When Yahoo! bought Tumblr, the two main concerns among Tumblr users were: 1) Will there be ads? and 2) Will Yahoo! try to make Tumblr more family-friendly?

Well, the ads arrived a couple of months ago, and now Yahoo! has come for your porn.

Technically speaking, Tumblr’s new restrictions do not qualify as censorship. And, indeed, Tumblr CEO David Karp was on The Colbert Report Wednesday night, touting the company's open policy: "We’ve taken a pretty hard line on freedom of speech, supporting our users’ creation, whatever that looks like, and that’s just not something we want to police," he said.
 

MORE:
Tumblr doesn't care how you feel about its censorship crusade

But meanwhile, Tumblr users were starting to realize the platform's treatment of their content has changed, if subtly. Rather than removing it completely, Tumblr has made adult content unsearchable, although this will seem like a pointless distinction to the many people who use the site’s tag search system every day. 

Probably because Tumblr knew how the news would be received (i.e., badly), most users are either unaware of the new restrictions, or are hearing about them via word of mouth. So for those of you who aren’t clear what’s going on, here’s the lowdown.

Adult blogs are now unsearchable.

Tumblr users have always had the option of marking their account as NSFW, and since around 10% of Tumblr is porn, people were generally pretty good at labelling their blogs. 

However, under Tumblr’s new content restrictions, posts from Adult-rated blogs will no longer show up on tags. Any tags. Also, Tumblr is able to flag your account as Adult without you labelling it as such—although users do have the option of appealing to the “Trust & Safety Team” if their feel their blog has been flagged unfairly. 

Via Tumblr

In other words, if your blog has been flagged as Adult, nothing you post will ever appear on Tumblr’s public tag searches. Your posts will only be visible to your own followers and the followers of people who reblog your content. This means that if you want to publicize something like a Kickstarter campaign or political message, or even to signal boost a personal plea for help, that post will still not show up on Tumblr’s internal search engine. You are cut off from everyone except your own circle of followers. 

Adult blogs are defined as having “substantial nudity or mature/adult-oriented content,” while NSFW blogs only have “occasional” mature content.

According to Tumblr’s explanation of the new restrictions, NSFW blogs should still show up on public tags, as long as users are not browsing in Safe Mode. However, realistically speaking, a huge number of Tumblr accounts are likely to fall into the category of Adult, and will become unsearchable. As Tumblr user robotlyra explains:

“If you’re a blogger who uses NSFW content for sex education purposes, you might as well just give up, or pray you have a wide enough reblog base, because even though your stuff is educational, it’s still going to be blocked from people who don’t already follow you.”

A large proportion of Tumblr’s many fandom users reblog adult-rated fanart and fanfic, meaning that they will almost certainly be blocked from tag searches, effectively crippling the way the fan community interacts on Tumblr. Not to mention the thousands of everyday users who reblog the occasional semi-nude pic among their Pinterest-style photos of horizons and cupcakes, or the huge number of adults who post “adult-oriented” content of any kind, because they’re, you know… adults. 

Many Tumblr users are finding that some tags have disappeared entirely from Tumblr’s iPhone app.

It’s unclear whether this is directly linked to the new content restrictions, but for example, iPhone users searching the #gay, #lesbian or #bisexual tags have reported seeing the result “No posts found,” although #bi, #lgbt and #queer still produce results.

Needless to say, the #gay tag is hardly likely to be any more “Adult” than the tags for #girls and #anime, which used to be full of NSFW content. 

Image via icin2/Tumblr

Many Tumblr users are already lashing out against these new restrictions, both with angry rants and logical explanations of how it would be a lot better to let people to choose whether they want to view NSFW content themselves. Adult content creators are particularly upset—for example Tumblr artist slugbox, whose art no longer shows up on tags. As slugbox explained on a post that has already garnered over 12,000 notes:

“They have not technically censored us. Rather, they have made it essentially impossible for us to find and engage with new connections and people, by completely cutting us off from all forms of discovery.

"This means the only way to gain new followers is through offsite linking. Because if a blog likes, replies, or reblogs an adult blog, they are likely to ALSO be an adult blog, and thus unsearchable. SOoooo basically there’s almost NO point to being on the site.”

We don’t yet know how strict Tumblr will be about flagging NSFW and Adult blogs—Tumblr didn't reply to a request for comment Wednesday—but it’s likely that the new restrictions will stir up a fair amount of paranoia among the Tumblr community. After all, the sudden disappearance of thousands of blogs from tag searches could put a serious dent in Tumblr activity.

This has the potential to gut many of the niche communities that make Tumblr so popular among young people and online subcultures—in other words, the people Yahoo! were attempting to appeal to in the first place. 

Update: Tumblr Head of Communications Katherine Barna responded this afternoon via email. 

Tumblr's longstanding policy regarding NSFW content has not changed and emphasizes the importance of free expression. As addressed in these policies, we are constantly taking measures to ensure our users can avoid this content unless they'd like to see it. You can read about some of these features here: http://www.tumblr.com/docs/en/nsfw

Adult and NSFW content will be visible to anyone who has opted-in via their Settings page.

Different app environments have different requirements that we do our best to adhere to. Users can also find all content with Tumblr search in their mobile web browser.

Photo by zipckr/Flickr

When BBC America debuted its new sleeper hit Orphan Black in March, a show starring exactly no one you’ve ever heard of, they could have rolled out a massive marketing campaign. Instead, they took an unprecedented yet very direct route to their fanbase: They premiered the show at this spring’s WonderCon in a back-to-back slot with Doctor Who. 

Using a megalithic sci-fi hit as the opener for your Canadian no-name act? It was a gamble, but it paid off: Orphan Black’s audience has grown exponentially over the last three months, and shows no sign of stopping. The show easily won a second season in May. And with the first season coming out on DVD this week, and a major appearance at San Diego Comic-Con this weekend, Orphan Black may just be the surprise summer fandom.

Photo via aboleyn24

Orphan Black is one of those shows where fans inevitably give up describing the plot and urge you to “just watch it” instead. “You’re not watching Orphan Black?” reads one popular Tumblr post promoting the show. “You don’t know what it’s about? It’ll be an even better surprise.” 

And indeed, part of the thrill of Orphan Black seems to be figuring out what’s going on, along with the characters themselves. At one point in the chaotic first episode, the protagonist, former foster kid and street-smart Sarah Manning, runs into her very confused boyfriend. “The Clash rock,” she says awkwardly when he asks her why she’s traded straitlaced business suits for vintage T-shirts.

“Yeah,” he blinks. “But you don’t.”

It’s one of many moments of cheeky situational humor that Orphan Black milks for all it’s worth, even as it’s spinning a tale of lost and forsaken human identity that borders on heartbreaking. Because of course, he’s right: His girlfriend isn’t Sarah at all, but rather the recently deceased woman whose life Sarah is trying unsuccessfully to step into—a woman who seems to be Sarah’s identical twin. There’s just one problem. Okay, there are several.

While you may have seen this premise a dozen times, you haven’t seen it done quite like this. A stylish, well-acted mix of science fiction and detective story, OrphanBlack is the precocious younger sibling of Alias and Fringe, but it also has elements of everything from Desperate Housewives to Dollhouse. On top of the fact that the life she’s trying to steal may be far worse than the one she’s running from, Sarah’s faced with an additional shocker: She isn’t a twin; she’s a clone.

Illustration via orphanblack/Tumblr

Sarah encounters other members of the “Clone Club,” all of whom are trying to handle their own lives and figure out the secret behind their existence. From there, the plot is a constant dizzying rush, half-mystery, half frenetic sci-fi, mixing secret conspiracies with mistaken identities galore and a tangled web of confusion. At times, the high tension turns farcical—a much-needed distraction from the show’s underlying existential weariness.

Still, the show has more hope than dread, especially when the women of the Clone Club get together.

Orphan Black is a rare show, in that it has an abundance of female characters being badass. While the ensemble cast is mostly male, Tatiana Maslany has the daunting task of portraying seven very different women, often multiple characters in a single scene. 

Illustration by tangzpainter/Tumblr

For her stellar acting efforts, Maslany received the Critics Circle award for Best Actress, in a surprise win that shocked many and propelled her into serious contention for an Emmy nomination. 

Get to know some of the fierce characters from onscreen and off- with our Orphan Black primer.

