Is Tumblr Promoting Self Destruction?
As of February 2014, Tumblr, a popular micro blogging platform and social networking website founded by David Karp and owned by Yahoo! played host to over 170.2 million blogs.
In tradition use of the site, users post their own content – images, videos, art – or “reblog” the content of others, and the website is seen as a great way to express yourself and the things you are passionate about. For the most part Tumblr is a safe, fun and creative network to be part of. However there has been an alarming rise in the number of blogs dedicated to self harm, mental illness and eating disorders. All the more worrying is that nobody is in any great rush to help one another on these blogs and there is an air of competition about the content posted.With internet users only getting younger and younger, the accessibility of dangerous online communities is alarming. I only have to type in the words “self harm” and while at first I am notified with a message from the team at Tumblr offering a link to counselling and prevention resources page, one click of the dismiss button and I am greeted with the sight of a young woman with what looks like hundreds of self harm cuts with a hospital bracelet dangling from her frail wrist. A couple of images down the words “I’m fine” etched into the thigh of an attractive young teenage girl as well as hundred of images of slit wrists, stomachs and handfuls of pills. Some users even interact with one another and urge each other to “cut deeper” or even more alarmingly “cut vertically for effect”. While we all remember the albeit short lived popularity of the Kate Moss Heroin Chic look during the nineties, many girls still post romanticized quotes of her famous “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” mantra.
The cult teen drama Skins is also referenced frequently on the site and users post stills taken from the show mainly featuring two of the most loved characters the bipolar Effy Stonem and the Bulimic Cassie Ainsworth. Whereas the show did take care in the portrayal of these mental illnesses, it seems as if the appeal of the pair were that they were both “beautiful and broken” and many young girls seem swayed to emulate that. In October 2012 the death of 15 year old Tallulah Wilson shocked the UK as the privileged ballerina plunged to her death at London’s St Pancras station after a collision with an oncoming train, the death was ruled as a suicide. The thing that created the most buzz was her presence on her Tumblr blog. The blog amassed around 18,000 followers and Wilson posted numerous photos of her own acts of self harm and images of others and boasted about drinking and using cocaine to impress her online friends. This isn’t the first time the role of the internet in the suicide of a teenager has been questioned, A-Level student Tim Piper was found hanged in a wardrobe in his bedroom by his mother alongside a handwritten suicide note stating “I love you Mum and Dad, I always will.” It was only later discovered that the 17 year old from Chippenham had been searching online and found numerous sites filled with information on the easiest way to commit suicide. Shouldn’t such a search be met with links to comforting words and links to websites and charities that will support not assist you?
Obviously, Tumblr and other social networking websites aren’t solely to blame for the rising of self harm, eating disorders and mental illness problems amongst young people, but the accessibility of their dangerous and destructive content doesn't seem to be doing much to help.
