The secret lives of Tumblr teens

Wow. I have never felt more out of touch with current cool trends than I do right now after reading this New Republic article entitled The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens. Written by Elspeth Reeve, the article talks about the culture and community teens have on Tumblr and how that has led to fame and fortune for a select few. Unlike most websites, Tumblr's system of reblogs doesn't quite allow for ads to be as profitable as on other web entities, so teens -- the group primarily using Tumblr these days -- had to find a more creative way to make money. And they did. And they made a lot of it.

I'm so out of touch with Tumblr culture but at the same time incredibly fascinated by it. After all, most of the funny things I see these days originates there after being copied and polished into a more consumable form on another site outside of Tumblr's own ecosystem. There wasn't a single Tumblr that I recognized by name in this article. Pizza? Never even heard of it. I suspect it mainly has to do with the fact that I haven't been a teen in about a decade.

What an interesting look at online teen activity. Read up here.