The Clones

Illustration by city-dreams/deviantART

Sarah: She’s street-smart, wary, and prone to flight. Before joining the Clone Club, her only loyalties were to her estranged young daughter, Kira, and her childhood foster brother and gay best friend, Felix.

Photo via megpryorr

She’s made mistakes, and she knows it, but that doesn’t mean she’ll stand for you insulting her taste in vintage punk rock fashion.

GIFs via yolandawinstons

Out of necessity, she gets fairly good at impersonating other people—sometimes.

GIF via roseisreturning

Beth: A troubled cop driven to hopelessness by what she learns about the cloning project, Beth appears only for the briefest of moments. 

GIF via crisistemporal

But her presence looms large over the entire series, especially since Sarah promptly tries to become her—with dubious results.

GIF via eliteways

Allison: A suburban housewife and soccer mom to two kids, Allison is the complete opposite of Sarah, except when it comes to fighting. She can often be found wearing pink and wielding home furnishings as weapons.

Helena: A deranged killer who suffers religious delusions, Helena believes she is the human from which the other clones are replicated. Despite her murderous proclivities, she’s a huge fan favorite, perhaps because of moments like this:

GIF via bloodydifficult

Cosima: A geeky scientist and grad student, Cosima is another major fan favorite, in part because of her plucky attitude towards being a human clone—

GIF via jowlih

—and in part because of her relationship with Delphine, a fellow grad student. “Cophine,” as it’s known, is far and away the most popular ship in the Orphan Black fandom—and a lucky thing, too, because it’s canon:

GIFs via mbthecool

The Fandom

Illustration by spintheworlds

For the most part, the small but growing fandom for Orphan Black consists primarily of people alternately wondering what the heck is going on in the plot, churning out fan media and lots of discussion about the show, and trying to get everyone they know to watch it. As one fan put it:

Orphan Black’s my new happy place in general - it’s still young, it’s still innocent, nothing’s gone horrifically wrong yet and there’s no vocal ‘dark side’ of the fandom making even liking the show exhausting 

Orphan Black fanfic is a teensy but thriving affair; the show’s writers egg them on by tossing out things like this fake storyboard for Season 2, which includes plots such as “Clones host SNL” and “Everybody dies.” (Never far from a possibility.)

The show’s second season won’t be out until sometime in 2014, but fans have already contentedly settled in for the long haul. In the meantime, you can catch up on episodes by getting your hands on a copy of Season 1, out on DVD this week.

Lead art via orphan-black/LiveJournal

In the wake of Tumblr's censorship of various NSFW-friendly tags from its mobile app, we decided to take a closer look at the types of banned content to see if we could trace patterns.

Unfortunately for Tumblr's mobile users, there seems to be inconsistency with regard to what tags are banned and why. For instance, the widely used fandom tag #yaoi is banned, but its counterpart, #boyslove, is not. Meanwhile, tags with general meanings like #facial and #amateur are banned, but #necrophilia and #kinky are not banned.
 

MORE:
New content restrictions enrage Tumblr users

Tumblr user gahayi reported that she was seeing banned tags redirecting to "safe" tags:

I just tried searching for "#gay." It changed automatically to "#lgbtq." I tried searching again, and again it changed. The same thing happened to "#bisexual," "#lesbian," and "#QUILTBAG." 

And some tags seem to be banned inexplicably, like "depression," "blood," and other terms related to mental illness and self-harm.

Screengrab via Tumblr

To give you an idea of what's now missing from your mobile dash, here's a list of tags that are currently censored on Tumblr's mobile platform. Click through for what they look like (warning: NSFW!) on the Web.

1) sex

2) porn

3) gay

4) lesbian

5) bisexual

6) transsexual

7) twinks

8) BDSM

9) breasts

10 & 11) penis, vagina, and varioussynonyms thereof

12) bitch

13) MILF

14) facial

15) yaoi 

16) hentai (similar tags like guro and yiff are not banned)

17) panties 

18) suicide

19) butts

20) BBW

21) Topless Tuesday

22) threesome

23) jailbait

24) fetish

25) depression

26) cutting

27) ana(anorexic) 

28) blood

29) lolita

Here are some that are OK:
 

1) necrophilia

2) boys love

3) guro

4) yiff (and furry-yiff)

5) kink

6) tentacles

7) squicking

8) asshole (though it looks like the mobile app does filter some porn)

9) douche

10) self-harm

Illustration by Fernando Alfonso III

When Tumblr released Tumblarity, its analytics feature, in May 2009, the community feared it would result in a vicious popularity contest, shifting focus away from quality to working the system for more followers. The site listened: About six months later, Tumblarity was shut down.

On Thursday, Tumblr released "Tumblarity 2.0," a pared-down version that allows users to track their follower count and notes. The latest feature, simply called Analytics, gives users insight into who follows them. But many just want it to disappear.

"Analytics are cool, but I feel like this will make me care more about numbers than self expression," sethpalmer3 blogged. 

Other users on Tumblr have argued that Analytics negatively affects users self-esteem and lets them know how "unpopular" they are.

Tumblr debuted the new feature on its staff blog Thursday, the same day it came under scrutiny for aggressively removing blogs flagged as "NSFW" or "Adult" from general searches and censoring tags like "gay," "bisexual," and "lesbian" from its mobile app. 

The release of the Analytics feature happened roughly two days after Union Metrics, Tumblr's official analytics partner, rolled out its own free statistics option that is similar to Tumblarity. 

The following screengrabs are from users criticizing the new Analytics feature. 

via ryanmcevoy

via spexigt

via reveling

via ididliterallynothingtoday

via cryingmonsters

Illustration by Fernando Alfonso III

The weekend before Yahoo officially announced it was buying Tumblr, 170,000 anxious Tumblr users took to Change.org to beg Tumblr CEO David Karp to change his mind. As we all know, that petition failed spectacularly, but it showed how unanimously and vocally Tumblr stood against the buyout.

This week, Tumblr users learned of sweeping changes made to the website's content policy, including the removal of tags like "gay," "depression," and "suicide" from Tumblr's mobile app, and the automatic removal of blogs flagged as "Adult" from Tumblr's general and public searches. 

Users are distraught. And once again, they're taking their anger to Change.org.

A petition called Tumblr.com: Stop the ban on all adult blogs as well as some NSFW blogs has nearly 16,000 signatures since it was created yesterday morning. It's part of the long and storied tradition of Tumblr users petitioning the website to hear their pleas.

The petition has so far been flooded with long, detailed, anguished comments by users outraged over the change. 

"The fact that Tumblr is trying to hide all blogs with adult content and practically shun some blogs that actually do post quality art even through [sic] they do post NSFW sometimes is bad," writes petition creator Auroara Leduc. "Tumblr should give some people a chance, considering that some post/draw NSFW to make a living and can't do so if they're being blocked from all tags."

In addition to protesting the new changes, multiple usersclaimed that they no longer had the ability to change whether their blogs were categorized as NSFW. "For most of the time, it was possible to remove the tick and change the blog back to normal," Change.org user Alois Phantomhive griped.

[N]ow it is not possible for me to change the settings any longer! I have to keep my posts hidden to everyone but my followers although most are not even NSFW! I don't think that is fair at all, I want it removed right now so I can blog normally again!

"This is ridiculous; you're ostracizing people," echoed one anonymous commenter. "You're cutting everyone off from discovering new content. If people want NSFW content, they should be able to look for it."

Tumblr's two points of contention in its decision to ban a wide range of tags and essentially render invisible all "Adult" blogs on its website involve the issue of porn and the issue of pro-self-harm blogs. Since many blogs that feature sexually explicit content on Tumblr don't announce themselves as being NSFW, Tumblr seems to be taking the route of banning certain porn-friendly tags altogether on its mobile app.

Meanwhile, the issue of self-harm blogs on Tumblr has been ongoing. Over the past year, Change.org has seen several petitions filed by Tumblr users urging the site to more strictly police its pro-anorexia, pro-cutting, and other forms of eating disorders and self-harm. Last year, one petition asking Tumblr to ban "thinspo" blogs—a common shorthand for pro-anorexia blogs that stray into the cheeky term "thinspiration"—appeared on Change.org shortly before Tumblr instigated a zero-tolerance policy for all pro-self-harm blogs.

