Nostalgia is a timeless thing; as we imminently head into the feature, there’s always this longing to somehow “revive” or at least relive the moments and ideas of the past. Such is evident with the millennials and members of Gen-Z being nostalgic about the Tumblr era of fashion and music, something that the current trend leader, TikTok, has picked up on.
2014 marks perhaps the highest point; the pinnacle; the ‘Golden Era’ of Tumblr. Tumblr, a former microblogging giant, was host to innumerable amounts of 70s Paris aesthetic posts; gothic-steampunk inspired grunge fashion against urban landscapes; and occasional clips of popular indie songs – this was a time marked and dominated by Tumblr and these were the prominent themes that dotted, what was at the time, the social media scene.
Tumblr Incarnate
When Tumblr fell off, it’s key identifiers and imagery were slowly lost to the world. Posts and media that depicted the somewhat somber, deep, and creative vibe that was the ‘Tumblr Vibe’ became rare online treasures – the rare relics of Tumblr as some would call them. For a time, the relevance and emotional kick of Tumblr era fashion was held only in memory and only by a relatively sizable amount of ‘veterans’; that is until TikTok discovered the hidden treasure trove.
The signature 2014 Tumblr angst has seemingly found new life on TikTok. Given the platform’s affinity for promoting authentic, highly personalized content, the craze that was, and might be again, Tumbr’s trademark could very much resurrect and even reach new heights on the very influential channels of TikTok.
Tumblr became more than a social media platform, it was an entire aesthetic. The ‘Tumblr Look’ became a thing and, especially if analyzed from a marketing perspective, even marked a revolutionary time for online and self-branding, perhaps even paving the way for those who we now know as social media Influencers. Aesthetic is fashion and fashion incorporates apparel, which is a hard-selling point for certain brands, meaning that a TikTok resurgence of Tumblr fashion can potentially lead to corresponding conversion boons.
For an idea of the traction generated by this nostalgia, on TikTok, the hashtag #2014tumblr has 83.9 million views, while it’s variation, #tumblr2014, has 51.9 million views. The #tumblraesthetic is now slowly gaining traction at 18.4 million views and counting. Tumblr related videos have been so prominent on TikTok lately that it got its own subculture aptly named Tumblrcore.
The Wrap
If you look at it carefully, this ongoing trend highlights 2 important things. First, Tumblr was, at a time, at the same level of influence as some of the biggest social media platforms of today. Second, TikTok’s environment is versatile enough to encompass and essentially rekindle even trends of the past; the entire Tumblr era can be summarized as a trend and if there’s one thing that TikTok excels at, it’s propagating trends. This is an important factor to take note of as hopeful TikTok marketers and even creators can play off of both TikTok’s culture remix as well as Tumblr’s established strength in terms of branding.
TikTok in itself is a very good self-branding platform and combining it with a universal branding phenomena that is the Tumblr aesthetic gives you a very powerful marketing tool indeed, one that both users and brands can take advantage of. TikTok has once been termed as “the second coming of vine” too, shouting out to the retired Twitter platform that essentially pioneered the prolific use of short-form video clips. It seems that what TikTok is able to revive, it also makes better, which gives it a very strong foothold with regards to future-use and relevance.
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