notes on shitposting

or why dumping is good

I haven’t been able to use my Tumblr for two weeks. It’s currently in the process of being “captured” and archived for Rhizome’s ArtBase, along with 22 other artist-made Tumblrs. While all 30,000 posts (14 years!) get captured, I cannot post or reblog anything so as to not interfere with the process. As an active Tumblr user, this is hard for me.

My engagement with the platform has evolved over the years. It was the space that shaped my public persona, my art career, and many of my current relationships. Tumblr is the reason I even go by the name Molly in “real life.” Its effects have rippled far beyond my laptop. Now, I go there to be alone, even a little anonymous.

I don’t know anyone on Tumblr anymore. Most of my friends have either abandoned or deleted their blogs altogether. Now, I follow accounts of people I’ll never know or meet, who may or may not follow me back, or know who I am. There’s something freeing about a space like this, a space where I can post and don’t get the immediate urge to delete it if it doesn’t perform well. I don’t feel self conscious about posting 10 images in a row, or posting a picture of myself simply because I think I look nice. Often, it’s the first place I go to post new things I’m working on, where my ideas don’t have to feel fully formed or official.

Obviously, I could use most platforms in this way. Maybe that’s the goal: to feel less attached to the stuff I post online, because ultimately, it’s not that serious. Why am I constantly tweeting and deleting? Why am I agonizing after posting a selfie to my Instagram story, only to take it down a few minutes later? I know the answer. It’s because these platforms carry the weight of all the relationships I’ve collected over the years: someone I met at an event 6 years ago; someone who could get me a job; someone I made out with at a party; someone I dated when I was 24; an online friend I’ve known since I was 15; my sister; a handful of people I went to high school with. We are bound together as long as we both stay active on these shared platforms.

My friend Jack recently mentioned that my YouTube videos pop up on his home page. I jokingly responded that those videos aren’t for him. He shouldn’t watch them. I have 454 YouTube videos, some of which are fully realized art pieces, but the majority are shitty little webcam videos of me singing or dancing or eating or crying or doing whatever for about 1-5 minutes. I’ve been (what I call) “dumping” (and what others would call) “shitposting” on YouTube for over a decade.

I want to make a distinction between the public “dump” that I’ve outlined here and burner/private accounts. I maintain a private Instagram account with 68 followers and a burner Twitter account with 11 followers. These serve their purpose in my online routines, but feel different due to the fact that the people following them are close friends. There’s still a performance that happens for them, whether I like it or not. Each intimate relationship is considered, and thus, I end up mostly posting pictures of my cats.

I’ve noticed a recent-ish turn to less formal/more throwaway posts online. Instagram image dumps are popular, signaling a less precious attitude about getting the perfect shot, and more about appearing cool and unaffected. TikTok encourages users to post multiple times a day, in order to increase engagement. However, the point of the shitpost is not to go viral, which seems to be the ultimate goal on a platform like TikTok.

I’ve even attempted to repair my own relationship with Instagram by posting more. While it’ll never be completely freeing to post there, it has been helpful to post frequently without worrying about whether something performs well. The more I post, the less tortured I feel about it, and the more art I end up making because it has somewhere to go.

Privately, I’ve examined why my compulsion to dump even exists. This is not something I can or want to answer within the confines of this blog, but I know I need an outlet. The public dump is different in that I don’t feel like I’m forcing anyone to look. These posts are for everyone and no one. That’s the beauty of dumping. I’m not concerned with who sees it, and honestly, I’d rather not know. No likes? No problem.