But many Tumblr users reacted to this policy with alarm, and a line of thinking that's currently being echoed by many Tumblr users in the wake of Tumblr's removal of many self-harm tags. A petition to ask Tumblr to stop the deletion of self-harm/eating disorder blogs pointed out that many of the posts made under that tag were expressions of an emotional state rather than a "pro" message of harm.

We, as the users of Tumblr, often post or reblog content such as this, but NOT for the purposes of encouraging others, or ourselves, to engage in damaging behaviour, or for the purpose of triggering our own or others' mental disorders. We simply post this content because it is an accurate representation of our own thoughts and feelings that we would not otherwise be able to express: to us it is a form of therapy.

We feel that taking this form of self-expression away from us would serve no other purpose than to damage us. This content is not posted with malicious intent: indeed, many of us have "trigger warnings" or disclaimers on our blogs stating this. We feel we cannot be held responsible for how viewers of our blogs interpret the content we post: they visit our blog in order to follow it, so can see the disclaimers, and after all they are not under duress to follow our blogs or view what we post.

After nearly 1,900 Tumblr users signed the petition, Tumblr clarified its policy to emphasize that it would only be deleting blogs that actively promote and encourage self-harm. But now, less than a year later, Tumblr seems to be taking a scorched-earth approach on its mobile app, wiping out any post, regardless of context, tagged with a keyword that could be related to unwanted content—including #cutting and #depression. (Interestingly, the actual tag "self-harm" is not banned.)

On Tumblr, an open letter to the site written by Tumblr user akira-minato has over 14,000 notes since yesterday. Another open letter by theprosefool urges Tumblr to stay true to the open and accepting attitude that drew people here to begin with—and reminds them that Tumblr is "a place for acceptance, a place that is (usually) judgement-free." 

And it's a place for sex-positivity. That doesn’t mean we’re all lust-crazed fiends just looking to get off.  It means we aren’t ashamed of sex.  It means we think of sex as a good thing, a healthy thing when done properly, that most people have and enjoy.  It means we don’t think it should be hidden away in the bowels of the internet, to 4chan and virus-ridden porn sites.

If the purpose of Tumblr is to create your own space, why would you limit that space by limiting our access to explicit content?

While the new Tumblr policy explicitly prevents"adult" content from being visible to anyone except those who already follow the blog, there's still hope for users hoping that the Change.org petition might persuade Tumblr to change its mind. As Tumblr has yet to clarify the distinctions made between "NSFW" blogs with "occasional nudity or mature/adult-oriented content" and "Adult" blogs with "substantial nudity or mature/adult-oriented content." There's a good chance that the coming weeks could see Tumblr revise and clarify its policy to alleviate some of users' anxiety.

Still, as the history of Change.org's petitions show, Tumblr doesn't always give users what they want. Yet in the end, if the company won't listen to users, they at least have the vain comfort of knowing that thousands of other Tumblr users share in their discontent.

Photo via noctelux/deviantART

Ah, the mystery of the flower crown. No one is exactly sure of its origins, but one thing is for certain: If you’re in Hannibalfandom, you’ve seen them around. And if you were at San Diego Comic Con this weekend, you saw them in real life. 

The meme is pretty simple: Photoshop a circle of flowers onto the head of your favorite Hannibal character. The idea probably came from this year’s real-world fashion trend for flower crowns (thanks, Lana Del Rey), which have become a staple of summer music festivals and Pinterest photos. If you look at the flower crown Tumblrtag, you’ll find everything from wistful summer selfies to photos of cats, and the many ironic Photoshops of angry fandom characters with cheerful pink roses in their hair. 

Image via heroes-get-made/Tumblr

However, Hannibal fandom took the flower crown meme and ran with it. It gels perfectly with the fannibal fondness for cutesy, funny memes that are purposefully at odds with the show’s dark and serious tone. Plus, Hugh Dancy’s soft, cute face just looks somehow right when wreathed in delicate flower petals. 

And, thanks to Comic Con, we got to see the real thing.

GIF by capturedraindrops/Tumblr

As the official HannibalTumblr account put it: “THIS IS NOT A DRILL: HUGH IS WEARING A FLOWER CROWN.” Not just Hugh Dancy, but showrunner Bryan Fuller as well … and half the audience of fannibals, of course.

Putting on a flower crown during an audience Q&A may just seem like a cute nod to an incomprehensible Tumblr meme, but it’s also symbolic of how well the Hannibal showrunners are treating their fandom. Comic Con is full of celebrity guests who are contractually obliged to attend, and who generally deal with the fan attention with a combination of PR stock phrases (“This is a really exciting project!”) and outright bemusement. However, the Hannibal pannibal (yes, “pannibal”) managed to engage with fandom without carrying the stigma of a “geek show” like Firefly or Orphan Black.

Photo via bonzananza/Tumblr

After helming shows like Pushing Daisies, Bryan Fuller is familiar with having an intense fanbase. Hugh Dancy, on the other hand, probably thought he was signing up for a serious drama show with serious drama fans. Not so much. Instead, he ended up speaking to a Comic Con audience full of people dressed up in stag antlers and, yes, flower crowns. And although we already know that Hugh Dancy is kind of a nerd, he’s not that kind of nerd.

Even more impressively, Fuller and Dancy fielded the “slash fanfic” question with far more class and understanding than many showrunners who have been attending Comic Con for years. 

"It brings up an interesting question about ‘what is love?'" said Fuller, when asked about the “Hannigram” (Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter) pairing. "And love between two characters doesn't necessarily have to be sexual to still be love. It can still be valid, it can still be powerful.”

When it comes to dealing with fans at Comic Con, it seems that old hands like Steven Moffat and the cast of Supernatural could learn a lot from Fuller and co. 

Photo via fanarts-of-series/Tumblr

Fandom loves to take the concept of fandom itself and humanize it, imagine what it would be like if the fandom you love could be summed up as a single human personality. Popular fandom sites like Tumblr, the Backlot, and even the Daily Dot have been anthropomorphized as humans; and we've already told you about Fandomstuck, in which legions of Tumblr users imagined what their fandom would be like as a Homestuck character.

Now, one fan on Tumblr has given us something we've genuinely never seen before: fandom as an imaginary chalkboard beast. 

What's a chalkboard beast? According to Tumblr and Archive of Our Own (AO3) user yeaka, it's a ghost-like monster that floats through the world buoyed by the love of fans. The neat thing about Yeaka's description is that it not only pictorializes the fandom, but what makes them unique. 

Why not take a walk through them, and learn about fandoms from a whole new perspective?

"Sometimes I think fandoms are like giant chalkboard beasts that float through the sky of the internet." Considering how little people often seem to understand what fandoms actually are, this is about as good a description as any.

If you're in any fandom at all, it's hard not to learn about big fandoms, even if you have no experience or interest in the fandom itself.  We call that fandom osmosis—when you've never partaken of a certain fandom subject yourself, but know a lot about it through friends and other vocal fans.

Sometimes it's the small fandoms that need love. 

While everyone else is looking at the big, attention-getting fandoms, small fandoms can fall by the wayside and die quick deaths, or struggle for a few years with just a tiny but loyal fanbase. Others are perennial favorites, the kind you write for at annual fests like Yuletide.

Fandom chalkboard monsters are cute, but you probably couldn't keep one in your backyard—too many people want to write and draw and film things on them. 

Visit Yeaka's AO3 account to see the rest of the chalkboard monster adventures.

What would your fandom chalkboard monster look like?

Illustration via yeaka/Tumblr

Political gaffes happen so often we know their life cycle by heart. We laugh; cable news overreacts. We grow tired of the joke, and everything settles back to normal. Based on this pattern, no one would have thought one memorable slip-up from last year’s presidential election would leave a lasting, thriving community in its wake.

Then again, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is a powerful man.

You probably remember when Romney botched a question about pay equity for women during the second presidential debate, held at Hofstra University on Oct. 16, 2012.

“They brought us whole binders full of women,” Romney said (emphasis his), referring to women qualified to fill his cabinet in Massachusetts.

He kept talking, unaware that his single awkward word-mangling had lit a fire under the creative energies of the Internet. The flub had come amidst a months-long attack on women’s reproductive from the right wing that became known as a “war on women,” typified most memorably by Senator Todd Akin’s infamous comments about “legitimate rape” in August.

