Next time I hear “my warframe is strong” I’m blowing everyone up

um. Orson Wells. H.G. Scott Welles. H. George Orson Orwell. Philip Bradbury. stop making me keep track of white men names

in my defense all of these are separate individuals famous within classic sci-fi circles:

• H.G. Wells
• George Orwell
• (George) Orson Welles
• Orson Scott Card

at some point this is not my burden

the names of classic sci-fi authors appear to have amalgamated into a nexus of some kind. one that is tormenting you, perhaps.

#i was in a car with a linguist i had never met before the car trip and like half an hour in he looked at me#after i finished describing a geology thing that was happening out the window and asked if i'd ever spent much time on tumblr#the fuckor of it all#and then we spent six more hours driving#it sure does leave linguistic markers! i'm not sure i'm good with it (tags via @thoughtsformtheuniverse)

it is one thing to be a linguist and another to be a linguist who knows enough of 2010s Tumblr to spot one of its enjoyers

Oh! @meret118 see above comment! The use of the word "enjoyers" instead of "users" or "bloggers" -> You left a comment a while back asking, "Does this just mean vocabulary words? Other than blorbo and sweet cinnamon roll etc, I can't think of what a Tumblr accent would be." I almost never see anyone use the word "enjoyer" anywhere outside of tumblr, but I see it on tumblr fairly frequently.

Another one is the verb "perceive" i.e. "don't perceive me" "I am perceiving" "I am being percieved." That's something that feels very specific to tumblr parlance.

There's the thing where people on tumblr have an emotional reaction to something and instead of, or in addition to telling you how they feel about it using emotion words, they will narrate a fictional action in the present progressive tense. "I am gnawing at the bars of my enclosure "I am kissing you on the mouth" "you are going into the soup" "you are getting all of the awards"

I once saw someone use that response format in ... I think it was a restaurant review, or a doordash review, or something like that. It was very unexpected seeing it outside of a tumblr post.

There are a lot of other tumblr linguistic quirks I can't currently remember off the top of my head, but I'll instantly recognize them if I see/hear them outside of tumblr. It's always a bit startling to see them out of context.

when I was in university one of my modules was about internet slang and for our grades project we had to compile and analyse a small database of 100 words used by a specific community of our choice. I chose tumblr and that's how I stumbled across Gretchen McCulloch's research and discovered that yes not only did tumblr have its own vernacular and syntax (as @lierdumoa demonstrates), it was at the time a crucible of slang and memes probably unrivalled by any other part of the internet. and it's stayed that way! even the very title is McCulloch's book because internet is an example of this specific phraseology.

sadly my project is lost due to the website being wiped from the university database after graduation and my then laptop having a major hardware failure. backup your backups people! but the crux of the entire module was that the internet is full of communities using language not only as jargon for specific purpose but also to signal membership in said community. I even wrote a bit about non capitalisation and punctuation useage as a visual cue on tumblr and how including information in the reblog body or the tags indicated different levels of importance or intimacy of thought

I am holding the side of your face and looking deep in your eyes and telling you that love is stored in the syntax, and that we are rotating words together all at once as we all nod at their new and baffling meanings. if the devils sacrament be tumblr then the devils gospel is our collective voice. thanks for coming to my tedtalk

I am being perceived.

it is an incredibly joyous thing to look around at your friends as you're heading into your 40s and everyone is so much more themselves than they were when you were all scared and fragile 20-somethings. we're different genders now, we've gotten out of bad relationships and into good ones, we worked shit jobs and got better ones, we all cook a lot better and we eat better too, we casually pull off the kind of art we could only dream of as kids, we've figured out who we are and we do it on purpose now. the self-harm scars have all faded away and we complain about our bad backs and picky digestions instead.

we still lose at trivia real bad.

great image, helpful infographic. that being said this is the most useful reaction image ive seen in my life

Tumblr wouldn’t let me upload the video but I let the mice write a tumblr post for me and this is the result :^)

i thought that was just. a regular tumblr post and accepted it

I regret to inform several people in the notes that grink doesn't mean grinch twink

ALT

the only thing you can do. keep moving foerward

at noon the giant you're hanging out with is Big Bird! a wonderful fellow who likes reading stories and singing and telling fun facts! at midnight there's a giant named Sweetums who makes you feel like you're being hunted for sport

Ernie, trying to maybe come out to Kermit: well you know Kermit, me and Bert-

Bert: Bert and I

Ernie: Bert and I, we've been best friends forever, but we're also something else too!

Kermit, who every goddamn night has to tell Beaker and Bunsen to keep it professional, deal with Statler and Waldorf's bullshit, AND update his organizational chart on Dr. Teeth and the Electric Polycule: that's really great to hear fellas, happy for you two! :)

“Some fish can walk out of water, so remember that next time.”

“You might think you’re safe, but horses are omnivores”

please watch the round planet on netflix it’s exactly like that