It was banned because Tumblr couldn't get ahold of all the CP that was being traded - to suggest it hurt "queer" communities to keep them from accidently in many cases viewing illegal content that will get them put in a prison is deeply naive.
The very nature of this sort of entertainment IS "misinformation." It's what you sign onto when you go to a movie. Sure, they profited off of it. Isn't this why people make movies? Sorry...this was another time, when people weren't so sensitive. This said, the actors should have been better taken care of. You can maintain your film's integrity while caring for its participants.
I liked this essay a lot that said what I am hearing is Tumblr was this thing, this great platform and now its not that anymore so now I'm just sad it's the first time I properly hear of it outside of a meme or something I would have liked the knowledge that it existed back when it was still this bigger queer space as you described, it could have helped me a lot
I saw it very early, before the hype kicked in. My friend had seen it at a press screening and just said I should see it as soon as I could. I found it terrifying, but I never questioned that it was a film. I'm not sure how people weren't savvy enough to figure it out. For the younger kids, it makes sense, but for anyone who was an adult and spent any time on the internet, the huge red flag was that there was only one or two pages with the story. And quite contrary to the common belief, no adult with half a brain thought that everything on the internet was real. If it had been real, there would have been hundreds of personal pages devoted to it. Props to Rei, the crying scene is so intense and masterful and it really ramped up the whole scariness of the situation.
I just remembered how careful I always am when there's talk a new queer show. There's so many people online who call shows gay or ship a same-sex pairing that are never actually confirmed in canon. Which is fine, of course, but I've been burned a few times thinking I'd get actual queer rep and it was just the fans picking up on subtext and being queerbaited and the internet being full of fanart that for someone who hasn't seen the show it seemed like it would genuinely be a queer show. So when I saw people talking about that gay pirate show, I expected it to be like that too and I wasn't that interested in watching it because although I love pirates, I have no patience for queerbaiting and barely watch shows without queer rep anymore. But suddenly people were talking about the kiss and there were pictures of Ed and Stede kissing and I realised people weren't being queerbaited or shipping a non-canon pairing, it was actual rep. I watched clips of the show because I couldn't access it and was flabbergasted HOW queer it is. And now I've seen both seasons and still cannot believe we now have a genuinely funny show that neither acts like queerphobia and other forms of discrimination don't exist nor makes fun of queer people or makes being queer seem like a huge burden. And unlike a lot of queer shows and the very popular queer joy show Heartstopper (which I do adore too), this one isn't set in high school where a teenager realises they're gay and struggle with their identity and first love - it's about middle aged queer men falling in love on a pirate ship with a very queer crew. How cool is that? It's queer joy in its best form and the kind of rep we barely get.
Honestly, ofmd has ruined me for settling with queerbaiting, I was so worried whether s2 of good omens would be enough after s1 wasn't very overt, but I'm ultimately happy with where it left off, without getting into spoilers. With those two and wwdits I say we welcome the new and improved, actually queer superwholock Our omens in the shadows 😅💜🏳️🌈🏴☠️
@@kenzmangan6831 Oh yes please. i really loved hearing your insight on OFMD, and as someone who's been in the Good Omens fandom since season 1 and saw people full on shouting at the creator, Neil Gaiman, about Queer bating i really wanna know your thoughts. I would almost suggest making two different observations, one for season 1 and another for season 2, since both seasons are so different. but you can choose whichever. lol
It’s really crazy how the entirety of millennials got their entire personalities and all of their viewpoints from this one website and Gen Z is just copying them copying things they saw on this website. Gay marriage and weed were probably both legalized because of this website. I wouldn’t be surprised if secretly this website is being suppressed because the right controls the media and all of the funding in America and they are paying to have it phased out.
I also remember a fan blog for a kids show I liked mentioning that some of the posts sharing screenshots from the show got flagged as NSFW... and it was only the screenshots with the brown and black characters that got flagged, pale characters weren't flagged as NSFW.
I joined tumblr last year for venting and discovering stuff I may like. And I’m really happy tbh. Having a “small” community is actually good because I can avoid a lot of toxicity, something that doesn't happen in other SM.
Tumblr?!? Whasn't that that failed facebook startup? Never heard it except from the US news outlets. But amuricans are known for that, making use of what the entire world despise.
I am so happy I had tumblr as a teenager. It helped me comming out and learn about my sexuality. Unfortunately, my profile was deleted as well without warning due to a joke my friend did to my tumblr in 2015, and me not deleting it. I do miss my tumblr. It was full of memories and phases of my teenage years, and the fact that it was just as anonymous as you wanted it to be made it really a safe space for cringy posts.
Personally, I watched it because Joe exotic was featured in a different documentary and I wanted to see if he changed anything. I don't recall the name of the doc (or series) but on it he was getting reviewed for his big cat care. But Tiger King was a mess.