Social media exploded. At its height, the gaffe appeared in 40,000 tweets per minute. But while Twitter was chattering about the flub, the Internet’s remix culture had already swung into full gear. Independent Facebook and Tumblr pages began collecting any image they could that made fun of the gaffe. Most of them involved women who’d photographed themselves literally shut inside cardboard binders—a rather direct jab at the nonchalant way Romney both objectified and condescended to them in one fell gaffe.

Within minutes of Romney’s mistake, Veronica de Souza, a then-unemployed 23-year-old New Yorker, had set up the Tumblr page. She’d intended to share the memes with friends, but soon thousands of strangers from around the world were inundating her with new submissions, partisan attacks, and even suspicions she was working for Barack Obama’s campaign

Photo via Binders Full of Women/Tumblr

“It was like half of these people were laughing with me and the other half were telling me to get a job,” de Souza said. (That’s exactly what she was doing, though she didn’t know it at the time: Her Binders Full of Women exposure helped de Souza land a high-profile job as Digg’s social media editor.)

Once Obama defeated Romney in the election, submissions to the Tumblr page slowed to a crawl and followers trickled away. In a Seinfeldian move, de Souza ended the page while it was still at its best.

“This was inspired by Texts From Hillary,” she said, referring to the viral blog based off a candid photo of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton aboard a military aircraft. That meme started, blew up, and ended within the course of a week. “I thought it was awesome that they were able to just end the joke before it got unfunny. That's what I tried to do.”

On Facebook, something else was happening. The BFOW Facebook page, started by a Canadian named Michael, just kept growing and growing, eventually collecting more than 320,000 followers. Born in Leningrad during the Soviet Union era, Michael—who declined to reveal his full name—now lives in Toronto. He developed an interest in American politics because of his close proximity to the U.S.

Rather than abandon a politically charged community whose population dwarfed many cities, Michael mobilized them. His followers might tire of mocking political flubs—even one as bad as Romney’s—but they’d never get sick of politics. So Michael started posting straight news stories and watched what happened. Instead of drifting away, his community stayed behind, dissecting the news from a liberal (you could even say Canadian) angle.

Photo via Binders Full of Women/Facebook

“Overall, I'm very happy with how this page has grown from a gaffe and a meme to a place for sociological discussions,” he said.

Michael’s posts on the page have touched on controversial topics like abortion rights, same-sex marriage, and current events like the George Zimmerman trial, and each one routinely receives hundreds of likes, shares, and comments. Essentially, Michael has turned Romney’s sexist gaffe into a powerful platform for promoting a very un-Romney political agenda.

“There are countless productive debates going on in the comments sections of the page,” Michael said. “Fans of this page are a great group of people.”

Michael—an amateur at this social media stuff—has been the page’s only administrator for most of its life, except for a brief span where his friend helped out.

“If I ever get to the point when I no longer have time to maintain it, I will pass on ownership to someone else,” he said, noting that a few regular commenters could easily take his place.

In other words, as long as Michael has his binder full of followers, Romney’s Binders Full of Women will never die.

Photo via FutureAtlas.com/Flickr

Rappers & Cereal is exactly what it sounds like: Photoshopped images that pair hip-hop's greatest—and Macklemore—with some of the most popular breakfast brands found at your local grocery store. 

Despite the site being more than a year old—it was launched in April 2012—the creator behind this single-serving Tumblr has only posted a few doctored images, uploading these bizarre and brilliant collections about as often as Dr. Dre releases albums.

In order to encourage the mastermind behind "Rappers & Cereal" to up his or her Photoshop game, we've compiled our 10 favorite amalgamations and added our nomination for the likely product jingle or a fun fact about the brand.

Jay Z

You know I munch 'em, chomp 'em, gnaw 'em, eat 'em.

Kanye West

Your waiter taking too long with your damn croissants? Pour yourself a bowl of Kanye Chex. We hear this is a top seller among Hampton spouses.

Tupac

Despite being discontinued since 1996, Corn Pacs is still one of the top selling cereals on the aisles.

Wu-Tang Clan

Much like Wu-Tang, this cereal is for the children.

Ludacris

What in the world is in that bowl, whatchu got in that bowl?

Snoop Dogg/Lion

Snoop Loops is the snack that they gave me.

2 Chainz

We got big spoons, been graduated from knives.

Vanilla Ice

Anything less than the best is a felony.

Three 6 Mafia

Sippin’ on some sizzurp, sip, sippin’ on some, sip.

Kendrick Lamar

Charms don’t kill your vibe.

Photos via Rappers & Cereal/Tumblr

A local bunny rabbit named Patrice is using Tumblr incorrectly, according to friends.

"She posts prolifically, but she never reblogs," explained Tom Richards. “Worse, she often takes people’s content without crediting them."

While reusing content without credit is a no-no — something that instead using reblogs would remedy — Tumblr spokesperson Tanya Walsh says that there’s no right way to use Tumblr.

"Some of our uses reblog, some don’t," said Walsh. “Some of our users mainly consume, some of them mainly create. There are all manner of ways to use Tumblr, and none of them are necessarily better than others."

Via flowercrownkitty.

The question of sexual consent is huge for anyone involved in a real-life relationship. But for one blogger from Tumblr's "fatshion" community, the problems with being a plus-size blogger weren't just terrible fashion and misunderstanding from outsiders—it was that men from outside her readership kept "sexualizing" her fatshion photos without her consent.

Writing earlier today on xoJane, a blogger named Bronny Zigmond explains how "Creepy Dudes Made Me Stop Fatshion Blogging." While at first she heard only good things from the community around her blog, Fat Aus, Zigmond slowly realized that many men looking for free porn would take her pictures and repost them to sites fetishizing "Big Beautiful Women." Zigmond notes:

I was really surprised and a bit horrified by this. Before I saw these forums, I saw blogging as a medium that was for women. I only really imagined my readers to be other women who wanted to see cute outfits, I wasn't trying to attract men and I felt like these men were sexualizing my images without my consent.

When Zigmond started posting to Tumblr, the situation worsened, thanks to Tumblr's much-publicized swaths of porn blogs. Zigmond regularly saw her photos being reblogged for what she dubbed "porn or jerk-off Tumblr accounts”:

These were blogs run by guys who would use their Tumblr as their personal jerk-off folder. They would reblog photos of naked fat women, fat women in porn, and then also photos of me wearing the new cute dress I'd just bought from Top Shop. Often they would even include detailed comments about what they wanted to do to me sexually.

Tumblr has long been a source of controversy for the ease of which it makes sharing photos, devoid of any reference to their original context. To Zigmond, the sexualization of the images she shared was invasive and creepy—especially when some of the men from such websites began coming to her blog and leaving "admiring" comments.

Zigmond believes that the fact that men were reblogging the pictures and linking to them so that she would find them was a way of sending her a message that they regard her as an object for their viewing pleasure:

I can’t think of any other fat girl fashion bloggers I know who haven’t experienced at least some level of this, of men completely ignoring and disrespecting the context in which you have shared these photos of yourself, and showing no respect for you as a human being.

Zigmond states that while she ceased blogging for a time because of the intruders, she now only posts things she things won't interest viewers who come searching her blog for potentially sexual content.

I started blogging because I wanted to inspire women and now the thing I think about the most when posting outfit photos is "How likely are these photos to turn on some creepy guy and make him desire to tell me about it?"

So far, the commenters to Zigmond's article have pointed out that the issue she faces isn't just limited to the fatshion or fashion communities, but to anyone who posts pictures of themselves anywhere on the Internet.  Some Tumblr postings, for example a cosplay photoset which was reblogged to a "BBW" Tumblr, court the ongoing controversy about whether women who dress up for themselves are simultaneously inviting others to look and appreciate what they see. Others seem to come straight out of Creepshots.

As technology advances, it becomes harder for individuals to control how their photographs are spread across the Internet—or what they're used for. 

But on Zigmond's blog, at least, there will be fewer photos to share.

Photo via fat-aus.com

On August 9, Tumblr is reblogging the apocalypse.

Okay, not really. But Tumblr fans are gearing up for a celebration of summer sci-fi fandom favorite Pacific Rim, and what's one of a growing number of Tumblr-only "conventions," where fans replicate the frenzied excitement and activity of real cons in their virtual fandom home.

