Tag: Tumblr

The halcyon days of 2014

All over social media, people are reminiscing over their former Tumblr kid selves

Imagine you’re mindlessly scrolling through Twitter, as we all seem to be doing more and more these days, passively reading through job announcements, middling “hot takes” and COVID-19 stats. Suddenly a post comes up that stops you in your tracks and drags you right back into your adolescence with a wave of nostalgia. Scrolling through the replies, you see that the aesthetics, music and products from your teen years are all coming back into style. You’re only 21.

Recently, a lot of people all over the internet have been reliving a certain 2011–2015 subculture that revolved specifically around the website Tumblr. This burst of nostalgia came fast and hard, but it hasn’t even been that long since us “Zillennials” were spending our days scrolling down our dashboards. So, why now?

If you didn’t have the (dis)pleasure of living your early teens predominantly online, I can try my best to explain the early 2010s Tumblr aesthetic, often dubbed “soft grunge.” While the look had little in common with the 90s subculture it got its name from, other than the mere existence of flannel shirts, it could be seen as the product of the 20-year cycle of fashion. In the 2010s, elder millennials were nostalgic for their youth in the 1990s, and that nostalgia trickled into the style and media of the day.

Now, feed that through the hyper-visual medium of Tumblr and you’ve got yourself countless images of teens in jelly sandals, ripped tights under denim shorts and choker necklaces posing with polaroid cameras, holding up records, or, most commonly, smoking cigarettes.

On the music front, in 2014, I, like my fellow Tumblr teens, was listening to Lana Del Rey, Arctic Monkeys, The 1975, and Grimes, because the songs on your iPod Touch were integral to the maintenance of the aesthetic.

In terms of 2010s fashion, this aesthetic was far from the worst thing in memory. Yet, that alone can’t explain its resurgence in recent months. We’re nowhere near the 20-year nostalgia cycle yet, so there must be something special about that time, or our current time, that holds special significance.

For a lot of Zillennials, Tumblr wasn’t just an aesthetic, it was a formative part of their adolescence. While any media you consume on a regular basis through your tween and teen years is likely to shape you in some way, Tumblr was uniquely good at fostering a community environment. Being more of a microblogging site than a traditional social media, users were encouraged to publish long posts and personalize their blog’s design. This affordance, mixed with the fairly low median age of users, and possibility for anonymity, led to users sharing a lot more personal information than they would on other platforms.

While it wasn’t always perfect (I’m looking at you, #thinspo), overall, this caused Tumblr to become a safe space for many young people in the early 2010s.

As one Concordia student describes, “All the fangirling, aesthetic stock images and memes were incredibly private. Your Tumblr was definitely not something you shared with anyone.” She continued, “Yet, there was strangely a big sense of community.”

Community-making on sites like Tumblr can be invaluable in helping young people through their search for identity. And this is double fold for youth who are already marginalized.

As Stefanie Duguay, assistant professor of Communications at Concordia explained to The CBC about LGBTQ youth Tumblr use, “They share GIFs and videos and content around queer celebrities, queer characters, and fanfiction,” Duguay explained. “It’s a general part of people’s self discovery, especially when you’re a young person and you’re determining things about yourself and your sexual identity.” For many, 2010s Tumblr text posts were their first introduction into important conversations of politics and identity.

Lisi Schauer, a fourth-year student at the University of Southern California puts it as such: “I think it struck the perfect balance of ‘cringy’ fandom stuff and people starting to use aesthetic as an adjective and just enough political text posts sneaking in to be really influential for people our age.”

Now that we are all so disconnected through COVID-19 isolation, it only makes sense that many of us would yearn for an adolescent time where everything felt new and important. As everyday feels mundane and predictable, it can be fun to engage in a bit of escapism in the aesthetic of who you used to be, before the world delved into chaos.

Additionally, many young adults have had to move back home, so if you’re constantly being reminded of your former self, why not lean into it?

While it may be jarring to see the rose-coloured glasses come out so soon, there’s really no harm in taking a stroll down those dashboard memories and into your younger self. We all need whatever bit of respite we can get from the current world. If what gets you through it is blasting Passion Pit and digging out your old Brandy Melville clothing, far be it from me to tell you to stop. At least it keeps people indoors.

 

Photo collage by Kit Mergaert

Grab the Monet and let’s Gogh

 Museum reopenings to normalize art hoe migration patterns, experts say

Montreal museums reopened on Feb. 8 causing art hoes to flock to various museum sites around the city.

In a recent study written on a cluttered Notes app, an art hoe turned Anthropology major states that 90 per cent of indie Tinder dates are taking place at one of these newly opened cultural institutions. However, this student’s advice for securing these Tinder dates means refraining from mentioning one’s art hoe-ism on dating apps — few understand that they’re hoes for the art, and not necessarily the Chad who looks like a wet golden retriever.