Does... TIKTOK ACCESS THE HOME WIFI NETWORK Wh--I... are you fucking kidding me?! How have I never seen that clip... The CEO'S FACE WHEN HE ASKS THAT? That's hysterical!
Honestly, I loved Tumblr for the fanart and mental health support, as well as study motivation and activism. But discovering my sexuality was a nice side effect. To this day, I cannot find any 'pornographic' content that matches the safe, feminist and body positive posts on Tumblr. You were able to find content that wasn't crass, hardcore or demeaning. That's not something pornhub can offer
There was a similar film that came out the year before, not as good as the Blair Witch Project, but it's still very good: The Last Broadcast. I don't think the Blair Witch Project producers were aware of it.
i joined tumblr in (i think) 2010, maybe 2009. i left tumblr in 2020 when i changed phones and just... never reinstalled it, and i didnt miss it really because a couple of discord servers had taken over as my main spaces for interacting with other queers with similar interests. the porn ban really hit the artist community hard, especially given the number of non-explicit art posts that got flagged by tumblr's algorithm, leading a lot of artists to stop bothering posting their art as much. fandom communities shrank as the supply of fanart dwindled, and writers still had ao3, so tumblr stopped being the main place people engaged with fandom. the addition of ads and an instagram-like popularity algorithm, plus the crackdown on apps like xkit that made tumblr more user-friendly, just made tumblr an unpleasant place to be! it was never the same.
I will never forget experiencing this as it was happening. They did such a good job making everyone question whether or not this was legit. The mockumentary, the website, the advertising, it was freaking flawless.
Another thing about "adult content" bans is that even aside from the quality of adult content produced, these bans tend to be inconsistently enforced in ways that hurt non-sexual LGBT+ positive content as well. Bans on "political" content tend to have a similar effect as gay representation is view by many as political even if it's at a realistic level compared to the unrealistic demographics of works with only straight characters, and similarly making any mention of one's own sexuality is seen as political even if the same information about a cisgender heterosexual would not. 6:30 laws in America related to sex work are basically never intended to protect sex workers, they're intended to prevent sex workers from plying their trade safely so that they can be more easily preyed upon.
Great essay, thanks for posting. I've come to think that what we need is an entity who provides forums etc. as community services for the public at large and for specific segments of it (like Tumblr for queer communities up until the ban) and operates as a utility, that is, charges at cost for the usage of resources so it does not go into the red. One would pay say $10 a year for accessing the service (there could be a goodwill pool that accepts donations and applies them to waive said fees for the less fortunate), plus, the service commits to never change the terms of service. The one aspect that could break this model would be having to pay people for policing and removing illegal content (as in, graphic stuff involving minors, people trafficking and the like). For something as big as Tumblr circa 2017 or Reddit circa 2022, that would involve tons of human work which some will volunteer to do but you cannot build a lawsuit-proof system just off volunteers.
I think that a lot of the stigma around porn, which motivated Tumblr's advertisers and owners to ban it, is a result of the lack of diversity and positivity that Tumblr porn brought. Even straight cis men often feel dirty and guilty upon watching mainstream porn, and while some of it has to do with sexual repression, a lot of it is also probably because the porn they watch is often objectifying. It's easy to write off porn as a worthwhile frontier for diversity, inclusion, and community, but that's only because mainstream porn provides, at most, a bastardization of those things.
Yeah, advertisers DO need to become a lot more comfortable placing ads next to adult content. I mean, do I want to see a Subway ad while I'm scrolling erotic content? No, not particularly...but I also don't care to see it when I'm scrolling non-adult content, so I reckon it'd be every bit as effective in the adult content scenario.
Tumblr banned porn and Playboy briefly pulled nudity from their publications...seriously?! What do you think people are there for? I did leave Tumblr after the NSFW ban...and I likewise can't imagine buying a Playboy that didn't include nudes...or using OnlyFans for anything other than erotic content. Geez, SOMETIMES WHAT YOU OFFER IS PORN! Stop acting like you can get rid of that and have people stick around anyway.
Thank you for covering this, important part of a few different intersecting histories. I was contemplating making something covering this among other things in a sort of pornography historian thing with a focus on decentralization of production/distribution, setbacks to that end via tumblr ban, how that differs from PH purge, sex positivity, counterculture, etc but you did a better job than I could have.
"Nuance" is our word of the day. Many corporations aren't familiar with the term, seeing as the common policy of monochromatic vision leads to wide extermination of anything less than sparkling clean, regardless of its impact on whatever they're power-washing.
I like how you keep talking about how wholesome tumbler was and how useful it was for children while also pointing out it’s abhorrent amounts of porn and prostitution. Seems legit
So happy this woke farm went broke. What a cancer to society. Just a bunch of pedophiles and prostitutes praying on kids. So is it “sex work is real work” or “don’t objectify women”? Only one can be true.