The weekend-long celebration is planned around the date of the appearance of the first Kaiju in the movie—”Kaiju” being the Japanese term for giant city-destroying monsters like Godzilla. Pacific Rim is Guillermo del Toro's long-anticipated live-action homage to Kaiju and "mecha," the term for another genre of Japanese media—the giant, human-piloted robots seen in such cultural staples as Neon Genesis Evangelion. 

Because the robots needed to fight back against the kaiju are so big, they need pilots. In Pacific Rim, the pilots are called "Jaegers," taken from the German word for "hunter."

Hence, Tumblr's weekend Pacific Rim-fest has been dubbed JaegerCon. 

The official JaegerConTumblr describes a Tumblr convention as "a collection of events, competitions, online-meetups and celebrations of a particular fandom or character."  For the Pacific Rim fandom, JaegerCon organizers have lined up everything from intense cosplay to movie screenings and fanfic challenges.

"I am TOTALLY BLOWN AWAY by the amount of interest the JaegerCon post is generating," Tumblr user and con organizer exorin posted earlier today. "This is the coolest, most awesome thing I have ever been a part of."

The fans got a boost when Pacific Rim screenwriter Travis Beacham, himself a Tumblr user, reblogged and tweeted about the con.  So far, judging by the notes to the announcement post, nearly 1,500 people have enthusiastically tapped into taking part.

Still, not everyone was enthusiastic. "So a special day to do what people are already doing," theaggroslair deadpanned. "Why."

But fandom never needs a reason to celebrate when it's feeling the love, and for a movie that's only been out three weeks, Pacific Rim is receiving the lion's share of love from Tumblr. In addition to the massive fanbase it seems to have generated, memes about whether two characters are "drift compatible"—the leading characteristic jaeger co-pilots need to have—have been making the rounds across fandoms. And the waves of love have only increased in the weeks since the film's premiere, as word of mouth about the film's appeal to sci-fi lovers and fans of Japanese media has spread.

So strap into your giant robot and grab your co-pilot. JaegerCon only lasts three days, but there'll be plenty to do. 

After all, canceling the apocalypse is a group effort—and it seems Tumblr is up to the challenge

Photo by joakimolofsson/deviantART

Once again, Supernatural actor Misha Collins has taken over Tumblr. And this time it wasn’t even thanks to a pre-planned Mishapocalypse.

After using Twitter to answer a few questions about GISHWHES, his ridiculously popular international scavenger hunt, Collins decided to throw caution to the wind and post his phone number online.

This typing is too tedious. I feel i could be much more efficient on the phone. Why don't you just call me with questions. (323) 790-4967

— Misha Collins (@mishacollins) July 30, 2013

Yes, that’s his actual number. Or one of them, anyway. After a day and a half, it’s now been disconnected—but not before thousands of Supernatural fans and Misha Collins followers had texted him and left messages on his voicemail. And yes, a lot of those messages were probably just people screaming in excitement that they got through in the first place.

However, a few people did manage to get through, and unsurprisingly, Collins’ response was to act like kind of a troll. A benevolent troll, but a troll nonetheless. You know, the kind of guy who posts his phone number on the Internet to almost a million extremely excitable Twitter followers, and then sits back with a glass of wine.

Screengrab via Tumblr/queen-luci

His fans are mostly used to it at this point. Some ended up calling him just to tell knock-knock jokes, while others apparently him pictures of kale.

Oh yeah, and they asked him to do impressions of Chewbacca, because why not?

The phone number may have been disconnected, but we can be sure to expect something equally ridiculous in the future. After all, this is a guy who posts Twitpics of himself with yogurt all over his face, uses Twitter to defend his wife’s book about threesomes, and spoke out at a Supernatural convention about the sexism and homophobia in his own TV show. Basically, he does whatever he wants. And that isn’t likely to change anytime soon.

Photo via Twitpic/Misha Collins

Even after the release of paranormal romance movies like Warm Bodies and Beautiful Creatures, the best contender for “the next Twilight” is a series whose first volume came out halfway through the Twilight saga and predates all of the movie adaptations. But the Mortal Instruments series didn't hatch in a dream: It ultimately has its roots in online fanfiction.

Penned by former fanfiction author Cassandra Clare, the first Mortal Instruments book came out in 2007 and promptly went to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Considering the number of popular Young Adult fantasy novels out there, it’s entirely possible that the Mortal Instruments books have passed you by, but that’s going to get a lot harder once the movie comes out next month. The first movie, that is. There could be at least two more. 

So, what’s the Mortal Instruments series about, and why is it so popular?

The Books

The Mortal Instruments series actually has more in common with urban fantasy literature than with recent YA bestsellers like Twilight or The Hunger Games. Starring 15-year-old Clary Fray (who, in classic Hollywood style, will be played by a 24-year-old in the movie), the storylines feature normal human teenagers discovering a world of magic, angels, demons, demon-hunters, and epic quests to defeat evil. Also, tons of hot guys (more on that later).

GIF via kanun-supun/Tumblr

Clary Fray begins the series as a normal teenager, but when her mother is kidnapped by a demon, she embarks on a quest to save her, meeting various supernatural characters along the way. Also, there’s the seemingly obligatory Young Adult series love triangle, this time between Clary, her best friend Simon, and the painfully attractive demon hunter Jace Wayland. 

The closest comparison seems to be with things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer (thanks to its ensemble cast of supernatural characters and wisecracking teens) and Harry Potter—the latter being particularly apt, since Cassandra Clare originally rose to fame as a fanfic writer, and many readers believe that her enormously popular Harry Potter fanfiction epic, the Draco Trilogy, shares many similarities with her original fiction.

Cassandra Clare: Fanfic Megastar

Yes, before Fifty Shades of Grey was even a twinkle in E.L. James’s eye, Cassandra Clare’s fanfiction was taking the Internet by storm. Her first hit was a series of Lord of the Rings parodies known as the “Very Secret Diaries," written in the style of Bridget Jones’ Diary, but the Draco Trilogy was her magnum opus.

Spanning hundreds of thousands of words, this Harry Potter fanfic series began as a story in which Harry and Draco accidentally swapped bodies and found themselves in a love triangle with Hermione. However, three volumes and more than half a million words later, it had turned into a fantasy epic. It was serialized from 2000 to 2006 (one year before the release of City of Bones, the first Mortal Instruments novel), and was massively influential in Harry Potter fandom—particularly for its characterization of Draco Malfoy as a beautiful, angsty antihero. In fact, Clare is credited with creating the iconic "Draco in Leather Pants" trope that has extended to all beautiful angsty anti-heroes since.

Via isinar/deviantART

Clare is an extremely controversial figure in fandom, thanks to a combination of her celebrity status in Harry Potter fandom (the Draco Trilogy was really popular) and the fact that she was at the center of several infamous flame wars and cyberbullying accusations. The Draco Trilogy was also widely known to have been partially plagiarized from various sources, most notably Pamela Dean's fantasy novel The Secret Country, from which Clare copied most of an entire chapter. According to Clare herself, she intended her plagiarism, which also included lines from other fantasy series and "Easter Egg" quips from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to be a form of homage to the sources. But fandom disagreed with her.

Clare made every attempt to distance her professional career from these accusations, including changing the spelling of her pen name ("Claire" to "Clare") because her Google search results kept turning up fandom posts about cyberbullying or plagiarism. This strategy was relatively effective, but fandom has a long memory, and the old Harry Potter-era accounts are still stored on sites like Fanlore and Fandom_Wank, if you know where to look. 

Because of Clare's history of plagiarism, a persistent but false rumor that pervades any discussion of her novels is that she based her original novels on the Draco Trilogy. This is untrue; The Mortal Instruments series has a plot that is entirely unrelated to either the plot of the Draco Trilogy (which begins with a bodyswapped Harry and Draco) or the plot of Harry Potter.

But complicating the matter is that Clare recycled parts of the Draco Trilogy and worked them into her first novel, City of Bones. Fans with long memories will realize that an entire involved backstory of the main character Jace is a word-for-word copy of the backstory Clare gave Draco in her fanfiction; and the final line of the book is—wait for it—a line that was originally used to describe the deep love that Harry and Draco had for one another. In its new form, it's a testament to the love between Mortal Instruments soulmates Clary and Jace:

He [Jace] made a sound like a choked laugh before he reached out and pulled her [Clary] into his arms. She was aware of Luke watching them from the window, but she shut her eyes resolutely and buried her face against Jace's shoulder. He smelled of salt and blood, and only when his mouth came close to her ear did she understand what he was saying, what he had been whispering before, and it was the simplest litany of all: her name, just her name.

