Researcher Tim Highfield and I have explored how sharing queer GIFs – short, looping media - not only allows LGBTQ youth to engage in Tumblr’s fan communities but also playfully displays queer culture en masse. Through sophisticated hashtagging practices, transgender people share art, stories and engage in dialogue that challenges cisgender norms.Įxplainer: what does it mean to be 'cisgender'? LGBTQ people have also found Tumblr to be powerful for self-representation. Porn not to blame for public health issues
Alexander Cho, a postdoctoral fellow at UC Irvine, has written about Tumblr’s “ queer ecosystem” where “users circulate porn, flirt, provide support to deal with homophobia as well as advice on coming out…” Cho has found that queer youth of colour experience Facebook as a space of “ default publicness” and prefer Tumblr for sharing intimate and personal content. Tumblr has served as an essential outlet for LGBTQ youth in relation to other popular platforms. The Tumblr logo is displayed at Nasdaq in New York in July 2013.