Though, let’s be clear that the pilgrimage is not limited to dates; many group chats are buzzing with ideas to make the trek. And thank goodness they’ve got their Doc Martens to keep the snow out!

As with any phenomenon, the question on everyone’s mind is “why?” Through extensive research and perhaps a tiny ounce of introspection, we’ve compiled the most plausible reasons for this pattern.

The first one that comes to mind is the innate desire to wear thrifted clothes in public. This is a sentiment shared by 100 per cent of art hoes, and a need that has been hard to fulfill during the pandemic. Although many a mom jean and turtleneck have been spotted on a walk around the block or a trip to the grocery store, in our pesky climate, jackets tend to overshadow the carefully curated outfit (it is important to note that hoes are sometimes cold despite what pre-famous Cardi B may have told you — she’s clearly never been to Montreal in February). Nonetheless, museums offer coat checks and toasty heating to ensure that the whole ensemble will be on display. Some might argue that that’s the real art anyways.

Another possible explanation for this migration is, as always, the stars. Some believe that the recent Co–Star notification saying to “Open up your body and soul to art” has provoked the art hoes to storm the museums.

Others explain that after cutting quarantine bangs, this population needs a more permanent change in appearance, and hopes to gain inspiration from a Van Gogh or Matisse painting for new ink. Those not interested in tattoos, however, might be searching for a new screensaver for their phone or a spark for their next poem.

Speaking of poems, museums also provide benches for art hoes to sit on and scribble in their notebooks. This is an optimal location to be noticed for the way their quirky earrings clink against their mask as they write. Maybe someone will even ask them what they have in their Fruiterie Mile End tote bag.

Either way, their plants can survive another few hours without being watered and played Phoebe Bridgers, so it definitely can’t hurt to soak in some culture, and perhaps even bring up the single art history elective they took, From Realism to Abstraction in Canadian Art, after noticing the Romantic undertones of a specific tableau.

Or it could be that the museum provides a well-needed escape from the madness we’re experiencing. But hey, what do I know?

 

Graphic by Chloë Lalonde @ihooqstudio

Categories
Music

Music in the News

Because Deamau5+1 sounds stupid

In a post on his Tumblr account, dance music artist Deadmau5 revealed he’s not too keen on collaborations with other artists, and that he has refused many requests from big artists in the past. “All too often, there’s an influx of ‘big names’ that would get thrown around the label from time to time and of course, they fly off the table and out the fuckin’ door faster than they hit my desk,” wrote Deadmau5. “Do you want to do a track with big name X, remix huge pop act Y, etc. etc. No. I fucking don’t. I really REALLY don’t.”
He says his biggest problem with these artists is that, more often than not, the lyrics are too vapid for his taste and that he has no interest in songs that “have some fucking dipshit blab about lookin’ sexy, poppin’ bottles, ‘dropping bass,’ or ANYTHING club related.” The electronic music star did mention that his previous collaborations with bands like Cypress Hill and the Foo Fighters were “the results of stuff [I’m] totally into” and were not the target of his rant.

Black Keys sorry for shooting fish in a barrel

Those of you with long memories may recall the tiff between The Black Keys and Nickelback that occurred a while back. For those who don’t, the Keys’ Patrick Carney trashed Nickelback saying that rock music was dying because “people became OK with Nickelback being the biggest band in the world, so they became OK with the idea that the biggest rock band in the world is always going to be shit.” Now he’s recanted his previous statement, sort of: “I didn’t mean to single them out,” the drummer said in an interview with MTV News Canada. “It just came out. There are much worse bands than Nickelback, maybe.”

Don’t send in the clowns

This year’s inductees to the rock and roll hall of fame include Guns N’ Roses, the Beastie Boys and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It does not, however, include KISS, and they’re not happy about the snub. “It’s become a joke,” said bassist Gene Simmons of the Hall of Fame. “We’ve been thinking about it and the answer is simply ‘We’ll just buy it and fire everybody’.” Simmons said the fact that Madonna and Blondie were inductees showed how far off the mark of ‘Rock and Roll’ the institution had gone. “They’re legitimate dance, disco artists. They don’t belong in rock and roll.” Simmons’ bandmate, Paul Stanley, added that “The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has reached a point where they’re really scrounging and scratching to find someone left that they consider viable. With all due respect, when you get to Patti Smith you’re about two steps away from Pete Seeger.” KISS have been eligible for induction since 1999.

What will Meg do now?

Jack White has come out and said there is “absolutely no chance” that he will ever bring back The White Stripes. “I’m not the kind of person that would retire from baseball and come out of retirement the next year,” said White in an interview with NME magazine. “I mean, if we went to all the trouble of telling people we’re done, we meant it, you know?” He says the only reason he could possibly foresee a reunion would be if he “went bankrupt or really needed the cash, which would be a really sad thing.”

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