It would be unfair to suggest that the Mortal Instruments series is a Harry Potter fanfic in the same way that Fifty Shades of Grey is a Twilight fanfic, because there’s that extra degree of separation. By the end of the Draco Trilogy, most of the main cast of Harry Potter characters were almost unrecognizable (e.g., Draco as a romantic hero rather than a cowardly racist bully), and Clare had thrown in plenty of her own worldbuilding—which was developed much further in the Mortal Instruments series. Does it really matter if City of Bones’ Clary and Jace resemble the Ginny and Draco of the Draco Trilogy? If anything, the Mortal Instruments books are a fanfic of her own fanfic, and thus have effectively become an entirely original work.

Illustration via comfortablylaura/deviantART

Many people in Harry Potter fandom felt it was disingenuous for Clare to profit from a work that had been partially plagiarized from other sources, no matter how popular it was. However, while it's clear that her initial fanbase gave her a publishing boost, there doesn’t seem to be much crossover between the original Harry Potter fandom of the early 2000s and Clare’s current fanbase as a novelist—mostly because old-school Harry Potter fans tend to view her as such a controversial character.

Still, most of those older fans are, well… old. Now in their 20s and 30s, the Draco Trilogy’s original readers (and anti-fans) are hardly the Mortal Instruments’ target audience. Clare’s new fans are generally in their mid-teens, and most of them only seem to have a vague awareness of Clare’s involvement with fandom. 

The Movies

Starring Lily Collins, Lena Headey, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers and a selection of other totally hot dudes, City of Bones will be out at the end of August. A glance at Tumblr will let you know that Mortal Instruments fans are so, so ready for this, and the series’ fanbase is likely to skyrocket as soon as the movie comes out. This is a story that combines the romance of Twilight with the badassery of TheHunger Games and the mythology of Supernatural. In other words: It’s Tumblr fandom dynamite.

The movie is a direct adaptation of the first book in the series, meaning that it covers Clary’s discovery of the supernatural world, as well as her first meeting with the handsome and mysterious Jace. Judging by the trailers, it’s going to be pretty action-heavy and will feature the successful Twilight/Teen Wolf formula of lots of teenage people looking very dramatic while explaining supernatural forces to each other. Also, snazzy leather outfits for the demon hunters. 

But like the books, the movies are not without controversy. The movie’s first round of dispute came with the casting of bisexual wizard Magnus Bane, who is 50 percent demon (and 100 percent gorgeous). Mortal Instruments fandom loves Magnus Bane, and many fans pictured him as being played by Adam Lambert in the movie adaptation. So why did the filmmakers end up casting Taiwanese actor Godfrey Gao?

Photo via karenmarsherondale/Tumblr

Well, maybe because the character is Asian. In fact, Cassandra Clare was so opposed to the idea of racebending his character that she threatened to distance herself from the movie if a white actor was cast in the role. As she explained on her blog:

“There are not that many parts for actors who are not white — even less substantive ones. Taking those things away by casting Magnus as white and talking about him as white does cause actual pain to actual people — and to what end? Why? Why send the message you only want to read about white people and only want to see white people on your screens?”

So, it seems pretty unlikely that the Mortal Instruments movies will suffer from the same racebending issues as things like The Hunger Games and Warm Bodies. 

One final movie detail: Jamie Campbell Bower, the actor who plays the Draco Malfoy-inspired Jace Wayland in City of Bones, previously had a minor part in one of the Harry Potter movies. During filming, he met and eventually became engaged to Bonnie Wright, the actress who played Ginny Weasley. They broke up in 2012, and he is now dating City of Bones costar Lily Collins, whose character was based on Ginny Weasley, Draco Malfoy’s love-interest in the Draco Trilogy.

Cassandra Clare, what a tangled fandom web you weave.

Art via crovalentina/deviantART 

The annual Ultimate Slash Madness tournament is the closest thing fandom has to a sporting event, and competition this year is fierce.

When Entertainment Weekly decided to excludeTeen Wolf’s favorite male/male pairing, Sterek, from a poll of favorite fandom “ships” last year, gay entertainment website AfterElton, now known as The Backlot, decided to set up an all-slash poll of its own. The poll was so popular, gaining millions of votes, that it instantly became an annual tradition.

Pitting popular slash pairings from megafandoms like Sherlock, Supernatural, and Teen Wolf against one another, the tournament uses five rounds of head-to-head polling to determine which fictional couple is the most popular. Predictably, it attracts a huge amount of fandom attention—not to mention controversy over things like vote eligibility and the fact that all the most popular pairings are inevitably between two white guys aged 20-45.

Any slash pairing is eligible, as long as they’re fictional characters and are not a canonically gay couple. So it’s possible to nominate Sam and Blaine from Glee but not Kurt and Blaine, because they were a canon couple. And certainly not any relationship between the actors who play them, because Real Person Fanfic is disqualified. Maybe next year, One Direction fans!

The question is, how much have things changed since 2012? Last year’s final round was a fight to the almost-death between Sterek and Destiel (Dean/Castiel from Supernatural), with Sterek pulling into the lead at the last moment. This year, we’ve just reached the third round, leaving eight pairings in the running, including the slash fandom triumvirate of Supernatural, Teen Wolf, and Sherlock. It’s entirely possible that this year’s final will be a repeat of 2012, as the only new fandom on the ticket (Hannibal), dropped out in the second round. Sadly, Tumblr’s latest obsession, Welcome to Night Vale, doesn’t qualify because its two male leads are already in a relationship. 

Image via The Backlot

This year’s two big controversies are Wincest and the unexpected war between Merthur shippers (Merlin/Arthur from the BBC’s Merlin) and supporters of Arthur and Eames, two characters from Inception. Wincest, in fact, was a problem from the start.

As you can probably tell from the name, Wincest includes more than a hint of brotherly love, as it focuses on the relationship between Sam and Dean Winchester from Supernatural.  The Backlot was concerned that featuring an incest pairing would not look great to advertisers, but Wincest’s huge popularity meant that they eventually decided to keep it in.

Plus, as we already know from the online reaction to that one creepy Folger’s commercial, fandom isn’t all that weirded out by incest, so long as it’s fictional. Not to mention the fact that last year’s winner, Sterek, is the relationship between an adult werewolf and a high school sophomore. With the exception of Kirk/Spock and Teen Wolf’s uncontroversial teen pairing of Stiles/Danny, none of the slash ships left in the latest round are exactly sweet, harmless romances.

The neck-and-neck race between Merthur and Arthur/Eames fans was more of a surprise, since Inception came out in 2010 and has not been a major fandom for at least 18 months, and Merlin was cancelled last year. Still, over a million votes were cast in the Merlinception poll, with Arthur/Eames getting just over 600,000. To put things into perspective, that’s more than double the number of votes won by any of the other pairings, and more than the total of 573,288 votes that were cast in last year’s final round. 

Image via kavinskysdick/Tumblr

Of course, the ridiculous numbers involved in the Merlinception poll immediately led to accusations of vote-fixing, but the Slash Madness tournament isn’t an election; it’s not necessarily about which pairing has the most fans (probably Sterek, although it’s pretty much impossible to do any kind of official census about counting the number of fanfics for each pairing on Archive of our Own), but which has the most intense fanbase. 

Merlin and Inception may not be the most current of fandoms, but that just meant they had more to prove. People voted multiple times, to the extent that the Slash Madness Tumblr tag is full of people saying they’d been temporarily blocked from the site. According to the backlot:

“You may vote as often as you like, with one caveat: be aware that too frequent voting or a voting pattern that appears to be computer automated (i.e. a “voting bot”) will result in a “suspicious activity” message and will trigger a one hour cooldown period.”

As Tumblr user lemmylynxu put it, “COOLING DOWN PERIOD? MORE LIKE RILING UP PERIOD.” 

There were also plenty of accusations of cheating, as well as tips on how to beat the system. Although the Daily Dot’s own Aja Romano (in her capacity as a blogger for The Backlot’s “Shipping News” column) worked out that it would only take around 40 people voting per hour to reach the kind of astronomical numbers achieved by the Merlinception poll war.

