How To Tumblr

November 2014. This is a horatian satire intended to be lighthearted. I have nothing against sexuality, or anything else that I satirized in this essay. Xoxo

This is a how to on being the greatest thing this generation has to offer:  A Tumblr kid.  The hardest part of being a tumblr kid is just figuring out how to work tumblr.  Once you’ve done that, read these steps to find out how to not only have tumblr, but how to be tumblr.  Remember, Tumblr is not just a social media website, it’s a lifestyle. 

Step 1:  Choose your sexuality.  There are lots to choose from, so experiment with them all.  It’s the best way to form your identity as a tumblr kid.  First, choose from a list of prefixes: hetero, homo, bi, pan, poly, demi, or gray.  These prefixes represent your form of sexual orientation.  Next, chose a suffix: sexual or romantic.  Now, you can mix and match and be more or less attracted to a different type of human (or non-human, whatever you choose) every single day!  For example, you can be bi- sexual and hetero romantic, which means you are sexually non-discriminatory based on gender, but you can only have romantic feelings for one gender.  Or, you can be demi-sexual, which means you are only attracted to someone based on their personality, but only on Tuesdays.  You may ask, “What does gray mean? Isn’t that a color?” Well, the truth is, no one really knows what it means.  Just go with it.  Finally, the best part, add an “A” in front of any of these words to represent being “anti” that sexuality.  Being a-sexual is great for being a tumblr kid because it makes you seem like you hate the world so much that you’re not attracted to anyone at all.  All tumblr kids hate the world. 

Step 2:  Get more followers on social media websites.  First, get on Instagram.  Follow as many people as you can, it doesn’t matter if you know them or not, 12 year old girls that you don’t know make the best followers.  They’ll like all of your pictures and tell you how hot you are.  Next, tell all of your followers on Instagram to follow you on twitter.  You need to have lots of followers on every social media site so that you can promote your tumblr blog.  It’s that important. The key to being a tumblr kid is to be up to date with everthing on social media.  What’s the point of being a tumblr kid if nobody knows about it?  Check your profile constantly and keep up with trending topics so that you can also post about current events.  Which bring us to our next step. 

Step 3:  Bae.  Everything is bae.  Bae is a shortened version of “baby” or “babe”, used often as an affectionate nickname.  As if “babe” wasn’t a short enough word, we needed something even shorter and more grammatically incorrect for it to be catchy.  Bae is also an acronym, standing for “before anyone else” or is most cases lately “before anything else”.  Anything remotely good in life is bae, or actually, anything that people talk about at all, really.  You are bae.  I am bae.  The dream catcher tattoo that you want is bae.  Christmas is bae.  Pizza is bae.  Netflix is bae.  Ebola is bae, ISIS is bae… etc.  You get the picture.

Step 4:  Romanticize sadness.  Nostalgia has got to be your state of mind, because you know there was a time before you were this way, but you just can’t remember what it was.  Depression is beautiful and suicide is art.  Remind people that it is your right as an American to be sad, just as it is their right to be happy.  It’s the soft grunge, dark, dangerous behavior that makes you a tumblr kid.  You have to be overly dramatic about your struggles as a middle class teenager in America.  Complain about the school system.  Talk about your eating disorders.  Post all the time about how much you care for people that don’t give a damn about you.  Then, post about how you don’t care about anyone or anything and you are completely apathetic to the world around you, and pain has made you this way.  Draw flowers around guns and post things that let people know that you’re sad.  Come up with sad quotes and make them your bio, or overuse them as your captions on selfies.  Some examples are:  “She smelled of cigarettes and sadness”. “I was in the darkness, so darkness I became”.  Or, you can just be a little more outright and say “I am on the brink of suicide”.  These will make you seem insightful and mysterious.  But don’t take it too far, you don’t want people to think you want attention.  You just want people to realize that you’re sad and feel sorry for you.  A good source of inspiration for these quotes is the “poems porn” twitter account.  Don’t worry, it’s not actually porn, which I doubt you would mind if it was anyway.  It’s second grade-level poetry, but they’re sad, so whatever.

Step 5:  Come up with a set of relationship goals.  Blog about them.  All the time.  Remember, you’re not a tumblr adult, you’re a tumblr kid.  Being that kids don’t have a very far perspective into what is actually important for the future, feel free to make these goals mediocre and based on highschool relationships.  These relationships generally don’t last for more than 6 moths anyways, so have fun and be reckless because there’s always going to be someone else.  A common relationship goal post is a picture of a guy and a girl eating pizza together, while the guy is inappropriately touching the girl’s butt.  The caption would say, “Relationship goal:  Touch my butt and give me pizza”.  Another popular goal from tumblr kids are a couple that is smoking weed together.  Most are that simple.  Guys with nice back muscles are a good relationship goal, as well as girls with nice tits.  Some relationship goals are a little more unrealistic, such as a couple graduating college together, or buying a house together.  You’ll have time to worry about having those unrealistic goals when you’re old and boring.  Pizza and Netflix dates are much more obtainable, exciting goals, along with goodmorning texts, skipping school together, and other simple things that are probably better if done with a girlfriend/boyfriend. 

            Follow all of these steps, and we guarantee that you will be a tumblr kid.  If you try really hard and you just can’t quite get it right, don’t be discouraged. Some people just aren’t made for tumblr.  Those people are the ones that go to college.  You cannot choose the tumblr life, it has to choose you.  Now, go get a pack of cigarettes, be sad, and get on social media! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Christopher Zayn]

I have never really been into Tumblr but I have read many things that are similar to this. Comedic satirical "guides" on how to use or be a member of a certain social media site. That being said, the manner you write this is refreshing and worth a couple snickers at the people who actually partake in these steps. Good read!