder, but the Tumblr culture goes beyond acknowledging the difficulty of recovery. Anorexia is viewed not as a lifestyle choice, like in other pro-Ana communities, but as an inescapable battle bestowed upon these girls that they must fight, else they will never be happy. They were born to be redeemable failures, out-of-control gluttons, and every miserable moment traces back to the pounds that could be lost. Their only hope at survival is to beat their bodies into submission to rid themselves of the visible, tangible, evidence of their curse: fat. This is how anorexia ceases to be defined as a mental illness, ceases to be defined as a “lifestyle”, and begins its definition as an identity. It transcends the material and becomes spiritual. Some people are just born to suffer like this, and they have to learn to love it.
To an outsider, it seems convoluted. Unbelievable, even. It is so far removed from sanity that it is difficult for me to explain in a way that will convey even a fraction of the many ideological layers that have developed within Tumblr’s pro-Ana community. But to them, at least to the extent they are able to convince themselves, it’s not that crazy. It makes sense: you’re a fat ugly failure and you have to do something about it! Extreme normalization of this truly dangerous behavior has always existed in pro-Ana circles, where anorexics even go so far as to see their path as superior to a non-anorexic existence. On other pro-Ana sites, this looks like intense competition, purposefully “triggering” others by being heartlessly demeaning and catty, and exchanging tips on how to hide the severity of their illness from parents, friends, and doctors (including within inpatient psychiatric facilities).
On Tumblr, the approach is similar but less aggressive. “Meanspo” (meaning something to the tune of “mean thinspo,” a type of post in which the writer purposefully writes triggering, mean, messages but warns the reader beforehand) is distinguished from other posts, because as opposed to other communities’ competitive, vicious nature, the Tumblr pro-Ana community is soft and friendly. They understand themselves as a large congregation of friends, helpless in the face of the symptoms they share, and the only way to help each other is to be very sweet and lose as much weight as possible, to stave off the demons.
And if you’re not in the mood to be called a fat pig, don’t worry, there’s “sweetspo”: thinspo that is kind and loving, something these girls might not usually experience. Or if they do, they don’t feel worthy of accepting this love from anybody but Ana. But don’t get it twisted, Ana is only nice in the context of getting you back on track to lose weight. No “you don’t deserve to do this to yourself,” no “you don’t have to torture your body to avoid suffering.” There is no option presented by the pro-Ana community that does not fit within the confines of the ideology; rather, comforting sentiments are used to strengthen the sense of emotional isolation and dependency members of the community feel.
Something that has always been intriguing about the pro-Ana movement is its propensity for viewing itself almost as a minority group of sorts. On the original forum platforms for pro-Ana discussion, this manifested in members believing anorexia is a “lifestyle”, and that their choices deserve to be respected. A “good Ana doesn’t die”, and doctors or loved ones who attempt to intervene are violating the autonomy of the anorexic. With this came a militancy designed to keep girls in line and constantly living and spreading the lifestyle, because an easygoing, accepting atmosphere would not achieve results. This is why the pro-Ana social contagion reached the levels it did in the 1990s and early 2000s; it was a fierce battleground where the narrative proclaimed that only the strong survive, and the strongest will place first. But really it was the resulting group belligerence that emerged from this narrative, rather than the any truth to the narrative itself, that carried so many young women and girls through years of self destruction.
Other ideological groups on Tumblr are also popularly associated with a similar militancy, but the core dysfunctions of these groups, including the Tumblr pro-Ana community, are unique in the way they create psychological dependence. Other pro-Ana communities would create this dependence by fostering a competitive atmosphere in which it would be unacceptable to fall behind. Members were expected to display their starting weight, current weight, progress, and goal weights on every post and comment in the form of a signature. There would be daily threads requesting Anas to post their food intake diaries, and it would be an absolute disgrace to answer that you had Granny Smith apple slices, chicken breast, and 2.5 tootsie rolls when other girls only drank cucumber icewater all day. If you couldn’t run with the Alphas, the whole pack left you behind, it was that simple. In contrast, emotional dependency is created on Tumblr more through curating the pro-Ana community as a (conditionally!) loving and accepting oasis where everyone can feel “included” as an Ana, even if they aren’t underweight and even binge sometimes! Isn’t that nice?…