The amount of fighting over there, might be wise to don a tin hat and flak jacket before going to vote #slashmadness

— DanglingSpider (@DanglingSpider) August 4, 2013

After this level of ferocious activity just in the second round, things can only heat up as we draw closer to the final. Wincest and Johnlock are likely to crush Teen Wolf’s less-popular pairings (Scisaac and Stanny), but it’s anyone’s guess who will win between Destiel and Arthur/Eames. Supernatural may be a far bigger fandom at the moment, but if we’ve learned anything this round, it’s that dedicated voting counts far more than force of numbers. 

Art by Tatarnikova/deviantART

We use Instagram to show ourselves in the best possible light (or fake it with filters). We put our beautiful faces front and center and put a blur on everything else. Then we refresh our feeds over and over to count the likes on our selfies. It’s pure narcissism. So a reality show based on the opulence of Instagram’s flashiest douchebags is the televised tripe we deserve. 

E! is developing a series called Rich Kids of Beverly Hills, described by Deadline as "a new unscripted series that revolves around a group of 20-something friends living in a world of extreme wealth who caught notice on Instagram."

It’s just what the world needed: another outlet for noxious young people to become famous for already being rich. It'll be lovely to see an in-depth look at a bunch of wealthy 20-somethings based on those showcased on the Rich Kids of InstagramTumblr that went viral last year. 

Neither reality shows nor Instagram pics portray their subjects honestly. You never know—the two might be a great fit. A scripted docudrama about social networking could make for a better hate-watch than The Newsroom. But as soon as we spot a Kardashian guest star, we’re sawing off the state of California.

H/T The Atlantic | Photo via alyssaramos44/Instagram

Over the years women have mostly been portrayed in video games as the beautiful damsel in distress that needs to be saved by the male hero, who is the central character of the game. In the latest installment of pop culture critic and Feminist Frequency creator Anita Sarkeesian’s series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games, she explores this trope and shows how easily it can be turned on its head.

This video is the last in a three-part mini-series exploring the damsel in distress trope. At the end of the video, Sarkeesian states that a game can subvert the trope if it focused on the damsel in distress as the main playable character and her story. While it’s no surprise that few games exist like this, Sarkeesian offers her own hypothetical concept for a video game called The Legend of the Last Princess as an example of how it would work.

In this game, the damsel in distress gets sick of “damseling,” frees herself (gaining a more practical outfit in the process), and goes on to free her kingdom from the clutches of those who kidnapped her. The animated video Sarkeesian created for the concept is quite impressive. It looks like a game that would actually be an interesting, fun, and long-awaited option for those who want to see stronger female roles in games. What makes it even better is that Sarkeesian had a big female figure in the gaming industry narrate it: Jennifer Hale.

Hale is an accomplished actress who has voiced characters in many popular games including the Mass Effect trilogy, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and the Metal Gear series. Many of her characters, like Cmdr. Shepard in Mass Effect, are strong female figures, so it seems fitting for her to voice the trailer. One can easily see her stepping in to voice the hypothetical character featured in the video.

It’s no surprise this high-quality concept video has become popular online but what seems to have surprised Sarkeesian is that it’s started to inspire fanart on Tumblr. Sarkeesian has shared some of the art on her Tumblr, including a drawing by user shiibaru. This user drew the main character and wrote “I thought she was adorbs/super special awesome.”

Tumblr user typette drew a more complex and conceptual design of the main character, writing “I watched this in the episode and immediately I was like, why isn’t this a game? It sounds incredible!”

Sarkeesian may often be under attack for her exploration of sexism in video game narratives, but if this successful conclusion to her first mini-series is any indication, she’s clearly striking a chord with an often-ignored segment of the gaming audience. This hypothetical game concept wouldn’t be hard to replicate, and from the positive response, it’s clear there is interest out there for games featuring a women taking on the role of the hero. Game companies might want to take notes.

Screenshot via Feminist Frequency/YouTube | Illustrations via Feminist Frequency/Tumblr

The new owners of Bebo—the fallen social network that sold to AOL for $850 million in 2008—are planning the site's comeback. Apparently, they hope to leave the community's penchant for penis drawings in the past.

A video posted on Bebo's website takes a brief look at where the site's been, but is scant on where the community's going. Michael Birch, who founded Bebo with his wife, Xochi, in 2005, teased users over the garbage personality tests and poor grammar that plagued the site until now. 

Bebo sold to AOL when it had tens of millions of users. The site was especially popular in the U.K. and Ireland. However, perhaps the most significant thing AOL got for its purchase was a lot of dick drawings on Bebo's whiteboard tool.

Bebo lost ground to Facebook and Twitter, and AOL sold the social network for less than $10 million in 2010. The hedge fund operator that owned Bebo filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May amid claims of mismanagement, and the Birches swooped in to reclaim their creation for just $1 million.

Given the Birches made about $595 million from Bebo's sale, their attempt at reviving the community seems to come at a low cost to them. However, the approximately 3 million current users are paying a high price: All the content they've shared on Bebo will be removed.

OMG NOOOO BEBO IS GONE, MY STORIES WERE ON THERE OMG. NOOOO. I WASN'T READY. FUCK OFF THATS 8 STORIES FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

— LASTNAMENEVERSON (@_QueenTifa) August 7, 2013

im so sad about bebo. nobody will get it...but i had a lot of stuff on there that i loved and wanted to keep forever and its all gone :(

— Serena. (@xbdavis) August 8, 2013

Users can download their photos and blog posts in a few months, but will lose their friend lists (users, particularly those who roleplayed on Bebo, are already trying to reconnect elsewhere) and other data. Presumably, the overhaul means the million-plus dick drawings on the site are gone too.

For those who sign up for early access to the new Bebo, the placeholder site has a version of the whiteboard that visitors can use to submit drawings. The Tumblr hosting a selection of doodles dedicated to the old Bebo is, unsurprisingly, full of penis drawings.

Photo via Bebo/YouTube

Everything’s fine and dandy in this pop culture clothing shop.

WeLoveFine deals in the bright leggings, unique product designs, and must-have character T-shirts that rule the geek apparel universe. Since its creation in 2009, this online store (part of the larger Mighty Fine Inc. brand) has become one of the most talked-about shops on the Web. Its variety of pop culture apparel has earned it a place among other popular geek fashion retailers like ThinkGeek, Her Universe, and Hot Topic. 

“Originally our goal was to merge the kind of social memes and trends that we saw fans responding to and having fun with on the web with popular characters, and see what worked to create really fun and original designs,” said Nicole Campos, WeLoveFine’s Web promotions and public relations manager. “We also wanted to gauge which titles, from Marvel comics to My Little Pony to Adventure Time, fans were really looking for new and fresh ideas and concepts with.”

According to Campos, using social media to connect with consumers and their fandoms has been “absolutely key.”

“Our Facebook and Twitter pages are our most popular, but Tumblr is growing all the time too; certain brands, for example Adventure Time, have loyal and thriving fan bases on Tumblr,” Campos said.

Photo via WeLoveFine/Facebook

WeLoveFine has over 34,800 likes on Facebook and over 13,300 followers on Twitter. Outside of social media, WeLoveFine works to form new relationships with geek culture blogs and fan-operated websites who have passionate audiences to get the word out about their products.

But it’s not a purely online affair: The company has successfully translated online popularity with consumers into physical visitors at conventions across the country. WeLoveFine started to appear on the convention scene in 2010 at WonderCon and has since appeared at numerous conventions across the country. At San Diego Comic-Con in July, WeLoveFine had a booth on the show floor as well as a pop-up shop across the street in the Gaslamp Quarter. This was only their second year at Comic-Con International, and already the company could justify opening two locations to deal with demand. Consumers that discover the store at conventions are encouraged to check out their website while online fans are alerted to the store’s physical locations on various social media. 

Photo via WeLoveFine/Facebook

Campos declined to share any details on profits or revenues to show if WeLoveFine has seen any increase in revenue to match its increase in online popularity, instead highlighting how their staff has been able to grow from three to 20 over the last four years. The company has increased the number of licenses it holds over the years as well, adding niche gaming and manga brands to its list of more popular names like Star Trek and Star Wars. Their popularity has also allowed them to expand their lines from T-shirts to products like hats, bags, tunic tanks, and even collectibles. 

