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Tumble-free Saturday

Was a protest of Tumblr successful? It's hard to tell.

 

Lauren Rae Orsini

Internet Culture

Posted on Sep 6, 2011   Updated on Jun 3, 2021, 2:57 am CDT

The organizer of Saturday’s Tumblr blackout has declared the protest to be successful. But was it really?

“In conclusion, Tumblr’s traffic down a little under half as much in ONE DAY as it went up in THREE MONTHS. Success? Fuck yes,” she wrote to her followers.

Nana included a graphic from Alexa that proved Tumblr’s traffic did indeed fall dramatically on Saturday.

However, a view of Alexa’s monthly and yearly graphics for Tumblr traffic shows that Tumblr’s traffic falls greatly and consistently every weekend. With that traffic pattern, it’s hard to tell how much effect the blackout had.

For those just tuning in, Nana, the Chicago blogger behind Your Fandom Sucks decided a silent protest was in order to express users’ dissatisfaction with Tumblr’s recent business decisions.

Her call to action was reblogged more than 18,000 times.

Some Tumblr users expressed their disappointment with the blackout’s perceived ineffectiveness.

“I don’t know if the blackout did any good, but surprisingly i got a lot of things done in my day without Tumblr,” said a user named Kimberly.

Either way, some Tumblr users enjoyed the respite from the addicting social network.

“Didn’t even miss it that much if I’m honest,” said a user named Hannah.

Judging from the list of “Tumblr blackout” tagged Tumblr posts though, it looks like they’re glad to be back.

As of press time, Tumblr has not responded to the Daily Dot’s request for comment.

Photo by by scjody

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*First Published: Sep 6, 2011, 7:38 pm CDT