Before Tumblr lost its way through multiple sales, banning explicit content and losing droves of users, the microblogging site was the place to be online. Like any good social media platform, it brought people together, including couples.
“It felt like an easier way to connect with someone than just messaging ‘hey’ to someone on [a dating] app,” said Sara, a former Tumblr user who met her partner Kevin on the platform.
From the Tumblr dash to IRL
Sara and Kevin started using Tumblr around 2010, considered its heyday. This was before Tumblr’s initial sale to Yahoo, which would lead to changes like a turn towards monetization (including ads).
“The way I used Tumblr back then, it was…the most private-public version of myself,” Sara told Mashable, explaining she used the platform like an open journal. Facebook and Instagram were more curated; Tumblr was where she would blog about bad days and everything in between — like GIF sets from TV shows.
Kevin initially used Tumblr as a space to write but eventually used it for personal posts, selfies, and reblogging gif sets.
“We would do the perfunctory ‘liking’ each other’s posts, and eventually we got to reblogging each other’s selfies.”
Sara and Kevin, who spoke to me on a Zoom call, had mutual friends on the platform and eventually followed each other a few years later, in 2015. Neither of their blogs was dedicated to one fandom or social issue — “I had no real rhyme or reason to it,” said Kevin — but both of them tended to follow blogs that liked similar music or TV shows, and they eventually found each other’s.
“We would do the perfunctory ‘liking’ each other’s posts,” said Sara, “and eventually we got to reblogging each other’s selfies.”
“The ultimate endorsement on Tumblr — besides having similar beliefs — was getting that coveted selfie reblog,” said Kevin, “with something in the tags like, ‘cutie,’ or whatever.” Sneaking compliments in the Tumblr tags was a little social cue to express your crush.
“I remember you did that once,” Kevin said to Sara. “That was pretty cool.”
In late 2015, Tumblr introduced a chat function for users to message each other. When Kevin underwent knee surgery and wrote about it on Tumblr, Sara reached out. They soon discovered that they both lived in New Jersey, and by the next summer, they decided to take their relationship offline. After dates (that they didn’t acknowledge were dates at first) like going to a retro arcade and a Beyoncé concert, they made it official.
“This is funny, the way I said it that night…you definitely remember. You still give me crap for it,” Kevin said to Sara.
Mashable After Dark
“‘We’ll give it the old college try,'” Sara recalled with a smile.
Why Tumblr over dating apps
Before he and Sara got together, Kevin was on dating apps, and it was a lot different than Tumblr because it felt like you had to put a more polished version of yourself forward. You also didn’t know who you were talking to, which was true of Tumblr as well, but you can “reference things that they’ve talked about,” he said. “If you guys are comfortable with that on Tumblr, reference in real life, bring it up. Talk to them about it.”
Sara said it was easier to get a read on someone on Tumblr than you would on a dating app profile. It was also easier to vet someone if you had mutual friends. And on Tumblr, talking about politics and social issues was the norm, so you could more easily gauge political alignment.
“Obviously, you can say whatever on the internet, but in a very simplistic way, it was like an easier way to vet who they are as a person, as opposed to finding out on the third date that you’re completely diametrically opposed because that wasn’t something you listed on your dating profile,” she said.
…it was easier to get a read on someone on Tumblr than you would on a dating app profile.
Tumblr also felt like a more authentic platform. When he was on Tumblr, Kevin expressed his feelings more often than he did on other social platforms. “If you saw that, you were kind of used to me,” he said.
One of the reasons their relationship has sustained so long is because they got to know each other in a much more casual and slow manner, Sara said. They had a base of friendship that was established without the pretense of romance.
Now they live together — but that’s not the biggest indicator of commitment.
“The most important thing is not just that we live together, but we have a cat together,” said Kevin, “and that is the signifier of a serious relationship.” (The cat’s name is Macaroni.)
A relationship lasting longer than their Tumblr accounts
Neither Sara nor Kevin are on Tumblr anymore. Between issues like increased ads and friends leaving the platform, they stopped using it years ago.
Despite this, “I have a very deep nostalgia for Tumblr because at its peak for me is when I was in college,” Sara said, when she was starting to form who she would be as an adult. Tumblr is where she was exposed to different subcultures.
From what Sara hears from single friends, the modern, app-based dating scene is pretty rough. “It makes me really appreciate how we met very organically and got to build this long-term relationship with one another,” she said.
Sara is also grateful to Kevin, both because he’s been part of her support system during a turbulent time professionally, and because they share internet humor and language.
“It’s very nice to have that level of connectedness to someone that thinks stringing together a bunch of words seems sensical in some type of way,” said Sara.
“It’s very nice to have someone who feels like home,” said Kevin, and (evoking a classic Tumblr meme) “also understands what ‘they crave that mineral’ means.”
