How does Tumblr appeal to its audience?

 

Why does is appeal to the LGBT+ community?

Tumblr provides a "safe place" for those who may fear social rejection. It fosters a place in which varying levels of anonymity allows people to explore parts of themselves that they could otherwise internalize. Various features enable users to choose from a spectrum of private to public settings for their blogs. The block/unfollow feature, private messaging, and control over audience interaction all contribute to this environment of self expression.  

Users can chose to keep their identity a secret or not. This appeals to LGBT+ community because individuals often fear social rejection as a result of their socially abnormal sexual curiosity- tumblr enables individuals who are more experienced and "Out" to provide advice and answers to those who are beginning to explore sexuality. The exploration and expression of oneself can be difficult when it receives friction from "the norm." In some cases this can lead to physical or emotional harm inflicted on members of the LGBT+ community. The resulting fear that stems from these cases may cause someone to hide how they feel or who they really are. While the internet can still be a medium for bullying and trolling, tumblr has easy block and unfollow settings in place in order to give each users complete control over their Tumblr community and experience. The ability to turn on and off private messaging is another tool that contributes to the safe space, as one may not want to have any communication or input from their audience at a specific time, or at all. One of the most unique features that tumblr has is the control over how the audience is allowed to engage with your posts. If a user does not want any anonymous users contacting them then they can set that.

Tumblr attempted to add another feature that would contribute to this environment, however it ended up leading only to confusion and perceived affordances. Brock describes perceived affordances as "...actions the user perceives to be possible, rather than what is true" (Brock 535). The feature Tumblr added was called 'safe mode.' According to this article by Karissa Bell, This created a filter that was supposed to give people more control, however some "...allege the filtering system [was] blocking LGBT-themed content that is not sexually explicit in nature." While some users may have gained some control, a large majority of the community was offended by negligence displayed.