seeing someone’s work on ao3 after seeing their username on tumblr is like seeing your friend dressed up in formalwear when 2 hours ago they were eating pizza in their sweats on your couch
and then when you see a writer who you know mainly from ao3 on tumblr it’s like running into the local news anchor at the grocery store
you know who they are but they’ve never seen you beforeWait until you see them on Twitter. Then it’s like OMG OMG THEY’RE A REAL LIFE PERSON AND THEY REALLY EXIST OMGGGGGG
social media aus make everything better lmao literally imagine the harry potter books + social media. second year someone snapchats a picture of literal death threats written on the walls in blood captioned ‘’hogwarts its the safest place in the world’ lmao bitch where??’ fourth year #potterstinks is trending locally on twitter. sixth year story gets out about harry’s conversation with snape and everybody in the gryffindor group chat changes their name to ‘roonil wazlib’ for a week. draco bitching about harry on yik yak as if the entire school doesn’t know for a fact its him.
- if i may
- Hogwarts girls all sharing pinterest boards of the ideal
yule ball #aesthetic
- Fred and george’s twitters being #1 in the school because
they post stuff like: ‘Filch’s office has a nice carpet it would be a shame if
someone… replaced it with ants… hmm… imagine… swarms of ants… in Flich’s
office… right at this moment…’
- Inquisitorial Squad has a facebook page which it’s
compulsory to like but no matter how hard they try they can’t get anyone to
like their new profile pic of all of them posing like absolute white boys
outside the greenhouses
- Dumbledore is the Cher of Hogwarts Twitter
- Colin Creevy’s snapchat story basically just being videos of
Harry sleeping with captions like ‘the boy who sleeps!!!!!!’
- Moaning Mertle having 38 minute long youtube videos that
have 2 views
- A reddit thread of ‘Where is Sirius Black???’ and someone
keeps posting dog puns on it but no one knows who it is
- Dumbledore has to ask everyone at the start of term feast to
stop creating fake McGonagall Instagram’s that are just full of cat pictures
with captions like ‘my damn hair was a CAT-astrophe today’
- YAHOO ANSWERS: ‘if I was trying to sneak a bunch of cloaked
figures into school without anyone noticing in order to redeem my father in the
eyes of Death Eater Jesus how would I do that I am asking for a friend’
- MORE YAHOO ANSWERS: ‘how to tell entire class of students
that teacher is a werewolf without arousing suspicion’
- FUCKING YAHOO ANSWERS MAN: ‘is it bad to keep dragon inside
wooden house’ and then ‘spell to rebuild wall of wooden house after enormous
fire’
- Slughorn would be one of those instagramers who tag
everything with about 3939 tags like #followforafollow #likeforalike #f4f
#funny #hilarious #lol #popular #fitness #instalike #inspiration #love #hate
even when the photo is literally just a shot of his thumb
- I could go on for years oh my god can you picture McClaggans
Facebook where he tags Hermione in every fitness photo until she is forced to
unfriend him
- Out of nowhere people start getting followed by someone called @Thesiriusblack on instagram and all it has is a “surprise bitch, I bet you thought you’d seen the last of me” meme
- the memes though
- history of hogwarts becomes a huge thing because fred and george got their hands onto youtube so everyone talks about it now. “sticks. and brooms. broomsticks”
- neville becomes FAMOUS for years because trevor is the face of the pepe meme.
- peeves playing “never gonna give you up” near valentine’s day
the wizarding schools around the world compete to see which does the best harlem shake
People shit on clicktivism or online social justice shit a lot but here’s the thing:
I’ve been on this garbage website for three years as of this month and I can say with absolute certainty that a lot of what I now know about intersectionality and gender and race and class and ableism can be directly traced to this website. It’s because tumblr (and Twitter to a lesser extent because of the character limit) is a really accessible way to see mini essays explaining shit to me from tons of different perspectives.
Like you get these really digestible posts that clearly spell out either theoretical concepts or their practical applications. And I sure as shit don’t get that in school or in my daily interactions.
I feel like people shit on clicktivism because they think it stops there – with me reading stuff on a screen. But it doesn’t because I for one take the knowledge I gain here and transfer it into the world at large: my interactions with my friends and family, my conduct in the classroom, and the entertainment media I consume.
Real-world revolution has never once just fallen out of the sky, guys. It always starts with an exchange of ideas. Tumblr and platforms like it facilitate that exchange.
So like don’t ever let anyone tell you that you’re less of an activist because you started learning shit from social media. Social media is a gift to activism.
Imagine Steve being really, really good with social media. Memes? Nothing different than the few “Kilroy Was Here” drawings Steve did during WWII. Steve even photoshops some awkward fight photos of himself once he has a solid knowledge of pop culture. Twitter? Useful way to reach a lot of people — practically instantaneously — at once. Also, great way to share some terrible puns. Tumblr? Well, Steve had always wanted to draw comics…
Steve’s introduction to social media started off as Tony’s idea of a joke. After he’d been out of the ice for a few months, Steve was irritatingly well-adjusted, and Tony couldn’t resist pushing a few buttons. So, one day, Steve got a message on his S.H.I.E.L.D. email (“Email!? You understand email?” “Of course. It’s just like a telegram on a screen.”) with a link to a site called tumblr. The post he’d been directed to is part of a blog apparently run by a history major looking for a place to scream about WWII. Some of the post made reference to books and documentaries that he didn’t know about, though he supposes they must be rather popular since she never goes into great detail. However, from what he was able to parse, the author was insinuating that perhaps he and Bucky had been a bit more than childhood pals. (The exact wording being: “I’ve seen the old reels, and let me tell you; that is not a smile you give your buddy. Barnes and Rogers were the gal pals of the twentieth century, okay?”)
