EFFIE BATEMAN | Lifestyle | Contact
A millennial woman has today begrudgingly admitted she kind of understands the whole social media ban thing, having never truly recovered from the 2010’s ‘sad girl era’ of Tumblr.
Marley Pope, 31, a marketing specialist from Betoota Heights, says she used Tumblr almost daily between the years of 2010 and 2014, where she was given unprecedented access to porn, content on disordered eating, and beautiful soft grunge imagery glamorising mental illness.
Though teenagers have always had a propensity for anything morbid, given that it’s a rite of passage to become obsessed with the 27 club at some point during teenhood, the 2010s Tumblr era came alive during a point in pop culture where everything from music to TV shows and music was steered towards glamorous melancholy – whether it be off the back of the third wave emo era, Black Milk leggings bursting onto the scene, the once a decade vampire obsession, the rising popularity of dark crooners such as Lana Del Rey, Arctic Monkeys, Sky Ferreira, and Marina and The Diamonds, and of course, every millennials first foray into the ‘secret life of real teens’, the UK breakout show, ‘Skins.’
“It was a strange time”, admits Marley, “I remember my Tumblr was covered in photos of Lana, Effy from Skins, John Green quotes, and that letter Alex Turner wrote to Alexa Chung.”
“And Tate from American Horror Story.”
“Basically everyone was hot, and wanted to die.”
Admitting that her obsession with doom scrolling pretty graphics on Tumblr led to a fascination with smoking and a little too much knowledge on how to hide an eating disorder, Marley says she really feels for teenagers now.
“Tumblr completely fucked my mental health, but at least I could only access it on a computer”, she admits, “I think Tik Tok would have destroyed me.”
More to come
