Tumblr's Roleplay Rings of Old
10-02-2025
Currently Eating: Soy sauce, cabbage, and egg sauce with rice
Currently Reading: Mountain Girl River Girl, by Ting-xing Ye; Monkey King, by Wu Cheng'en
Currently Watching: Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, part 6; MLP:FiM, season 2
Currently Playing: Calico, Valheim
Currently Listening to: suno, by Nardi
WOO HOOO my first blog post!! This is exciting!
But... What do I write about? I have so many topics swirling around in my head... I'll just pick the first one that comes to my fingers.
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the Tumblr roleplay rings of the 2010s. Even though my writing was really embarrassing back then, I had so much fun planning out characters and designing their blog pages. I think that's when I first started playing with html actually. I wouldn't be here, on this site that is all my own, without those roleplay rings.
Tumblr is one of the only social media sites I tolerate now, mostly for artists I like, my moots, and a few communities. But there's something I noticed about today's Tumblr. Not only are roleplay rings dead and gone, but Tumblr's blog pages have become a tertiary feature. When you click someone's username, it doesn't bring you to their blog anymore. There's a popup profile, with their avatar, banner, little description, and their pinned post. From there, you have the option to open their actual blog page. But not everyone even has one anymore, and there's no incentive to look at it if they do, when all the info and navigation you need is on that little popup. What used to be a core feature and method of self expression on the site is now barely a ghost of what it was. Nobody talks about how proud they are of their blogs anymore, or shares layouts or graphics or music players. In this way, it's the same as all the other social media platforms now. A bland, blue box, instead of a bustling, colourful neighbourhood.
But here I am now, using Neocities to make my own webpage. Webrings and cliques are not only common, but appear to be some of the primary ways people connect with one another. Fans of different games or anime, artists, marginalised communities; I even found a book club! And so, I wonder if I shouldn't somehow pay homage to the Tumblr roleplay rings that started me on this indie web path. I'm not entirely sure yet what I'd like to do, or how I'd go about doing it... Whatever it'll be, though, it'll be all my own. Mine, and the folks' who join me, unbound from an ever-decaying, corporate-run biosphere.