Tumblr

As in the web version, upon opening the mobile app you’ll be taken to your dashboard and a list of all the most recent posts from the tumblrs you follow.

People create their tumblrs and link to them from their email signatures and Facebook and Twitter profiles.

All participants feel that their tumblrs ‘reflect parts of their personality’, with many of them identifying very strongly with the content, layout, style and mood of their websites.

In examining the patronage platforms for the following case study, we found that Twitter and Instagram are most popular among this grouping of cosplayers; many did not link to their tumblrs in their linktrees, so while tumblr has a large amount of fan users, we were unable to determine whether these cosplayers also used the platform.

What is different about “quick blogging” tools like Twitter (which imposes a strict character count so it can be easily used on a cellphone) and Tumblr (which allows longer messages as well as photographs) is the degree to which people use them for spontaneous and almost continuous communication.

There are other services for reporting where you’re traveling (Dopplr) or for quickly tossing online a stream of the pictures, videos or Web sites you’re looking at (Tumblr).

If Facebook is the social network for online identification and authentication, and Twitter is for communication, Tumblr fulfils a different role: self-expression.

Fangirling on your own behind your computer screen is fine and dandy, but once you’ve seen the most popular fan blogs and fansites, the Tumblrs with the most followers, or the message boards where everyone seems to know one another, you’re gonna want in on that excellent fandom party.

But despite its confusing themes and erratic jump cuts between unnamed personas, the sentiments expressed are quite familiar to anyone who has visited the Tumblrs of teen girls – as are the images and linguistic choices.

Like Cole, Myers also cites the 2014 Allied Media Conference as a turning point, an opportunity to meet many of the people behind the Tumblrs they followed and with whom they chatted.