Graphic By Alexis Riner

By Nia Rutledge

As a four-year addict to the blogging platform, Tumblr, my life has become consumed by the site, and it has had a part in the formulation of who I am today.

For those who are not familiar with Tumblr, let me give you a rundown: Tumblr is an interconnected site for blogging that connects audio, video, photo and text posting options.

There are 169.5 million blogs on Tumblr with the majority of users being 13 to 24 years old.

On Tumblr, you can discover and debate social and legal issues, find new music or television series, talk to people across the globe that have your same interests, and grow as a person.

However, with such a closeness and sense of security that Tumblr brings, many users create safe spaces to talk about the issues and oppression they face exclusively with people who share similar experiences, issues and oppression.

“A safe space is like a place for people who are marginalized or oppressed…to talk about how they are oppressed exclusive of their oppressors,” senior Phoebe Clark said.

When I was a Tumblr newbie, the concept of safe spaces were unbeknown to me. Often I found myself wrapped up in a collection of pro-ana, or pro-anorexia blogs.

Shortly after, I was picking myself apart in a full length mirror.

Some may say that the pro-ana blogs are a safe place for people who suffer from anorexia.

But based on my experiences with them, users often trade Ana tips and tricks, post weight loss updates and share photos of unhealthy body goals. This online community becomes destructive. With an infatuation with eating disorders, this mental illness is romanticized as users say resisting hunger pangs reflects strength and accomplishment.

There are many different blog subsets that romanticize other issues in such a way.

“[They romanticize] being in an unstable relationship, being an addict, cutting yourself, killing yourself, wanting to kill yourself, hating yourself, being in a mental hospital,” junior Mary Schwartz said.

It is a peculiar and harmful thing that happens in the depths of Tumblr. And onlookers who happened upon the space, can possibly find themselves having similarities or even lusting after having a certain mental illness or problem.

“It’s horrible that they can take something like that, that destroys people’s lives and look at it like it is a spectacle,” sophomore Cassidy Tesar said.

The most common mental illness that I see being romanticized on Tumblr is social anxiety.

Granted, many users do suffer from social anxiety and seek refuge on Tumblr because of the anonymity.

Because Tumblr is a safe space for people with social anxiety, users post about it openly.

There is a variety of quirky posts regarding social anxiety. Often saying things similar to “I can’t even call and order pizza without freaking out and becoming anxious” and then the post will have 80,000 notes.

This notion of an anxiety attack from calling a pizzeria is true for many users, another user may see the many posts about suffering from anxiety and wonder why they do not have it. They may begin to want to act in such a way to feel as if they are relating to the original sufferers.

I believe that is how the romanticization of certain issues start.

“The goal of the blog seems to be to make it acceptable and OK to be feeling those things and maybe help people understand that other people are feeling that way,” Clark said. “But what tends to happen is that other people who come across the blog who don’t have that condition feel almost like ‘marginalized’ for being too normal.”

Often inside the safe spaces, the vast romanticization can be more damaging to users’ psyche, rather than helping each other to combat the problems they face.

“I think with Tumblr like any other form of media…you kind of have to protect yourself,” Clark said. “Because there is a lot of like negative influences that make you end up hating yourself or not liking how you look or how you think, but there are also like positive influences out there. You have to choose to find the positive influences out there and ignore the negative.”

On Tumblr, being anxious, depressed, mentally ill, or having low self esteem is romanticized and often regarded as artistic, mysterious, and poetic and a desirable trait to have or to put on your About Me page.

Even though Tumblr has it’s faults, it is also home to an abundance of positive movements.

With every pro-ana blog comes a body positivity blog. With every depression blog comes an encouragement blog. With every self-loathing blog comes a self-acceptance blog. And with every addiction blog comes a recovery blog.

Tumblr is a confusing network with many different kinds of people with different morals and ideals. Those of us who love Tumblr must choose to linger on the blogs that make us better — not worse.