Photo via WeLoveFine/Facebook

Part of WeLoveFine’s success is thanks to the company’s inclusion of fan art in its business, making designs reminiscent of the unique art seen on Tumblr and deviantART—and unlike any of the competition. The company runs a Mighty Fine Artists program which consists of 30-plus artists contributing designs in licensed brands and sometimes original artwork. WeLoveFine discovers new artists through contests every quarter, where consumers can vote for a design with a specific theme to be featured on a new product. The contests also help the company gauge what consumers want in their apparel.

Photo via WeLoveFine.com

Antony Rozwadowski joined the Mighty Fine Artists program after winning WeLoveFine’s Avengers Design contest in spring 2012.

“I'm a graphic designer by trade and have a deep passion for logo design. I also work with a small silkscreening business and am very familiar with what works and doesn't work on a T-shirt. So I came up with a concept to simplify the Avenger heroes and have them ‘assemble’ their ‘A’ logo,” said Rozwadowski, who co-owns K Art and Design with his wife in Culpeper, Va. “I wanted it very graphic and very different from what was being offered on WeLoveFine at the time. I'm very proud that it was received so well.”

Rozwadowski also recently won the company’s X-Men and Wolverine contest, which won him a trip to San Diego Comic-Con. He currently has a Fantastic Four and Daredevil design already approved and being sold and is working on some more Marvel ideas. 

Photo via WeLoveFine.com

Artists like Rozwadowski that participate in the Mighty Fine Artists program are compensated for their work. They receive a commission for the designs that become a part of WeLoveFine collections and are each spotlighted on the company’s social media platforms. 

“I definitely think there is a growing business for fan art. It's just about getting discovered and getting a chance to shine. The thing I love about working with WeLoveFine is being able to partner with them to officially use the licenses they own like Marvel or Transformers. With fan art there is a real devotion to the subject matter which makes it special,” Rozwadowski told the Daily Dot.

Rozwadowski said he was floored the first time he saw his work released with the official Marvel logo and that having his artwork officially licensed by Marvel was “an incredible feeling.”

“It's cool to see friends and family like my designs, but when I was at Comic-Con and had complete strangers telling me that they loved my design or complimenting me on the shirt I was wearing [of my own design], saying it was one of the coolest shirts they had ever seen was mind-blowing. I've never thought about reaching such a vast audience with my artwork before,” he explained.

We Love Fine's Nicole Campos (c) and artist Antony Rozwadowski (r) being interviewed by MTV Geek at San Diego Comic-Con.

Photo via WeLoveFine/Facebook

Rozwadowski has enjoyed working with WeLoveFine because he said they’re fans of the source material as much as he is, staying true to their slogan that they’re “for fans by fans.”

“To have that kind of success with online contest voters and to be noticed by WeLoveFine really validates my work, and that simply feels fantastic as an artist,” he said.

Regardless of whether this model is resulting in profits for WeLoveFine, their unique incorporation of fan art with geek fashion and their dedication to social media has earned them a spot next to some of the most recognized fashion brands. And by keeping so in touch with their customer base, the company might just be able to remain at the forefront of pop culture apparel for years to come. 

Photo via WeLoveFine/Facebook

Silk Road, the Dark Web drug marketplace made famous in 2011, is a global success. It's doing tens of millions dollars in business every year. New customers walk in every day.

Silk Road is so successful at this point that teenagers are flooding in to take advantage of the easy-to-use black market. Some Silk Road users are indistinguishable from kids in a candy store, so excited by their new mind-altering purchases that they hurry to post pictures and descriptions to Tumblr.

For young people in 2013, oversharing is a given. But uploading evidence that you bought drugs from an anonymous black market is, well, an odd choice. 

Silk Road’s ultimate goal is to create a world where you don’t have to hide the fact that you enjoy recreational drug use. But let’s face the facts: We don’t live in that world right now. Novel-length guides to anonymity and security have been written by Silk Roaders in an effort to stop law enforcement from ever identifying vendors or buyers.

Who needs all that? Let’s tweet about our new 50 grams of ecstasy!

Meet Alec, a 17-year-old from Michigan who goes by “2cool4u.” He ordered DMT, a powerful psychedelic drug, from Silk Road in May and was so pleased with his purchase that he blogged about it. It’s hard to blame Alec if he made the post when he was high as a kite. But it’s been four months now, and the post remains up as a monument to his illegal activity. He’s left a selfie in the top left just to make the job that much easier for anyone who wants to identify him.

Eve uses Silk Road:

Juan has a question about ordering to a city already famous for its drug history:

Jenna announced that she was going to make a purchase:

Alex, an 18-year-old skateboarder from Wilmington, Del., has a couple of distinct tattoos. He takes advantage of the #silkroad hashtag:

Pat writes in detail about his Silk Road purchases in his notebook and then shares it with the world:

Finding these people’s real identities is not difficult. There is precious little detective work that actually needs to be done. Most of them supply their name, age, location, and pictures beyond count. Yes, they’re mostly selfies. Almost all of them regularly interact with real-life friends who can be a source of important details, making it easy to narrow down the search. Some of them are kind enough to go into even further detail by serving up their schools and jobs alongside the pictures of their latest Silk Road pickup. It’s a kindness that any investigator would greatly appreciate.

Teenagers and 20-somethings on Tumblr routinely offer advice about Silk Road and even implicate girlfriends and boyfriends in their crimes. Hundreds have asked publicly how to use Silk Road. The typical response is a nonchalant admission of guilt.

“I’ll ask my boyfriend. He handles this stuff,” writes Sara from Virginia, complete with pictures of herself and identifying details all over her blog. I wonder how her boyfriend feels about that.

It’s not always as simple as revealing a name. Magickarpets, a Tumblr user whose picture is prominently featured on his site, posted his recently arrived “pure molly courtesy of the Silk Road” complete with packaging. Sure, the post could be used to connect the Tumblr to drugs—but that specific Silk Road vendor should be the most annoyed. The distinct package design could reveal the source of his MDMA to any curious souls with a badge.

There’s no denying that Silk Road has attracted a considerable number of teenagers. Recently, a Xanax vendor was graced with this review: “5/5, package came on schedule. My dad intercepted the package though, so no Xanax for me!”

Maybe it’s not a big deal. After all, cops will go after the big sellers on Silk Road, right? Why would they bother with a customer like little old me?

Actually, Silk Road customers do get caught, arrested and put on trial. It’d be a hell of an embarrassing moment to have old Tumblr posts brought up as evidence against you.

It’s not just law enforcement they ought to worry about when posting evidence of drug transactions to Tumblr. Everyone has access to the site. They realize that, right? Employers, ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, professional and personal enemies can all use this information against them for the rest of their lives. 

Occasionally, Silk Road users contact less cautious bloggers. They demand, urge, plead with the oversharers to take down the pictures and posts. One notable incident earlier this year saw a young woman who bought heroin on Silk Road remove a post filled with pictures of her order and package next to pictures of herself. Numerous Silk Roaders had sent private messages to her. 

But most of the time, the pictures stay up.

Not much really leaves the Internet these days, least of all your drug posts on Tumblr. Thanks to tools such as the Wayback Machine, a picture of DMT next to your unsmiling face may end up outliving you.

The debate on Silk Road has been, perhaps predictably, not about whether or not a teenager should be allowed to do drugs but whether or not they should order to their home and put their parents in such a threatening position.

“If you're a minor living in your parents home, it is horribly unfair to put your parents or anyone else you reside with at risk,” wrote redditor casablanka. “If they open the door and sign for the package, they are just as liable for what’s inside as you are.”

A 14-year-old from Indianapolis is the youngest Silk Road customer arrested so far after his parents found an ecstasy shipment and turned him in. 

The drug use and admissions of guilt are in no way limited to Silk Road. Just take a stroll down the heroin aisle of Tumblr. When they don’t even hide their name, they probably don’t mask their IP address either.

Silk Road, simply by nature of being online and a total novelty, is most prominent on social media. Thanks to the magic of Tumblr, you can watch in real time as kids discover it, explore it, and use it. Just don’t tell the cops. They don’t know about Tumblr yet, right?

Photo via CivilizedAnarchy/Tumblr