"the easiest way to blog."

Last night, in an attempt to bring more social connections to my blog, I did something I thought I would never do...I signed up for a Tubmlr. I even imported all of my Blogger posts into it. It was like pouring all your transfer credits over to a new school and then deciding to stay where you're at. It only took five minutes before I started searching out the "deactivate account" button. Sure, the site holds stigmas of being kind of hipster shallow, and just as with most stereotypes there is a grain of truth. In this case, though, I found a silo of truth. And five hundred troughs and a barrel.

According to the interwebs, a "tumblelog" is a variation of a blog that favors short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts frequently associated with blogging. Common post formats found on tumblelogs include links, photos, quotes, dialogues, and video. In other words, Tumblr is designed to store audio and/or visual vomit without any added on commentary or original thought. It's basically like a Photobucket but with obnoxious colors and a little picture of yourself in the corner of the template. In reality, this whole idea is not much different than taping magazine cut-outs of super models and "cool shit" to your bedroom walls for your friends to see when they come over.

My hours-long browse of the site revealed thousands of sickeningly trendy photos, a few aspiring something-or-others, and an endless number of re-posted gunk. One user called "bitchville" epitomizes this whole idea of micro-blogging all too perfectly. Bitchville is a very teen girl from Sydney, Australia. On the top of her blog is a little Polaroid (or Photoshop?) collage of herself donning a dinosaur T-shirt, striped sweater, and bossy little look. She likes all the typical things that are so generalized that when listed, they actually give no insight towards the person whatsoever. These include traveling, art, photography, good music, tea, etc. Supposedly this blog is somewhat of a journal for her; she says she uses it to "bitch" about her life. I'm sorry to say that scrolling through over two weeks of recent posts recovered no bitching whatsoever; hardly even anything with more than three words of text. I did find a Tribe Called Quest MP3 and a quote from Winnie the Pooh, though.

Honestly, Tumblrs, get your acts together! I'm still not completely sure why this bothers me at all, but I guess it comes from a little place of worry. In the end, micro-blogging is just a goofy, self-absorbed, entertaining way to blog. It's sort of vapid and easy and fun. But what happens when it replaces actual blogging? What happens when people don't want to read anything more than 140 characters? Will there be a point to creating anything of your own when you can simply re-post the art and opinions of strangers (or Winnie the Pooh) and have people "follow" you for it?