A Tumblr really.
I can’t tell you how much joy and hope this forum has given me. I try as often as possible to give back, sometimes in earnest.
Most recently with Townlow - a project born out of tons of nights throwing around ideas with some of my favorite people. That idea however, was just an attempt to build of off some great experiences we had when we first started growing Tumblr as a community in LA.
A little more than a couple years ago, myself and Hyde got pretty tired of all our tumblr friends in NYC having all the fun, so we started tumbLAngeles and soon after had our first meetup.
This gave way to a few more in rapid succession … tumblr was taking shape in my town, but I wasn’t going to be there for the culmination of all that momentum, I soon left LA for what I thought was a few months.
I shared my travels, loves, and life throughout that Fall. It became clear that this silly little community was becoming more to me than I had ever imagined. That I was carving out a place for myself in this space, and it was changing not only the way I viewed the world, but how the world viewed me.
Emboldened, I hibernated that Winter, made sense of my life, and decided to help my family and myself. I took a few classes on the outside chance I’d one day want to go to grad school, traveled a ton and got lucky enough to live in Italy for nearly 4 months.
Before I left for Europe however, panic set in, I begged Meaghan, Sarah, and basically anyone I knew in NYC for a job in media or tech, but it wasn’t the right time. I left for Italy with no idea what I’d do or where I’d live when I returned. On a whim I reached out to two or my favorite people to see what they thought about job prospects in their cities, NYC and LA respectively.
Chris nonchalantly asked me for my resume - I quickly threw something together.
Its been almost a year since that night and I can’t believe I’ve been part of all the amazing things that have happened in the space.
I’ve got a great job and get to work with and for truly amazing, brilliant and talented people helping to navigate the waters of Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.
Maybe one day we’ll even get to work with Tumblr!
Speaking of, the community in Los Angeles hasn’t stopped growing! Exciting events have sprung up from the talents of great folks with an incredible passion for story. Getting to work with this project has given me real hope for the direction where Tumblr and LA can help support our many talented artists.
I’m not sure the role Tumblr will play in my life from here. I don’t know what we want to do with Townlow as a site, or how we’d like to partner with Tumblr on local projects like this. I want to rethink community, and how we can all work together to grow our local interactions on Tumblr as well as continue to support artist’s we believe in.
I know we’re small fish and they’ve got the John Mayer’s and Huffpo’s of the world to work with, so I don’t think we’ll ever get the support needed to really make it worth the continued investment on my part. Besides, how can we compete with the hyper hyper local space exploding the way it is :)
There is one thing I do know for certain, the team they have in place is doing everything they can to make the user experience incredible. Its amazing how much functionality other social communities have copied Tumblr, and yet they miss exactly what makes it so very special.
Tumblr is a community in every sense of the word and I’m beyond thrilled to still feel part of it. Its been a good few years - here’s to a few more.
Cheers,