He blushes and makes a mental note to get Stark back later, but…his interest is piqued. This girl has really done her work. It’s actually a little alarming how accurately a total stranger has pegged him, but in the same breath, it’s sort of nice. Even after the serum, nobody seemed all that interested in Steve Rogers. Other than Bucky and Peggy, it was all about Captain America, and after his “death” he became a symbol, warped and tainted by the years until he didn’t resemble himself anymore. But as he scrolled down through more posts, it was clear that whoever was behind this blog knew who Steve Rogers was, or was at least making an effort to figure it out.
Two hours later, he had six tabs open and was buried deep in the Captain America tag, alternating between enraged and delighted as he read through the debates about everything from his political leanings to his mental health. He desperately wanted to respond. Both to set a few records straight and to thank the dedicated historians that looked at the man behind the shield.
“Natasha,” he called across the common room.
“Hmm?” she looked up from her book and raised an eyebrow.
“Can you help me with something?” The look on her face as she strode over was one he’d grown accustomed to since his de-icing. It was the one that said “Be nice to grandpa, he doesn’t know any better.” Clearly, she was expecting to explain how to run a Google search or something equally self-explanatory, but instead, he asked: “How do I reply to this?” and pointed at one of the posts.
“Oh. Um…for starters, open a new tab.” She walked him through the process and a few minutes later, steve-g-rogers was up and running. Natasha helped him post a picture of himself waving hello into the webcam with a little bio beneath it, and explained how to tag it so that people would see.
It exploded overnight, hundreds and then thousands of followers accumulating as bloggers found out that it was the real Captain America debunking their research. He stayed up into the early morning, correcting the most blatantly wrong posts and answering piles of questions, some about how he was getting by in the future and “dude, you know tumblr?” mixed in with some serious ones about what life was really like in the thirties and forties. Finally, he reached out and messaged the blogger that had sparked his interest, confiding she had hit pretty close to the truth, and “Please don’t publish this, I need to gather my wits a bit more before I’m ready to put it out there, but yes. There was more. For me, at least, it was more. And thank you. Not many people seem to remember that I’m a person before I’m a symbol.”
From there, Steve’s internet exploration took off. As he branched out more on tumblr, he found himself taking up art again, posting pictures of cartoons he drew in staff meetings or sketches of the other Avengers. Even a few of Bucky that he did from memory. Eventually, there were so many that he made an instagram account, where he also started posting photos of the New York skyline as seen from Stark Tower. The caption on the first one read: “Ugly building, beautiful view.” Once he feels caught up enough on political issues to weigh in, he sets up a twitter. He completely forgoes the usual “Hello, this is my first tweet” route and opens with: “@GOP: FDR’s New Deal “handouts” saved half my neighborhood. #Captain America is not your conservative puppet.” The media goes nuts.
moonlizards!!!
YES! All of it!
There is a thing about the ‘relationship’ created by silent following/reblogging/liking that I’ve always been missing IRL, even before social networks existed:
I was thinking about it because I remembered this woman I studied with; we worked a bit together at the maths faculty, and we had mutual friends and met sometimes, but we never established a personal bond. But I always liked and admired her and found her interesting and special, and I think about her sometimes. And I still think it would be nice for her to know she made this impression on me, especially because she generally didn’t seem too confident.
I could now make this great jump, and write to her after ten years, and it would perhaps be a great thing (It can be, I’ve done this before), and perhaps she would answer, a bit embarrassed and flattered, and perhaps we would exchange emails and become friends, and it’s not a bad thing, but honestly it is not what my feeling is about. I am not even so good in handling many friends and I don’t want to make a life-changing intervention. I just want this positive feeling of mine that I have towards her to be of some use to her. Just to brighten her day a little bit, and that’s that. Perhaps she has no idea there are people around who silently admired her. It would be nice to know, wouldn’t it?
The same goes for complete strangers I see in the street and I think “Great beard style” or “Wow your eyelashes” or “What an interesting bumper sticker on your purse”. I could go and tell them, and I have done it in some occasions, but it’s hard for an introvert, and it also might not be totally pleasant for them, depending on what they are doing and if they enjoy being talked to by strangers. And it’s not that I necessarily want to talk to them and get to know them, I just somehow think it’s a pity they will never know there is someone (or even many people?) who think they have a beautiful voice, or a great taste in hats?!
So I really think people who fear having 2000 ‘friends’ on a social network is ruining the concept of friendship are getting it wrong.
We can still get intensely close to people, exchange deepest thoughts and feelings up to falling in love, with people we meet IRL and with people we meet online. But there is an additional way of interacting and just giving this little (or medium sized) bit of admiration to the person it’s directed at, even if we don’t want more. I enjoy that immensely, on the giving and on the receiving end.