Tumblr Censrshp

Too small to be Blogger, too big to be Twitter

Tumblr has apparently instituted a policy of deleting blogs on its service dedicated to stalking other bloggers, reblogging their posts and adding demeaning, often profane commentary. This NYT blog piece focuses on one Julia Allison, who has characterized herself as "internet famous" (never heard of her) and evidently contributes to a widely-read blog. Anyways, somebody set up a Tumblr called Reblogging Julia, indexed on Google here, making fun of the actual Ms. Allison. Bearing in mind that I haven't read much of it, I wouldn't characterize anything I've seen as being beyond the pale. Mean-spirited, certainly, but crossing some sort of societal bright-line, no. At any rate, Tumblr has characterized the behavior in which "Reblogging Julia" engages "harassment" and announced a policy stating that "Accounts with the sole or primary purpose of repeatedly harassing or abusing specific members or groups within the Tumblr community will be suspended."

Isn't part of "internet fame" learning to deal with "internet criticism?" Even from the anonymous? (Frankly, the anonymity angle is played up in the piece, but I can't understand why; would it be better if Julia or whomever had a name or address or something? Would she send them a nasty e-mail, or attempt to change their mind about her? I mean, I know that anonymity is largely associated with cowardice – although I'd point out that the Federalist Papers were all written pseudonymously – but I'm not sure why that rankles so much in the world of internet snark. Btdubs, I just compared Tumblr hecklers with James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, et al.) Seriously, while I think that there can/should be limitations on internet fora, in terms of threats, posting personal data, etc., simply mocking someone who trades on their blogger celebrity seems not only to be relatively harmless but wholly within the spirit of what the internet is basically all about. Without Tumblr or services like it, "Julia Allison" wouldn't exist; the democratic beauty of the technology is that people who have an opinion about her one way or another have a platform with which to praise/discuss/disdain her which is equally accessible.

Admittedly, I feel a little bit like Campbell Brown here: I'm telling you something you already know, and, more than likely, I'm even having the same "well, duh" reaction as you. Still, it is kind of bullshit that the very same people who exploit the internet to go from essentially non-entities to elevating the most banal facets of their existence into "content" get pissed off when people actually take a couple of pot shots at the sitting ducks. E.g.:

Dan: People will not stop asking me about Mary's haircut.
Me: HAHHAHA are they talking about how I'm fat, too?
Me: I've been getting that a lot lately. "Julia looks like she's about to implode" was my favorite.
Dan: No, no one who talks to me says you're fat.
Me: Oh that's good. That's a plus.
Dan: They all agree with me that you hang out with too many people that are anorexically skinny. And if you are around normal sized people, you look tiny, because you are, in fact, tiny.
Me: I just feel like my face is fat. I feel sort of ugly and fat bc of fashion week. I think one tends to lose perspective.

P.S. Though I'm not really interested into going into it, evidently there's a personal connection b/w Allison and Tumblr CEO David Karp; plus Allison, though she denies asking Karp to take the offending blogs down, isn't exactly broken up about the whole thing.