What You Did While Tumblr Was Down // The Bubblegum Gang

Notifications: The Best And Worst Things In Our Lives

All of our hearts skip a beat when we see those little alerts that tell us that someone in the world wide web cares enough to interact with us on a social network. However, while supplying our lives with a joy and excitement that is otherwise hard to come by, they’re also a source of much disappointment. Here’s a deeper look into those little bittersweet squares:

Facebook

Most of us get Facebook notifications often enough, and we’re usually left disappointed by how mundane they are. Given how interweaved the social network is with our real lives, there’s much more at stake here.

What You Hope It Will Be: A friend request from that person you work with and secretly love, your ex telling you how much they regret leaving you and how much they miss the sex, or a tagged image of you where you resemble Brad Pitt.

What It Is: A friend request from someone you’re indifferent about, your grandmother asking for assistance in Farmville, or a tagged image of you where you resemble Philip Seymour Hoffman (and you’re a girl).

Unless you’re internet famous or somehow have a life outside of the internet, messages on Tumblr are relatively rare compared to Facebook. Therefore, when you see that “1” above your inbox, it’s a cause for celebration, yet it’s rarely what we pray it is.

What You Hope It Will Be: A message from an attractive member of your preferred sex stating: “So I found your blog, and based on your description, tiny-yet-attractive display picture, and our shared love of kitten .gifs, I’ve decided to have sex with you. It turns out I live close by, and I strongly believe we’re star-crossed lovers drawn together by our preferred micro-blogging platform.”

What It Is: A “Thanks for the follow!” or an anonymous “No wonder you’re so lonely.”

Twitter

The blue light that appears beneath your @connect tab when someone tweets @ you is a relatively new feature on Twitter, and it doesn’t take 140 characters to describe how disappointing the results almost always are.

What You Hope It Will Be: Anything that’s not spam.

What It Is: Spam.

30 Real Reasons You’ll Love Tumblr // The Bubblegum Gang

1. Unlike most other drugs, Tumblr is completely free to use!
2. Tumblr only takes 30 seconds to sign up for. That means you can have sex with your ex-boyfriend while signing up and almost be finished by the time he finishes!
3. You can use Tumblr on your iPhone. Time with your family will never be boring again!
4. Following people on Tumblr is no where near as creepy as following people in real life.
5. Instead of spending money going out with friends on the weekends, you’ll be saving money staying in and on Tumblr.
6. Tumblr gives you the chance to interact with people you’d be way too shy to talk to in real life.
7. If you like something; reblog it! Just don’t remove the source or you’ll be burned alive at the stake.
8. Pete Wentz, John Mayer, Donald Glover and other celebrities all use Tumblr. It’s another way you can stalk them!
9. You’ll find yourself able to relate to wolves, parrots, penguins and dolphins more than you ever imagined possible.
10. Tumblr doesn’t force ads into their themes, meaning your website will be free from ads about viagra, porn and hookups in your local area - unless you’re interested in those kind of things…
11. Your Tumblr dashboard can be full of attractive naked people, unlike real life.
12. If you’ve got a crazy ex-lover, you can set your entire website or specific posts to private and they’ll have to go back to staring through your blinds at night!
13. Queue up posts so your Tumblelog is active while you sleep! No one will be able to effectively stalk you now!
14. On Tuesdays, those few users with high self-esteem post topless photos of themselves.
15. While Tumblr may go down from time to time, the rush you get when you find that it’s back up is unlike anything else you can experience in this world.
16. People can “Like” your posts. In an hour on Tumblr you can get more praise and recognition than your parents have given you in years.
17. Marc and his team are here to answer your questions. Just make sure they’re Tumblr related. They don’t enjoy being asked “Where is the clitoris?”
18. You’ll never feel bad about spending time on Tumblr instead of studying because millions of other people are doing the exact same thing!
19. Tumblr users are always organising meet-ups. Here you can meet interesting, socially awkward people like yourself.
20. You can devote your website’s content to anything you like. Cats, bondage, overexposed photos of people in V-neck shirts - the possibilities are endless!
21. While we may never know who ripped the post icons at the top of the dashboard, they do look very stylish.
22. Nothing beats that exhilarating ride as you tear from the bottom of your dashboard to the top with only the click of an arrow.
23. If you’re too shy to tell someone your true feelings on Tumblr, you can just hit on them anonymously through Ask!
24. 30 Day Challenges are Tumblr’s version of marathons. It’s always your dream to complete one, but it will never happen.
25. Rant about the annoying people in your life as much as you like! Just make sure you haven’t linked your Tumblr to your Facebook first…
26. You can set your Twitter to automatically update every time you post. Links to posts will be a refreshing change from tweets about the weather and what you just ate.
27. You have to agree: That dark blue background is soothing as fuck.
28. Not to mention that logo font. What is that? Bookman Old Style Bold? God damn!
29. Being Tumblr famous is just like being actually famous, except no one recognises you when you walk down the street.
30. Regardless of how lame you may think you are, on Tumblr you’re one of the cool kids.