The Message - Grandmaster Flash
Don’t push me ‘cause I’m close to the edge. I’m trying not to lose my head. It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under.
Morning - Amel Larrieux
Sleep, enter my body. I promise this time we won’t fight you. Dream, come and reveal what my mind won’t let me feel. I won’t deny you.
I’ve been seeing a lot of these “ZOMG THE JOLOGS ARE ON TUMBLR ZOMG GTFO JOLOGS GTFO!!!” posts on my Dashboard lately, and frankly, I think it’s both disappointing and disgusting.
It’s likely that majority of the people making these posts weren’t even here pre-Tumblarity, considering they all seem to love to watermark their text-photo-post-things-that-are-like-reblog-ifs with their Tumblr URLs. I think that only started happening sometime around May, when the population started to boom. When I started here a year ago, this place was decidedly more quiet. The community was considerably smaller. Most of the active Pinoys on Tumblr were probably already following each other because there really weren’t that many of us. I haven’t seen many of the old-timers complaining, and I think those people are well within their rights to do so because they began with a very different Tumblr experience.
What is everyone’s problem with these so-called “jologs” people anyway? Is it because they type in sticky caps? Is it because they can’t differentiate between “you’re” and “your,” “it’s” and “its,” “their,” “they’re,” and “there”? I will admit to you that this bugs me every time I see it, but the point is, I don’t because I can filter whose posts appear on my Dashboard. I’m not following those so-called “jologs” so I don’t have to see their poorly spelled content.
It’s like it doesn’t even exist.
You don’t have to see it if you don’t want to, either, so why are so many people railing against the sudden influx of people into the Tumblr community? These people probably found this place in the same way that most of the newer members did: because it’s getting more popular. It will only get more popular before it starts to fade out when a new social networking fad pops up.
Some people have argued that we shouldn’t be condoning sticky caps and text lingo. Well, yeah, I agree that people need to stop raping the English language, but really, that’s not going to happen here on Tumblr. That’s not going to happen on the Internet. If anything, seeing a greater majority of people typing properly might turn them on to the idea that taking every single vowel out of every single word isn’t as cool as they originally thought.
Do you think Tumblr is starting to get mainstream? That started well over six months ago. It has been pretty mainstream for quite a while now, and with the number of local celebrities who’ve begun their own Tumblr accounts, it’s likely even more people are going to sign up in order to follow them. This is the Internet. Get over it.
You can throw that argument back at me and say “This is the Internet, stop trying to control it, we’re within our rights to complain about what we want,” and you’d be right. I can’t. I can’t make you change your minds, I have no right to try to force you to change your opinions, and I’m not. That’s not what I’m trying to accomplish. I’m simply expressing my opinion, and asking that people treat each other respectfully and also respect that these “jologs” people have as much right to Tumblr as you and I do.
Not being a virgin doesn’t make someone a bad person. Not being a Christian doesn’t make someone a bad person, either. (And before anyone asks: I am both.) Jesus hung out with sinners. I don’t think the loving God that was described in the New Testament would condemn anybody. If there’s anything we should have learned from Jesus, it’s that ostracizing people is not how you improve upon society. Didn’t he preach about how everyone deserves love? I might not be a good Christian, but I’ll rally behind that any day.
I think the true measure of goodness should just be goodness. What you are like as a human being. Not who you pray to, or who you hang out with; not how closely you conform to a standard that was set by fellow humans anyway. Not the state of your hymen or the straightness of your sexual preferences, but how much love you bring into the world.
If the world is a slightly better place for at least one other person because you are in it.
I hope that’s not just me.
