I don’t think using social media is a bad thing, or Tumblr or anything similar will damage kids’ social development. Your take on Tumblr seems way rosier than mine, however. I think it seems like a pretentious place, and can certainly be mean in its own little way. I’m also way older than their target demographic, but Tumblr seems like another clique in its own right. If Instagram is the jocks and cheerleaders, Tumblr is the theater kids. Not the cool kids, but equally as hostile to outsiders as they are. I don’t like cliquishness and I don’t like pretentiousness, so there’s something about Tumblr that rubs me the wrong way.
When I said Tumblr kids are fucked when the go out in the real world, I know whereof I speak. It’s easy to be smart and insightful within one’s own clique, but the real world is a harsh and unforgiving place. I’ve got my own differences, as you’re probably aware, and there are more conservative parts of the country where I wouldn’t even be welcome. I have lived in many of them. I can’t ask for acceptance there. Maybe tolerance, and only then if I try my damnedest to blend in. I have to hide who I am and put up a front, literally in order to survive.
